Burger King's Solution To Social Distancing Is Turning Heads
Burger King is beginning to reopen its dining rooms in Germany and the restaurants' creative way to enforce social distancing to prevent the spread of coronavirus has attracted quite a bit of attention. Unlike McDonald's, which is employing cautious and common-sense methods to reopen the Golden Arches — more sanitizing, seating placed further apart, floor stickers to show 6-foot distances — Burger King's solutions to the challenge is slightly more unusual.
For years, Burger King has handed out paper crowns as part of their kid's meals, and now, they're turning once again to crowns in an attempt to protect diners in their fast food joints. Burger King has unveiled a massive sombrero-on-steroids-sized cardboard crown designed to keep diners far away from each other, to mitigate the chance of the spread of disease (via Food and Wine). Photos of two burger eaters wearing the crowns were posted on the company's social media channels (via Twitter).
Crowns aren't the only way the chain has been encouraging social distancing
"We wanted to reinforce the rules of high safety and hygiene standards that the Burger King restaurants are following," a spokesperson for the company told Business Insider. "The do-it-yourself social-distance crown was a fun and playful way to remind our guests to practice social distancing while they are enjoying their food in the restaurants."
Although the crowns don't appear to create quite 6 feet between customers (unless two people are wearing them) perhaps the "something is better than nothing" approach applies.
This month, Burger King has also begun opening its United States restaurant locations for dining in, but don't expect to see any supersize crowns. For the moment, they're only available at the German locations.
Creative crowns aren't the only way the fast-food restaurant is trying to keep diners away from each other. In Italy, the Social Distancing Whopper is on the menu, which includes three times the amount of raw onions to sour the breath of burger eaters, hopefully keeping them far apart from other patrons.