Pat LaFrieda Washes His Hands Of The Guy Fieri Burger Fiasco: The Customers Will Decide
Back when we interviewed Pat LaFrieda in October 2012, he mentioned that the burger blend his company created for Guy Fieri’s then-new Times Square restaurant was unlike anything he’d ever created. And then the restaurant opened (to a legendarily bad review), and we discovered just how different the burger was — because this was the name of the burger on the menu:
Guy’s Pat LaFrieda custom blend, all-natural Creekstone Farm Black Angus beef patty, LTOP (lettuce, tomato, onion + pickle), SMC (super-melty-cheese) and a slathering of Donkey Sauce on garlic-buttered brioche.
In an interview with The New Potato, LaFrieda finally spoke out about being affiliated with the controversial Donkey Sauce, the Jack Abramoff of the burger world. “My Dad and my Grandfather always taught us that we’re the behind the scenes people,” he explained. “If a chef does a poor job in representing our brand, there’s little that we can do.”
“Some of our people said, ‘Hey Pat, why don’t we pull a whole PR stunt where we pull the meat away and say they didn’t represent our meat well,'” he revealed. “I thought back to what my Dad or my Grandfather might have done, and that’s not something we would do. We did our job. We gave the meat to the restaurant. If they’re that bad at their job then their customers will dictate that and they’ll be out of business. It’s not for us to determine.”
To be fair, NYT restaurant critic Pete Wells never called out the burger in his Burn Book — just its name, which we’re repeating again to remind everyone of its sheer ridiculousness:
Guy’s Pat LaFrieda custom blend, all-natural Creekstone Farm Black Angus beef patty, LTOP (lettuce, tomato, onion + pickle), SMC (super-melty-cheese) and a slathering of Donkey Sauce on garlic-buttered brioche.
What do you think takes more energy: ordering that off of a menu, or chewing and digesting Guy’s Pat LaFrieda custom blend, etc. burger?
Have a tip we should know? tips@mediaite.com
