Opinion

Drive-thru Gourmet: Wendy's Everyday Value Menu gets cheesy addition

This week I reached out for a Cheesy Cheddar Burger, the new headline attraction on Wendy's 99-cent Everyday Value Menu. This is everything you want on the bargain board - big flavor, big fill-up and so cheap you can stuff yourself silly for five bucks.

Here's the Cheesy Cheddar Burger blueprint: a 2.2-ounce beef patty topped with a slice of Cheddar cheese and a few good squirts of Cheddar cheese sauce on a plain ol' burger bun. So simple, so elegant, so cheesy.

Total calories: 300. Fat grams: 15. Sodium: 720 mg. Dietary fiber: 1. Carbs: 25. Manufacturer's suggested retail price: 99 cents.

With this lean economy (you may have heard this mentioned on Fox News), the value menu has become a big fast food player. But while other chains are eliminating some cost-prohibitive meat items, downsizing others (McDonald's removed one slice of cheese from its $1 Double Cheeseburger), or merely raising prices, Wendy's has created a pretty nifty new cheeseburger for less than a buck.

To be fair, Wendy's discount Cheesy Cheddar Burger isn't super duper, like its new $2.99 W Cheeseburger or $3.49 Dave's Hot 'n Juicy Cheeseburgers. But for 99 cents, the Cheesy Cheddar Burger is definitely duper.

A big selling point: it's one thick patty that stays juicy, instead of two paper thin patties, like McDonald's McDouble, that are overcooked and dry as PBS prime-time programming.

The Cheesy Cheddar patty is made from 100 percent, never-frozen North American beef. Each patty is seasoned only with salt and grilled to order. So stand to the side and try not to take my order when it's called.

ken.hoffman@chron.com