A Wendy's franchise in Edmond, Oklahoma, has revived the long-banned T-rex Burger, nine beef patties, nine slices of cheese, roughly 3,000 calories, and is daring customers to finish it in under ten minutes for a prize.
The promotion launched September 10 at a single location, where a window sign reads: "Think you can take down the T-rex? Prove it." An employee at the restaurant told Fox News Digital that the challenge would eventually expand to Wendy's locations across the state, though no specific timeline was given.
The burger rings up at nearly $30 and comes with fries and a drink, though challengers only need to polish off the burger itself to win. The employee hinted the prize includes a voucher for a free meal but would not confirm the details. A photo of the window sign landed on Reddit and drew the kind of reactions you would expect when someone posts a picture of a fast-food item that could double as a small car tire.
The T-rex Burger is not a new invention. Its backstory, as the New York Post reported, traces back to a supposedly gimmicky Sports Illustrated advertisement for an oversized Wendy's sandwich. That ad allegedly sparked enough customer curiosity that a Wendy's franchise in Brandon, Manitoba, Canada, started building the thing for real, stacking nine patties on a single bun.
Wendy's corporate shut it down. The word "supposedly" does a lot of heavy lifting in that origin tale; no primary document or confirmed date for the Sports Illustrated ad appears in any available reporting. What is confirmed, per the food publication Eater, is that the Canadian location offered the burger before corporate pulled the plug.
Now an Oklahoma franchisee has brought it back, apparently without a public blessing, or public objection, from Wendy's headquarters. Whether corporate authorized the revival remains an open question.
Online reaction ran predictably in two lanes. One camp treated the burger as a legitimate value proposition. "30 bucks for 9 patties is a solid deal," one Reddit commenter wrote. Another framed it as a gym-friendly protein bomb: "As someone who likes to eat [and] goes to the gym, I'd eat this. Just the sheer amount of [protein]."
The other camp went straight for the health jokes.
"What is the special prize? A heart attack?" one user asked. Another offered a blunter prediction: "The 'special prize' is constipation."
For customers outside Oklahoma, or after the limited-time window closes, the T-rex Burger has long lived on Wendy's unofficial "secret menu." The method is straightforward: order a Dave's Triple, which comes with three quarter-pound patties, and customize it with six additional beef patties. The result is the same nine-patty tower, assembled to order.
That workaround has circulated online for years, which raises a fair question about what the Oklahoma franchise is really selling. The burger itself was never impossible to get. The eating challenge, and the bragging rights, appear to be the actual draw.
Several details remain unresolved. The franchise has not named the specific prize, has not said which Oklahoma locations will join the promotion, and has not disclosed whether Wendy's corporate signed off. The employee who spoke to Fox News Digital was not identified by name, and no corporate spokesperson has commented publicly.
Whether the roughly $30 price covers the full meal, fries, drink, and burger, or the burger alone is also unclear from available reporting.
In a country where regulators and activists spend enormous energy telling Americans what they should and should not eat, there is something refreshingly straightforward about a fast-food franchise slapping nine patties on a bun and saying, "Prove it."
