MONTREAL – A local bottle of Frank’s Red Hot nested above the A&W garbage/napkin station appears as though it may shatter into dust with the subtle draft of a Teen burger being removed from its grease coated wrapper. The cayenne pepper based condiment bottle has but a mere droplet of usable product left while the rest of the sauce has dried up around the edges of the plastic spout and surrounding glass to create little morsels of spicy paint that are screaming out in dehydrated agony.
“That thing is hanging on by a thread.” Explains Darren Shiro, a regular diner at the 24-hour Avenue du Parc location. “Someone oughta put her out of her misery,” he continued. “I’ve been coming here every week for the last 4 years and don’t think I’ve ever seen it replaced or refilled.”
Store manager Brenda Tell, on the other hand, is convinced customers still make good use of it. “I see people pick it up all the time, then they shake it profusely until a whisper of red viscosity releases itself onto their food. I’m just happy it’s still there. The last four bottles were stolen by some Frank’s hungry hooligans who apparently needed to put that shit on everything.”
A&W is not alone in its undying loyalty to a singular bottle of sauce. Pizza-by-the-slice spots around the globe have adopted a similar policy of waiting for plastic bottles of Sriracha to begin physically decomposing before they are taken out of the line of duty. It’s part of a growing trend of we’re-out-of-hot-sauce denialism.
“I didn’t know these sauces had it in ‘em,” added Mr. Shiro, while crushing a chicken Buddy Burger. “It’s like seeing how far you can drive a car with an empty gas tank. They’re playing with fire. Someone is going to get burned and not by the sauce.”
