Troops flip for Baghdad Burger King
BAGHDAD -- Welcome to Iraq, home of the Whopper.
Deep inside Baghdad International Airport, past a vehicle search, a body search, and four checkpoints, soldiers are lined up for burgers and fries. They have come by plane from Mosul, 220 miles to the north, for onion rings. They have picked up Chicken Royale sandwiches while picking up buddies flying back from a two-week home leave. They have begged and borrowed Humvees, making up any excuse for a trip to the airport and a reminder of what the pink mixture of ketchup and mayonnaise oozing from a fresh Whopper tastes like.
"It tastes like home -- yes, it does," said Staff Sergeant Mark Williams, 50, from Pittsburgh, after tearing off a chunk of his Whopper with cheese.
The former Saddam International Airport now houses Iraq's first Burger King. Part creature comfort, part therapy for homesick troops, the franchise has reached the top 10 among all Burger King franchises on earth in the five months since it opened. The shiny metal broiler spits out 5,000 patties a day.
The takeout stand is open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. and offers six sandwiches; a regular menu has 16. There are no milkshakes. But even with the limited menu and the competition from the Bob Hope dining facility at the airport, which is free and serves 8,000 meals a day, Burger King's daily sales are $15,000 to $18,000, military officials say.
The restaurant probably owes much of its success to its location. The sprawling, heavily fortified airport complex, the nerve center of the US military's operations in Iraq, provides a captive clientele of more than 6,000 soldiers, plus contractors and other civilians. In addition, Washington dignitaries fly in and out, and all mail for US forces in Iraq arrives at the airport.
The headquarters of the First Armored Division is across from the Burger King. Captains David Gercken and Jason Beck, public affairs officers for the division, had lunch at the free dining facility one day recently, but their minds were clearly on Burger King and its Hershey's Pie, a swirly mix of chocolate and whipped cream.
"It's $2 of heaven," Gercken said. "It's the only thing getting us through this deployment."
