Call it a gimmick, a poor representation of cannabis or a complete waste of hemp — but it worked. The lone Carl's Jr. in America that sold hamburgers with CBD-infused sauce on April 20 moved more than a thousand burgers that day. Maybe many more.
While early news stories reported that the Carl's Jr. at 4050 Colorado Boulevard had served 1,000 burgers when it ran out of its CBD-infused Rocky Mountain High CheeseBurger Delight by 4 p.m. on April 20, we've received word from a Carl's Jr. spokesperson who declined to be named (that's right, we have insider fast-food sources) that the restaurant actually sold over 2,200 CBD burgers. Another inside source explains that over 1,000 had been sold by noon, and then the outlet kept selling until 4 p.m.
Before spending too much time debating how many burgers were actually sold, we can all agree that either figure is a shitload of burgers. Even if that lone Carl's Jr. location, far from the action at Civic Center Park, did sell only 1,000 CBD burgers at the $4.20 asking price and nothing else on the menu that day, that $4,200 would still be well over the $3,500 daily average earned at Carl's Jr. locations nationwide in 2017. And if it sold 2,200 burgers, as we were told? That'd be over $9,240 for those sales alone.
There were lines out the door the morning of April 20 at this north Denver store, the only one of nearly 1,500 Carl's Jr. locations in the country selling the burger. Thanks to Colorado's relatively progressive marijuana and industrial hemp laws, the fast-food chain was able to legally infuse its mayonnaise-based Santa Fe Sauce with 5 milligrams of hemp-derived CBD, provided by Colorado company BlueBird Botanicals.
According to a Carl's Jr. statement in April, there is potential for CBD burgers in more locations "as regulations allow" if the 4/20 experiment was a success.
Which it clearly was, any way you count it.
Thomas Mitchell has written about all things cannabis for Westword since 2014, covering sports, real estate and general news along the way for publications such as the Arizona Republic, Inman and Fox Sports. He's currently the cannabis editor for westword.com.
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