22 min read
Burger King has discontinued more than thirty menu items since the 1970s — the Yumbo, the Whaler, the BK Broiler, Satisfries, the Ch’King — and quietly resurrected at least half a dozen of them. The table below tracks every major casualty: when it launched, when it died, and whether it stayed dead.
LIST OF DISCONTINUED BURGER KING MENU ITEMS
| Item | Introduced | Discontinued | Status today |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yumbo | Late 1960s | 1974 | One revival (2014) |
| The Whaler | Mid-1960s | 1990 (renamed Ocean Catch) | Name retired |
| Veal Parmigiana | 1982 (national) | 1983 | Gone |
| Burger Bundles / Burger Buddies | 1987 / c. 1989 | Early 1990s | Reborn as Burger Shots (2009) |
| BK Broiler | 1990 | 2002 | Replaced by Chicken Whopper |
| Dinner Baskets | 1992 | 1993 | Gone |
| Western Whopper | 1996 | 1997 | Revived in the 2000s; Japan, 2022 |
| Big King | 1997 | Never announced (US) | Still sold abroad |
| Rodeo Burger | 1998 | Recurring | Returns as a limited-time offer |
| Cini-Minis | 1998 | 2012 | Returned August 2025 (limited run) |
| Chicken Whopper | 2002 | 2005 | Gone |
| Shake ‘Em Up Fries | 2002 | 2003 | Gone |
| Back Porch Griller | May 2002 | September 2002 | Gone |
| TenderCrisp | 2004 | 2017 | Replaced |
| Steakhouse burger line | 2004 | Never announced | Gone |
| Enormous Omelet Sandwich | 2005 | Never announced | Gone |
| Chicken Fries | 2005 | 2012 | Back for good since 2014 |
| BK Stacker | 2006 | 2012 | Format returned (Stacker King, 2019) |
| Crown-Shaped Nuggets | 2006 | 2011 | 2021 Miami test only |
| Burger Shots | 2009 | Never announced | Gone |
| Cupcake Sundae Shake | 2009 | 2010 | Gone |
| Fire-Grilled Ribs | May 2010 | Sold out, 2010 | One boneless echo (2013) |
| BK Toppers | October 2011 | July 2012 | Gone |
| Frappes | April 2012 | Never announced | Gone |
| Satisfries | September 2013 | August 2014 | Gone |
| Angry Whopper | 2009 (US) | Recurring | Keeps coming back |
| Grilled Dogs | February 2016 | 2017 | Gone |
| Whopperito | August 2016 | Late 2016 | Gone |
| Mac ‘n Cheetos | 2016 | 2017 | Lives on in freezer aisles |
| BK Tacos | July 2019 | 2020 era | Regional return (2023) |
| Grilled Chicken Sandwich | February 2019 | 2020 | Gone; 2024 test failed |
| Dutch Apple Pie | Decades on menu | July 2020 | Fried apple pie back, January 2026 |
| Ch’King | June 2021 | 2022 | Replaced by Royal Crispy |
YUMBO
Discontinued: 1974, briefly revived 2014
The original Yumbo was hot ham and melted American cheese on a hoagie roll — nothing else. It joined the menu in the late 1960s and left it in 1974, and for forty years that was that.
Burger King brought it back in December 2014 at $3.69, wrapped in a retro-’70s ad campaign — and quietly modernized it with lettuce and mayo the original never carried.
THE WHALER
Discontinued: 1990 (renamed Ocean Catch)
Burger King’s fish sandwich went by the Whaler for a quarter century — a breaded white-fish fillet with tartar sauce and lettuce that reached some menus in the mid-1960s and went national in the mid-1970s. In 1978 it was briefly stretched into the “Long Fish Sandwich” for the Specialty Sandwich line, then changed back.
The name died in 1990, when BK reformulated the sandwich with panko-style breading and rechristened it the Ocean Catch — a rename that followed years of Greenpeace protests over the chain buying fish from Iceland, then a whaling nation. The sandwich itself never left; it just kept shedding names: BK Big Fish, Premium Alaskan Fish, Extra Long Fish.
