Wendy's Krabby Patty And Pineapple Under The Sea Frosty Review: Cartoon Food Is Better In Your Imagination

If there were a hall-of-fame for most desired fictional foods from movies and TV, the Krabby Patty would be a first ballot entry, so when Wendy's announced it was finally making it real everyone knew expectations were sky-high. A burger originating from one of the most popular children's shows of all time, "SpongeBob Squarepants," the seemingly normal burger sold by the Krusty Krab burger shop is teased as having a secret ingredient that makes it the famous food in Bikini Bottom, and a constant target of underwater corporate espionage by the owner of a rival shop, Plankton. In fact it's so iconic that 30% of people surveyed about fictional food said they would choose the Krabby Patty if they could make one made-up food real.

Partnering with Nickelodeon and Paramount, Wendy's announced the "Krabby Patty Kollab," for the celebration of SpongeBob Squarepants 25th anniversary. Besides the Krabby Patty, the meal will also include a new Pineapple Under the Sea Frosty themed on SpongeBob's famous home. 

What makes the Krabby Patty Kollab so interesting though is figuring out how Wendy's is going to pull off making such a seemingly normal burger special. The Krabby Patty on the show is depicted as having standard burger toppings, lettuce, pickles, tomatoes, cheese, ketchup, mustard, and onions, but with the never mentioned special ingredient. Well, luckily Mashed was invited to get an early sample of the Krabby Patty at a special immersive, drive-thru experience, and I was able to taste how Wendy's pulled it off.

On the surface, Wendy's Krabby Patty copies the show's ingredients exactly, featuring the same toppings of onions, lettuce, pickles, and tomatoes. It does have two slices of American cheese on either side of a quarter pound beef burger compared to one slice for SpongeBob's Krabby Patty. Wendy's does note that the burger is 100% fresh, never frozen beef like its other burgers, although interestingly, the burger on the show is supposedly both frozen and meatless. Wendy's Krabby Patty also retains the chain's square burger form-factor, as opposed to the standard circular burger on the show, with Wendy's calling its own burger and SpongeBob, "two of the most iconic squares in pop culture."

The main distinction here is in the sauces, as the original features ketchup and mustard, while Wendy's has tried to add its own special secret ingredient in the form of a "top-secret Krabby Kollab sauce." The bun is also a standard Wendy's bun as opposed to the sesame seed bun depicted in the show, and the meal will come with a side of Wendy's standard fries.

The Pineapple Under the Sea Frosty uses the vanilla flavor of Wendy's classic dessert, and then swirls the creamy base with a puree of pineapple and mango. While Wendy's has featured fruit flavors like triple berry for its Frostys before, the fresh fruit swirl is a new twist created just for the Krabby Patty Kollab menu.

While I was able to grab the Krabby Patty a day early along with other fans in Los Angeles, the Krabby Patty and Pineapple Under the Sea Frosty are available to everyone starting on Tuesday October 8. The Krabby Patty Kollab will be available nationwide, but for a limited-time only, and like many franchises, will only be at participating locations. In addition to ordering in store, the Krabby Patty Kollab items can also be ordered through the Wendy's app.

The Krabby Patty Kollab items will be available as a combo meal with the burger, Frosty, and fries, and can also be purchased as individual items. The standard price as single items will be $5.99 for the Krabby Patty, and $2.79 for the Pineapple Under the Sea Frosty. This puts the Krabby Patty menu at around the same price as a standard Dave's Single and Frosty, which is pretty nice for a promotional item. As always, prices will vary by location, so higher cost-of-living areas may see a higher price point. Local prices can always be checked easily by using the Wendy's app or checking on Wendy's online ordering menu.

The similarity of ingredients of the Krabby Patty with Wendy's normal burger toppings may be the reason it was chosen for this collaboration in the first place, because the real life version of the SpongeBob favorite is almost identical to the restaurant's normal Dave's Single. Both feature lettuce, tomato, and onion, with pickles and two slices of cheese on both sides of a quarter-pound burger patty. Unless there is some kind of secret ingredient Wendy's is hiding from everyone, the Krabby Patty appears to be just a Dave's Single with new sauce, and is even the same price.

