Hamburger patties and poker chips

At most restaurants, especially the quick service and mid-range variety, patties and poker chips are interchangeable. Drop into a White Castle for a sack of sliders and they’re even the same size: small, thin, and as hard as a brick, at least until they’re dropped on the grill for a few seconds.

Frozen patties and poker chips have a lot of advantages, too, for distribution and handling. They stack well. They have an almost unlimited shelf life. They’re damn near unbreakable. And a lot of people claim they taste the same. I’ve often wondered if most of these restaurants saw ground beef as a distant third cousin to the taste delivered by the sesame seed bun and the special sauce.

Why hasn’t a shrewd chain-level restaurant marketing wizard decided to break the mold – the one that spits out those pre-formed patties by the billion – and take a chance on fresh, NON-FROZEN patties? If the meat is really supposed to be the star of the show, shouldn’t it be truly special?

I mean McDonald’s never bragged about selling millions of salads. Red Robin doesn’t feature onion rings in their ad campaign. A quarter century ago, Wendy’s Clara Peller asked “Where’s the beef,” not “Where’s the Frosty.”

Sure, a few small restaurants and some of the top steak houses sell fresh ground beef but that’s been the end of the story until now. Good Times Restaurants, a 40 store chain based in Colorado announced the conversion from frozen beef patties to an all-natural fresh product supplied by Coleman Beef (they call themselves Coleman Purely Natural now).

It’s a change that makes Good Times slogan "Fresh Never Frozen" a little more truthful and a little less marketing hype. Deleting the boilerplate from his prefabbed press release statement, Eric Reinhard, Chairman and Chief Development Officer said "This adds to the line-up fresh ingredients that we use across our menu (such as) fresh-squeezed lemonade, fresh frozen custard made every two hours, lettuce, tomato, and Bermuda onion.”

Boyd Hoback, President and CEO added, "Coleman now supplies fresh beef patties for Good Times, controlling the quality assurance and safety from the ranch to our restaurants with rigorous protocols, certification, testing, (from) a state-of-the-art facility."

Good Times features burgers and chicken sandwiches on their menu. Maybe they should ask Coleman Purely Natural for a little help on the poultry front, too, and make their slogan completely truthful.