BK BROILER CHICKEN SANDWICH
Discontinued: 2002
This was Burger King’s first major entry into grilled chicken offerings, arriving the same year Wendy’s put its own Grilled Chicken Sandwich on the menu.
The 1990 original came dressed with lettuce, tomato, and a dill-ranch sauce on an oat-dusted roll — and it was an immediate hit. Within a month of launch, Burger King was selling roughly a million BK Broilers a day.
The Broiler was discontinued in 2002, replaced by the Chicken Whopper below. The TenderGrill picked up the grilled-chicken torch in 2005.
CHICKEN WHOPPER
Discontinued: 2005
The Chicken Whopper replaced the BK Broiler in 2002, timed to the Whopper’s 45th anniversary — a grilled chicken fillet promoted to the most valuable surname in the building.
It lasted three years. In 2003 Burger King even built a low-carb sideline around replacing it — the BK Baguette line of chicken sandwiches pitched at five grams of fat or less — but baguettes and Whopper-branded chicken both fell away by 2005, when the TenderGrill arrived and stayed.
RODEO BURGER
Discontinued: Recurring — it keeps riding back
The Rodeo Burger — a small patty topped with onion rings and barbecue sauce — launched in 1998 on Burger King’s 99-cent Great Taste value menu, as a movie tie-in with the film Small Soldiers.
Burger King has never formally announced its discontinuation, because it refuses to die: it returned in 2013, in 2019, and on the $1 Your Way menu in 2021, and most locations will still assemble one on request — every ingredient is behind the counter.
WESTERN WHOPPER
Discontinued: 1997, revived in the 2000s
This burger was a bacon and barbecue sauce-enhanced Whopper.
The original ran from 1996 to 1997 with a cowboy-themed ad campaign. The revival’s commercials are the ones people remember: Crispin Porter + Bogusky spots in which office workers, sorority sisters, grandmothers — even a dog — spontaneously sprout mustaches after a bite, under the tagline “Bring out your inner cowboy, cowboy.” The King himself twirled a handlebar mustache in the campaign art.
Though long gone in America, Japan later created its own version, the Western Smoky Whopper, in 2022.
BIG KING
Discontinued: Never announced in the US — still sold abroad
The Big King was Burger King’s open shot at the Big Mac: two patties, King sauce, lettuce, onions, and pickles, launched nationally in the fall of 1997 at 99 cents after a 1996 test run as the “Double Supreme.” The launch ad above promised “75% more beef than the Big Mac” — and the pointed difference: no middle bun, and flame-grilled beef.
It has drifted on and off the US menu ever since: a 2013 return finally added the Big Mac-style three-piece bun, and the Big King XL of January 2019 raised the bid to “175% more beef” than a Big Mac. Burger King has never announced a US discontinuation — it simply slipped off the national menu, while remaining a fixture overseas.
CINI-MINIS
Discontinued: 2012 — returned August 2025, after 13 years
These bite-sized cinnamon rolls with icing dipping sauce were a play on breakfast and dessert.
Fans loved the “homemade” taste, with reviewers noting they were delicious even without frosting. McDonald’s Cinnamon Melts, a discontinued breakfast cousin, inspired similar devotion.
Launched in 1998, Cini-Minis left the US menu in 2012 — then spent a decade as Burger King’s most-petitioned breakfast item. A Grubhub-exclusive run in 2018 and a Florida test in late 2024 preceded the real thing: a nationwide limited-time return in August 2025, thirteen years after they disappeared.
SHAKE ‘EM UP FRIES
Discontinued: 2003
Launched in January 2002, these were regular fries sold with a paper “Shaker Bag” and a packet of neon-orange cheddar cheese powder. The customer did the seasoning: dump, shake, eat.
The do-it-yourself gimmick aimed squarely at kids, but the fries were quietly gone within about a year.