The Pineapple Under the Sea Frosty is a bit more unique compared with Wendy's standard Frosty. For years, chocolate and vanilla were the only flavors, with even the vanilla only being introduced in 2006, but the last few years have seen some new innovations like an Orange Dreamsicle Frosty and Strawberry where the cream itself was flavored. The Pineapple Frosty's fruit puree mixed with the Vanilla Frosty is a new option for Wendy's customers, or at least American ones, as a White Chocolate Strawberry Frosty was released earlier this year in Canada with a strawberry puree swirl. So while the pineapple mango swirl may be a SpongeBob special, it could be part of a new trend for the chain.

Because of the similar toppings on Wendy's Krabby Patty to other burgers, you can expect a nearly identical nutritional profile as most Wendy's burgers. The Krabby Patty has 590 calories, 36 grams of fat and 14 grams of saturated fat, 1.5 grams of trans fat, 80 milligrams of cholesterol, 1110 milligrams of sodium, 36 grams of carbohydrates, with 8 grams of sugar, 2 grams of fiber, and 29 grams of protein. All of these are basically identical to Dave's Single with only a slight bump in the sodium levels.

The standard size of the Pineapple Under the Sea Frosty has 330 calories, 8 grams of fat and 4.5 grams of saturated fat, but 0 grams of trans fat, with 30 milligrams of cholesterol, 160 milligrams of sodium, 58 grams of carbohydrates, 52 grams of sugar, 8 grams of protein, and no fiber. As expected, that is not far off from the standard Vanilla Frosty, but the fruit puree adds some sugar, so the Pineapple Under the Sea Frosty has about 25% more than normal.

I'm generally a fan of Wendy's so I was predisposed to like this, and it's undeniably a tasty burger, but I was left a little underwhelmed by how similar the Krabby Patty is to what's already on the menu. The only difference from the Dave's Single was the sauce, and while it did have a bit more of a punchy, tangy taste than you get from the Wendy's standard, the experience was nearly identical. The meat I had was more well-seasoned than I'm used to from Wendy's, but it's hard to tell if that was just an above-average effort for the product's launch, or something extra has been added to the beef.

I did enjoy the Krabby Kollab sauce, and felt like it was an upgrade over Wendy's other sauces. It had a nice mix of sharp and sweet flavors which are similar to a classic special sauce, but there were some more savory and even slightly spicy notes I was getting too. It hinted at the addition of something like Worcestershire sauce, hot sauce, or maybe Dijon mustard. Still, Wendy's burgers normally feature a ketchup-mayo mix that's close to special sauce, so even though this was an upgrade, it wasn't too far off from Wendy's existing palate. I know they were constrained by the toppings from the show, but for something as big as the first ever Krabby Patty, it left me wishing for more.

The more innovative side of the Krabby Patty Kollab seemed to be the Pineapple Under the Sea Frosty, but it had the opposite problem as the burger, adding something that felt truly unique to the popular Wendy's Frosty, but falling apart in practice. I love both pineapple and mango, so I was excited for the fruit puree, but was let down by the texture. The puree has a very slick, syrupy consistency, which made it hard to scoop up, even at the beginning when it was swirled in, so I was getting precious little fruit in each bite. And the slippery puree quickly started sinking, leaving me with a pool of fruit syrup on the bottom of my cup that would slide off my spoon as I tried to pull it up through the thick Frosty.

It was a shame because when I did get a good bite of the pineapple mango puree, it really worked. While I would have liked it a little more fresh tasting and tangy, the bright fruit flavor was a nice balance for the sweet, creamy vanilla base. Instead, trying to scoop it out just ended up mixing it with the frosty, leaving me with a vaguely fruity vanilla shake instead of the pops of flavor it seems like it was going for. It still tasted as good as any Wendy's Frosty, but fell short of what it could have been.

I got to taste both the Krabby Patty and Pineapple Under the Sea Frosty at a drive-thru that had been turned into an immersive tunnel featuring painted scenes from Bikini Bottom, SpongeBob music, and bubbles being blown around. After getting my burger, I had to eat it in my car since the Wendy's itself was closed for the event. In addition to eating most of the Krabby Patty whole as constructed, I also broke it down to taste the sauce by itself to try and discern what the secret ingredients were, and test the quality and seasoning of the beef. The Frosty I sampled as served to me, in a Wendy's cup with a spoon, attempting to get as many bites that mixed the fruit puree and vanilla as possible.

Although I am a fan of Wendy's and know the burgers pretty well, I also grabbed a Dave's Single from another nearby location as a point of comparison, and finished the Krabby Patty alongside bites of the original as a point of comparison. I did receive my meal for free as part of the Wendy's press event, but this did not factor into my evaluation of the meal.