Fake Priests and Snoop Dogg's Munchie Meal: The Weirdest Fast Food News This Week

My job as a food writer involves thinking way too much about fast food, watching too many food TikToks, and sifting through mountains of restaurant-related press releases. That means I come across some really crazy stuff. Even to my fast food-attuned brain, there are still some things every week that stand out for one reason or another, whether it's some new Oreo pizza abomination at Domino's Japan or the latest Burger King brawl over missing Whopper toppings. 

Here is the latest bizarre, wild, or otherwise notable food-related news I've come across, so that you too can share the burden of useless knowledge, disgust, and/or intrigue.

As a Wisconsinite, I'm a huge fan of Culver's. But I didn't even know that they quietly released a new butter burger that's going to get national attention if it ever makes it past the testing phase: the PBB&J burger. Yes, it's peanut butter and cherry jelly, plus bacon for that extra B, and Havarti cheese for good measure. I am both horrified and intrigued. It's been spotted at a Madison-area Culver's and doesn't appear on the online menu, so you'll just have to check the menu board in person at your local store to see if they have it. Perhaps there's a PBB&J burger review in my future. 

This story from Restaurant Business Online is absolutely bonkers. The owners of a Mexican restaurant chain in California had a man posing as a priest come in to take employee's confessions so that management could retaliate for workplace "sins" like cheating on their timecards or coming in late. Considering the U.S. Department of Labor found out about it because they were already investigating the chain for labor violations like denying employees overtime pay, the only surprising part of this is just how creative this soap opera-worthy ruse is. Good god (pun intended). Overall, they were fined $145,000. 

There's some real drama going on behind the scenes at MrBeast Burger, a pandemic-era ghost kitchen chain that skyrocketed in popularity purely because of the founder's social media influencer mega fame. Now it seems MrBeast (aka Jimmy Donaldson) wants to wash his hands of the chain completely, according to Tweets that he made and in true drama llama fashion, deleted. It seems he's unhappy with the quality of the brand, and since there are about a million locations all operating out of other restaurants' kitchens, that's a big fat "duh" for you, dude. 

Plot twist! He also Tweeted and then deleted that "The company I partnered with won’t let me stop even though it’s terrible for my brand. Young Beast signed a bad deal.” Can't say we're feeling much sympathy for the guy who still makes millions each month. 

Related: Celebrity Restaurants That Completely Flopped

Zaxby's latest LTO is its southwest "zalad." Yes, that's right, they call it a zalad instead of a salad because the chain's name starts with Z. That's also why they serve "fingerz," "mealz," and "nibblerz." Do they really expect people to say salad with a Z when they order? Why don't they have zandwiches? Or friez? We're not going to pretend to speak like a 5-year-old in order to eat your chicken. 

Related: The Biggest Fast-Food Flops of All Time

Movie tie-in promotions are always head-scratchers, and the latest at Pizza Hut is more of a stretch than usual. There's a new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie coming out, so they decided to deliver "underground" to a New York City subway station, which is where the TMNT lived. (I always thought they were in a sewer, but I guess that was a bridge too far for Pizza Hut.) Why they think anyone would want to eat pizza in a dirty subway station is beyond comprehension, of course.

Related:  Domino's Doesn't Need Your Address to Deliver A Pizza Anymore

Papa Johns has quietly replaced their Chicken Poppers with the much more boringly named Boneless Wings. "While at first glance the new Boneless Wings may seem exactly the same as the now-discontinued Chicken Poppers, I can assure you it’s an entirely different product," according to a review by the Fast Food Post. Gotta say, we're still dubious that they're not just swapping in a less expensive product and charging us the same amount. 

In the most obvious and unsurprising team-up of all time, Snoop Dogg and Jack in the Box just made a LTO Munchie Meal and we're totally here for it. Of course Snoop knows what people crave late at night, and that apparently is a smorgasbord of chicken sandwich, taco, and curly fries. And a brownie, naturally, though there's no special ingredients in this one like Snoop would prefer.