THE STEAKHOUSE BURGERS
Discontinued: Never announced
Burger King’s premium-burger experiment ran through the 2000s under a rotating cast of names: the Angus Steakburger arrived in 2004, was reformulated into the Steakhouse Burger, and later became the Steakhouse XT — the era this A.1.-branded ad belongs to. Then the whole line faded from menus without a discontinuation notice.
The one Burger King steakhouse slider on record came much later — a Steakhouse Bacon slider tested in just two states in 2025, and never rolled out nationally.
ENORMOUS OMELET SANDWICH
Discontinued: Never announced — gone within about a year
Launched in March 2005, the Enormous Omelet Sandwich stacked two eggs, a sausage patty, three strips of bacon, and two slices of American cheese on a hoagie roll — 730 calories and 47 grams of fat, more than a Whopper, served at breakfast.
Health writers were appalled, and Burger King leaned in. Eating one, a company spokeswoman argued, was “little different than ordering a full plate breakfast at a local diner” — and of the young men who adored it in focus groups: “These are not paper-pushers.” The chain never announced its death; it simply vanished from menus.
BK CHICKEN FRIES
Discontinued: 2012 — resurrected by petition in 2014, permanent ever since
Chicken Fries launched in July 2005 and were cut in January 2012 — at which point Burger King discovered what organized nostalgia looks like. Fans built dedicated social accounts and a Change.org petition, and at the peak of the campaign the chain counted a Chicken Fries tweet every 40 seconds.
BK surrendered in August 2014, made them permanent in March 2015, and has extended the franchise since — Spicy Chicken Fries joined the menu in 2023. The comeback helped drive the chain’s biggest North American sales jump in two years.
CROWN-SHAPED CHICKEN NUGGETS
Discontinued: 2011, briefly revived 2021
Leveraging Burger King’s royal branding, these crown-shaped nuggets were a hit with kids.
The 2021 revival was smaller than fans remember: a limited test at 25 Miami-area restaurants starting that May, which never went national.
BK STACKER
Discontinued: 2012
The BK Stacker was a customizable burger with up to four patties, bacon, and cheese. Just in case you were looking for a heart attack.
The Quad was always the official ceiling — so customers built past it themselves, buying two Quad Stackers and reassembling them into an eight-patty “Octo-Stacker.”
The original line died in 2012’s menu overhaul, but the format keeps clawing back: the Double returned in 2016, the Stacker King line launched in 2019, and after the 2021 rebrand the Double-Triple-Quad lineup returned in the art above.
BURGER SHOTS & BURGER BUNDLES
Discontinued: Never announced
Burger King has tried sliders three times. The 1987 Burger Bundles died on a mechanical technicality: the miniature patties kept falling through the chain of BK’s automated flame broiler. The retooled Burger Buddies followed around 1989, then faded in the early 1990s.
The 2009 revival, BK Burger Shots — flame-broiled minis sold in two-packs and six-packs — never became permanent, and Burger King never announced its end.
BK FIRE-GRILLED RIBS
Discontinued: 2010
Launched in May 2010 as a limited-time offer, these bone-in pork ribs sold 10 million pieces in about a month — fast enough that BK ran short of the boxes for its larger portions within the first weeks, and had to pull its advertising as stock ran out roughly a week ahead of schedule.
The ribs never returned in bone-in form. The closest echo was a boneless BBQ Rib Sandwich in May 2013 — Burger King’s answer to the McRib.
BK FRAPPES
Discontinued: Never announced
Burger King’s frappes arrived on April 2, 2012 — Mocha and Caramel, $2.29, whipped topping and syrup swirl — as part of what BK billed as the biggest menu expansion in its history, roughly ten new items landing at once across 7,200 US locations.
The coffee base came from the chain’s Seattle’s Best partnership, running since 2010. The frappes drew shrugs from reviewers and disappeared without any announcement — then resurfaced years later as a $1 frappé under the BK Café banner, as in the ad above, before fading out the same way. Burger King has never said when the last one was poured.
