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Dome ‘double’ means disappointment

By J. FRANK LYNCH

If you go to the Georgia Dome this football season, leave all your expectations for the “Chicken Finger Basket” at home in Fayette County.

Many Starr’s Mill fans who ventured downtown to the Dome on Saturday to see the Panthers roll over Walton will back me up on this.

Like some of you, I got hungry. Checking the wallet, I decided to go ahead and order the “Chicken Finger Basket” from the Dome’s monopoly food vendor.

I guess I should have known that when you order a “Chicken Finger Basket” what you get is chicken fingers and ... well, a basket — if that’s what you want to call the little cardboard “boat” they come in.

You can’t fault them for truth in advertising (chicken fingers + basket = “Chicken Fingers Basket”) but isn’t this like ordering “Coke With Cup” or “Burger and Wax Paper”?

At most places (and I’m fairly certain about this), when the menu says “basket” it is taken to mean you’re getting something that resembles a square meal. Call it a “combo,” or whatever — fries, drink, maybe a little cole slaw?

Not at the Georgia Dome. For $6.50 you got a “basket” with some processed chicken in it (along with your choice of “dipping sauces”). If you wanted to wash it down, that was another $4 (for the “small”).

This is nothing new, I know. At a Braves game earlier this summer, I shelled out $18 for a burger, fries and large Coke. You and I could have eaten well at Ruby Tuesday or Applebee’s for less than that.

And why does anybody bother eating at Six Flags?

I’m reminded of another Georgia Dome visit a couple years back when I stepped up to the counter to order a cheeseburger, only to hear they were out of cheeseburgers.

“But we’ve got double cheeseburgers,” I was told by the eager cashier.

It didn’t take me long to consider the absurdity of this.

“What?” I asked. “You can sell me TWO hamburgers on one bun, but you can’t sell me a SINGLE hamburger on a bun?”

“Yes sir,” came the reply. “We only have double burgers right now.”

I was dumbfounded, and looked around for the flashing red light that always alerts “Candid Camera” victims to the hidden TV crew, convincing them that they really have been had.

Sensing my confusion, the youthful vendor offered, “The meat is different.”

“Different how?” I asked, wondering why they couldn’t just stop halfway through the process of making a DOUBLE burger and ... viola! A single burger! Yes?

“The patties are different sizes,” he said. A regular burger is one 4 oz. patty, but the double burgers are in fact stacked 2 oz. patties, or something along those lines.

In other words, double burgers aren’t really double the meat — just nearly double the price.

It was all starting to make sense, though disturbingly so. No matter where you go — and this includes the big fast-food chains, I’m told — doubles aren’t really doubles.

After asking around, I’m convinced I am the last person in America to know this — and my first job out of high school (for all of four weeks) was making double cheeseburgers at Burger King! How did it get by me?

Learning the truth about double burgers has been akin to finding out there is no Santa Claus.

So spare me the harsh reality of the “Double Cheeseburger Basket,” if there is such a thing. I’d rather go naive and hungry rather than enlightened and broke.