Starting in late 2013, a Burger King restaurant at 1820 East Carson Street in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, began to decline in quality. The restaurant claimed that it was transitioning from a Burger King to a local hamburger restaurant called Southside Burgers.
What had actually was that corporate executives at Burger King’s headquarters in Florida had revoked the franchise from its original owners due to frequent food quality complaints. Instead of temporarily closing down, the original franchisee decided to keep the restaurant open, pretending that nothing had ever happened.
By the time that local TV news channels began to cover the story in early 2014, the Burger King franchise had been revoked for several months. As the restaurant ran out of supplies from real Burger King restaurants, the employees had to improvise when making food. As such, French fries were served in Dixie cups, ketchup packets were replaced with mini plastic ice cream cups filled with ketchup, and the restaurant would serve elementary school quality nuggets. There were also reports of employees purchasing supplies at a local Giant Eagle supermarket.
Despite the decline in quality, the Burger King was still passing health inspections.
Finally, in February 2014, the restaurant was shutdown after the corporate executives at Burger King stepped in and laid off the entire staff, including the franchisee. The restaurant was gutted and renovated, reopening the following year under a new franchisee. The restaurant is still in operation as of 2026.