TENDERCRISP CHICKEN SANDWICH
Discontinued: 2017
The TenderCrisp launched in 2004 with one of the strangest marketing campaigns in fast-food history: the Subservient Chicken, a website where a man in a chicken suit obeyed typed commands — an early landmark of viral advertising. Variants followed for over a decade, including the Spicy TenderCrisp in 2005 and an Angry TenderCrisp in 2009.
Burger King replaced it in March 2017 with a new Crispy Chicken Sandwich after social-media mockery of its looks — part of a churn of fast food discontinuations in the chicken aisle. Chick-fil-A trimmed sandwiches of its own in those years, including the Grilled Spicy Deluxe.
SATISFRIES
Discontinued: 2014
Launched in September 2013, these crinkle-cut fries used a denser, less porous batter that absorbed less oil — good for 40% less fat and 30% fewer calories than McDonald’s fries, which is the comparison BK’s own fine print made.
They cost $1.89 against $1.59 for regular fries, and customers wouldn’t pay the premium for austerity. In August 2014 Burger King let franchisees drop them — about two-thirds did so immediately, and the rest followed.
ANGRY WHOPPER
Discontinued: Recurring — it returns when provoked
The Angry Whopper — jalapeños, spicy onion petals, bacon, and Angry Sauce — debuted in Europe in 2008 and hit the US in January 2009 with the most notorious stunt in Burger King’s digital history: the Whopper Sacrifice, a Facebook app that traded a free Angry Whopper for unfriending ten people. Facebook shut it down.
It has never really died — an Angriest Whopper with a red bun arrived in 2016, and returns followed in 2017, 2019, and beyond. Japan got an angry burger of its own in 2009.
WHOPPERITO
Discontinued: 2016
The Whopperito was a burrito version of the Whopper—a grab at Taco Bell’s turf. It was wrapped in a tortilla with queso sauce.
It went national on August 15, 2016 after regional tests, and lasted about three months despite the social-media noise. Even Subway’s ill-fated Flatizza hung on longer.
Resourceful fans later discovered they could request a “Whopper in a tortilla” using breakfast tortillas, though it lacked the original’s signature queso.
MAC’ N CHEETOS
Discontinued: 2017
A collaboration with Cheetos, these deep-fried mac-and-cheese bites coated in Cheetos dust divided customer opinion.
While critics described them as overly greasy, they proved popular enough to spawn a grocery store frozen version that outlived the restaurant offering.
Burger King doubled down the same year with Cheetos Chicken Fries, a September 2016 limited run that was never renewed — and KFC ran a Cheetos experiment of its own with its 2019 Cheetos Chicken Sandwich.
GRILLED DOGS
Discontinued: 2017
Burger King started selling flame-grilled hot dogs — a classic and a chili cheese version — on February 23, 2016, after what the company called its most successful product test on record. The real marketing was an accident: an “internal use only” employee training video starring Snoop Dogg (with a Spanish-language version starring Charo) leaked to TMZ and did the advertising for free.
By the summer of 2017, customers noticed the dogs had quietly vanished. Burger King never announced the end.
DUTCH APPLE PIE
Discontinued: 2020
Distinguished by its deep-dish style and streusel crumb top, the Dutch Apple Pie died in July 2020 for the most bureaucratic reason on this list: “Our supplier is no longer producing the product,” Burger King said. Not poor sales — logistics.
The story got a coda in 2026: on January 6, Burger King brought back a fried, turnover-style Cinnamon Apple Pie at $1.99 — its first fried pie since the style disappeared from menus in the early 1990s.
BK TACOS
Discontinued: 2020 era — regional return in 2023
Burger King took its crispy taco national on July 9, 2019: seasoned beef, lettuce, and cheese in a fried shell for $1, marketed as a “west coast favorite” going nationwide. Critics were merciless. Customers were not: in the St. Louis area alone, ten Burger King locations ranked in the national top 30 for taco sales, and the store in Granite City, Illinois led the entire country at more than 1,100 tacos a day.
The tacos slipped away in the pandemic menu purge — then returned to the St. Louis market in February 2023, a regional reward for the region that loved them most.
