Wendy's Math

I'm a Wendy's Fan - was just thinking this.

At the Wendy's I have lunch at in Kennett, there are 9 combo meals:

1/4 lb
1/2 lb
3/4 lb
Baconator
Ultimate Chicken Grill
Spicy Chicken Sandwich
Homestyle Chicken Sandwich
Chicken Club Combo
10 Piece Nugget Combo

For the time being, we'll separate the Double Stack Combo, Triple Stack Combo, and Fish Sandwich Combo.

This leaves us with 8 normal sandwich combos, 1 promo Fish Combo, 1 Nuggets Combo, and 2 Promo Burger Combos.

Now, the first tangent - why are we writing as if there are more than one of us here. Are you involved at all? I suppose, slightly, if you're reading...but at the time I'm writing this, you're not. Are we Borg?

end Tangent #1

My Wendy's had 8 drinks selections I counted, not including water, but including iced tea. For simplicity's sake, I'm not including options such as no ice, light ice, heavy ice, or mixed drinks.

Tangent two - drinks at fast food restaurants. More and more of us are trying to get off of 'soft drinks' altogether.

Cotangent #1 - 'Soft Drinks?' I understand that something hard is a heavily alcoholic beverage, but 'soft drink' just doesn't sound right.

end Cotangent #1

At any rate, what I was going to get at was that if we're not having soda, that usually leaves us with iced tea, fruit punch, lemonade, or water.

I bet they could make a mint if they struck a deal with vitamin water or some other type of healthy yet flavorful drink. I suppose the logistics of having things like bottles, and not having the benefit of the syrup bags + soda water cuts into cost. Just a suggestion.

end Tangent #2

So now we have 8 combos and 8 drinks - 64 combinations. Throw in the Nugget Combo for 8 more. Throw in the Fish Combo for another 8. Add in the Double and Triple Stacks for 16. That brings us to 64 + 8 + 8 + 16 = 96 combinations.

Wendy's offers their combos in 3 different sizes - default is small, and upgrade to medium or large.

Tangent #3 - I miss when they called their sizes 'Biggie' and 'Great Biggie'

end Tangent #3

With our 8 basic combos and 8 drinks and 3 sizes of combos, that gives us 8 x 8 x 3 = 196 combinations. Throw in 24 more combinations when we include the Nugget Combo, 24 more for the Fish Combo, and 48 more when we include Stack Combos. That's 196 + 24 + 24 + 48 = 292 combinations as our running total.

Now, one thing that Wendy's started that other places are catching on with are alternate sides besides French Fries.

Keeping it simple to start, we have French Fries, Side Salad, Caeser Side Salad, Chili, Sour Cream and Chives Potato, according to Wendy's site. I believe my local Wendy's offers the Yogurt with Granola and Mandarin Oranges as well, but I'll leave them out for now and leave the total at five side items.

That brings us to 8 x 8 x 3 x 5 = 980 basic combinations. Throw in 120 more if you're including nuggets, 120 more for the Fish, and 240 more for the stack combos. That brings us to 980 + 120 + 120 + 240 = 1,560 combinations.

For the sides, we'll leave out the dressing options for the salads, or croûtons, or hot sauce or crackers for the chili.

Tangent #4 - I typed croutons and Firefox's dictionary told me I spelled it wrong. I was pretty sure I didn't, so I right-clicked on the word and apparently crouton is only spelled correctly if there's a hat over the u. I've been spelling it wrong all these years!

End Tangent #4

What we won't leave out for now is the sandwich customization choices. Now, people have some very different tastes, so for simplicity's sake, we're going to take the 8 sandwiches and present the options of lettuce, tomato, onion, pickles, ketchup, mustard, and mayonnaise.

Tangent #5 - there's two n's in mayonnaise. Thanks, Firefox.

End Tangent #5

I know the idea of some of the combinations sounds gross, but we're not going to leave any out. To keep on going with simplicity's sake, we're also leaving out 'light' or 'extra', so no 'extra pickles light mustard' or anything like that.

I'm also going to leave out one of the most common add-ons/removals - cheese, and it's relative 'extra', again for simplicity's sake.

Tangent #6 - This simplicity is getting frigging spoiled, we're doing everything for it's sake it appears.

Cotangent #2 - You could have some wicked awesome fun if you were the owner of an American Japanese Wine company and naming your product, like 'Sake of Argument', or 'Simplicity's Sake'

End Cotangent #2

End Tangent #6

So, with the options that were mentioned before the drifting, there are 7 more ways to go. I'm not including barbecue sauce or any other condiment that comes in a packet of any sort.

With those, we end up with 8 x 8 x 3 x 5 x 7 = 6,720 basic combos. I'll leave the nuggets and fish alone, but the Double and Triple Stack Combos can be modified in the same way. That's 240 * 7 = 1,680 more of those. This brings us to a grand total of 6,720 + 1,680 = 8,400 combinations.

This brings us to a grand total of 8,400 + 120 + 120 = 8,640 combinations.

Appendix A - Modifying your fish sandwich

If you'd like to change your fish sandwich up as if it were a normal sandwich, you can take the 120 option count and multiply it by 7 like we did with the other sandwiches to bring its total to 120 * 7 = 840, which brings our grand total to 8,400 + 120 + 840 = 9,360 combinations.

Appendix B - Nugget Sauces

Tangent #7 - I had my appendix out, I believe it was the year 2000 or 2001.

End Tangent #7

Wendy's provides for BBQ, Sweet & Sour, Honey Mustard, and Heartland Ranch dipping sauces for the nuggets. You can probably get a bunch of them in some combinations if you want for your nugget combo, those possibilities can go a long way. For now, even here in the appendix, we'll keep simplicity's sake at the heart of the matter and just give 4 nugget sauce options.

That gives nuggets 120 * 4 = 480 combinations.

If you don't believe in modifying the fish sandwich, that brings the total to 9,000 combinations even.

If you believe in modifying the fish sandwich, that brings us to 9,720 combinations.

Conclusion:

Wendy's has a lot of possible combo-combinations.