Whataburger employees in Hondo, Texas, probably never realized the dozens of tiny thefts that were going on right under their noses. They were never something as substantial as a burger or a drink, but perhaps the smallest increment of value the chain has to offer: its striped table numbers.
Among the savvy thieves were two tousle-haired blonde twins, Brad and Ben Bader. High school students at the time, the Bader twins made a hobby out of swiping numbers each time they came to eat – which was a lot. Some they took because the number had a sentimental value – a friend’s jersey number perhaps, or a lucky number. Sometimes they took one just to take it. By the end of high school, they each had dozens.
“When I was about to graduate college, I went home to look for them,” Brad Bader said. “I was going to break them in half and put them on my graduation cap.”
But a Whata-mortarboard was not in the cards for Bader, because when he got home he made a heart-breaking discovery.
“It turns out my mom threw them all away,” he said.
Maybe Bader’s mother didn’t see the allure of the striped orange numbers, but according to a recent report from the Wall Street Journal, a whole lot of other people do. Last month, the journal published a story finding that each restaurant must order an average of 96 table numbers each month. Taking into account 809 Whataburgers that span from Arizona to Florida, this adds up to around 1.2 million numbers stolen per year.
The numbers are cheap -- each one costs around 25 cents -- and the $300,000 that Whataburger spends per year replenishing them is a drop in the bucket for the chain, which raked in nearly $2 billion in 2015, according to Business Insider. For some, however, it’s the principle of the thing that counts.
“It might be a cool thing to do, but it's still stealing," Northeast Police Chief James Edland told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in February.
Still, Texas residents continue to steal the numbers, and no demographic is innocent -- not even law enforcement. This August the Houston Police Department put a stop to the widespread use of Whataburger numbers as evidence markers at crime scenes. The department cited confusion over whether Whataburger was a sponsor or vice versa.
Even the Whataburger account acknowledges the practice, and some people have collections of dozens, even hundreds of the numbers.
The Obsession
How far would Bader go to show his love for Whataburger?
“Uh, I wouldn’t kill anyone or anything,” he said.
But would he dress up his newborn child in the classic yellow paper and pose the baby with a large drink and a side order of fries?
“Definitely, 100 percent.”
Whataburger has an acknowledged cult following in Texas. Since its Corpus Christi opened in 1950, the restaurant’s striped orange aesthetic has inspired a slew of tributes, including slam poems, rap songs, vaporwave art, halloween costumes, and more.
Visitors take in Chuck Ramirez's "Whatacup" at the McNay Art Museum.
Whataburger art abounds on online forums, and even on the walls of the McNay Art Museum in San Antonio. The museum’s current exhibit features Chuck Ramirez, whose photographs make trash bags, broken piñatas and even fast food paraphernalia look beautiful.
One of Ramirez’s most famous photos showcases a giant print of a styrofoam Whataburger Cup.
“The pop imagery of that cup is taking something from the everyday world and transforming it by photographing it head-on, by blowing it up to make it really large,” René Barilleaux, head of curatorial affairs at the McNay, said.
Barilleaux added Ramirez also used the cup as a metaphor for mortality, playing off of the cup’s reminder: “when I am empty, please dispose of me properly.”
“He’s sort of playing with this idea of mortality,” Barilleaux said. “You could sort of see that cup as a reference to a vessel, containing the body.”
Ramirez, a San Antonio native, died in 2010, and Barilleaux said the exhibit is a way to help visitors to find art in disposable culture.
In the internet news sphere, Whataburger’s prominence is such that the restaurant has been the subject of fake news -- an internet hoax circulated social media last summer, claiming that the chain was set to shut down all locations beginning February 2018.
In the realm of more credible news, statewide uproar ensued when Whataburger ranked below trendy California-based chain In-N-Out Burger in a Business Insider poll. With trademark Texan tenacity, Whataburger’s fans -- a fiercely loyal bunch -- took to social media, expressing shock and disbelief that such an “rigged,” “fake,” and “bum ass” poll was making the rounds of the internet.
“My initial feeling (about the poll) was betrayal,” Bader said. “It can’t be true.”
Indeed, the poll was rebuffed by numerous outlets, calling it “blasphemous,” “absurd,” and just plain “wrong.”
Whataburger holds a special place in the hearts of many Texans, fueled by a love of Southern hospitality and ground beef. So without further ado, please enjoy the Senior Citizen’s spotlight on the Lone Star State’s Whataburger obsession.