THE GRILLED CHICKEN SANDWICH
Discontinued: 2020 — a 2024 revival test failed
Searches for this one spiked in 2024 and 2025, so here is the record: Burger King launched a new Grilled Chicken Sandwich as a permanent item in February 2019 — flame-grilled white meat, honey mustard, potato bun, $4.99 — advertised by the King as “K.F.G.,” the King of Flame Grilling.
Permanent lasted about a year. The sandwich vanished in 2020’s pandemic menu simplification with no announcement, and BK has not sold a national grilled chicken sandwich since. A 2024 test of three flame-grilled chicken sandwiches at select California restaurants went badly — test customers panned the chicken as tough — and Burger King has kept re-testing thicker versions in California since, with nothing national to show for it.
CH’KING
Discontinued: 2022
The Ch’King, launched in June 2021, was Burger King’s entry in the chicken sandwich wars — and the rare fast-food product praised for quality and killed anyway. The fillet was hand-breaded in-restaurant through a reported 21-step process that franchisees grew to despise.
Good reviews lost to bad economics. In September 2022 BK replaced it with the Royal Crispy Chicken line, built on pre-breaded patties. Fans still mourn it on Reddit.
THE WEIRD ONES EVERYONE FORGETS
Some Burger King experiments were too strange to stay dead in memory, so the record deserves keeping. The oddest four:
| Item | Ran | What it was |
|---|---|---|
| Veal Parmigiana | 1982–1983 | A veal parm sandwich, at a burger chain |
| Dinner Baskets | 1992–1993 | Table service, dinner platters, free popcorn |
| Back Porch Griller | May–Sept 2002 | A rippled “grilled at home” burger, dead in four months |
| BK Toppers | Oct 2011–Jul 2012 | Premium-topped budget burgers, gone in nine |
The Veal Parmigiana went national in 1982 as part of BK’s adult-fare Specialty Sandwich push — breaded veal, tomato sauce, and mozzarella on a long bun. Animal-rights groups organized a boycott over veal-crate farming; Burger King insisted weak sales, not protests, killed it by 1983.
Strangest of all: for about a year starting in fall 1992, Burger King offered actual table service from 4 to 8 p.m. Servers delivered “Dinner Baskets” — Whopper, fried chicken, steak sandwich, or fried shrimp with sides — while customers snacked on free popcorn at their tables. New England locations even got flame-broiled meatloaf. It was the era when the chain was churning through owners and executives, trying anything; within a year the popcorn era was over. The Cupcake Sundae Shake of 2009 — a yellow-cake milkshake with sprinkles, gone within months — at least had the decency to fail quickly.
DISCONTINUED BURGER KING ITEMS FAQ
What was on the Burger King menu in the 90s?
The decade opened with the BK Broiler (1990) and the Whaler’s rename to Ocean Catch, then ran through Dinner Baskets with table service (1992), the Western Whopper (1996), the Big King (1997), and the Rodeo Burger and Cini-Minis (both 1998). Burger Buddies sliders faded out early in the decade.
What was on the Burger King menu in the 2000s?
The 2000s brought the Chicken Whopper and Shake ‘Em Up Fries (2002), the TenderCrisp (2004), Chicken Fries and the Enormous Omelet Sandwich (2005), crown-shaped nuggets and the BK Stacker (2006), and Burger Shots and the Cupcake Sundae Shake (2009) — most of them gone within a few years.
Does Burger King have a secret menu?
Informally, yes — several discontinued items survive as off-menu orders. Most locations will still build a Rodeo Burger from stock ingredients, a Whopper wrapped in a breakfast tortilla approximates the Whopperito, and two Quad Stackers famously combine into the eight-patty “Octo-Stacker.” None of this is official; it depends on the crew behind the counter.
Which discontinued Burger King items came back in 2025 and 2026?
Cini-Minis returned nationwide in August 2025 after thirteen years away, Jalapeño Cheddar Bites came back in March 2025 after a three-year absence, the Frozen Cotton Candy Cloud drink ran again in July 2025, and a fried Cinnamon Apple Pie — the first fried BK pie since the early 1990s — arrived January 6, 2026.
