McDonald’s Drops the Philly Cheese Stack Burger on London, and Fans Are Going Mental

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McDonald’s Drops the Philly Cheese Stack Burger on London, and Fans Are Going Mental

Today let us think about a sandwich from a faraway land. It is a kingdom of music and literature, of tall buses and short monarchs, of hands-free football and worse baseball, of wizard children and TERF authors and Stonehenge teeth and colorful accents which bring to mind long-suffering street urchins, well-I-never dowagers, and the colorful sales staff at a dreary ’70s department store. And, for a limited time, it’s the only place you can get the Philly Cheese Stack.

What is the Philly Cheese Stack?

Well, for one thing, it’s certainly not a cheesesteak.

It appears to be, merely, a double-patty cheeseburger. I mean there’s more, of course there’s more, but it’s normal-ish stuff: crispy bits of fried onion, pickles, two slices of cheese, a dollop of un-slice-able liquid cheese, and a top bun cleft in twain like a butt to moon the Lord.

How did we make the Philly Cheese Stack so delicious? Here’s the breakdown. pic.twitter.com/8kwHJmWwMl

— McDonald’s UK (@McDonaldsUK) October 20, 2023

That’s it, no special sauce or anything. Unless you count the cheese, which, go ahead and count the cheese. There are two of them.

I suppose it is unusual to be served cheese in two different states of matter — solid and liquid — in the same burger. (Sadly no gaseous cheese, plasmatic cheese, or Fermionic condensate cheese. Get to work, science!)

Despite its status as just a hamburger sandwich, the Philly Cheese Stack appears to be quite popular, at least among the sorts of Brits who pray to Maccas. After appearing and disappearing from the menu last year, the Philly Cheese Stack has returned today to much rejoicing.

• “Just found out the Philly Cheese Stack is back, by far the best thing McDonalds has released since the Signature range,” Tweets one person, along with a gif of somebody dropping to her knees with rapturous joy.
• “McDonald’s Philly cheese stack burger, was it here in the UK late last year and I lost count how many I had! Easily the best burger I’ve had from there…” Tweets another.
• “Maccies burgers have been boring as shit for the best part of a year but now the Philly cheese stack is back. So I’m back.”
• Somebody made a petition to keep the Philly Cheese Stack on the menu permanently.
• This blogger liked it so much, they recreated it at home.
• This guy recorded an ASMR video of himself eating one and I feel sick!

Near as I can tell, the Philly Cheese Stack has yet to make an appearance in the United States, and it’s certainly never come to its namesake city, and you can probably guess why: It has nothing to do with Philly.

It’s just a hamburger with extra steps. Or fewer, if you were trying to make a Big Mac. Clearly the name is meant to invoke the cheesesteak, and Philadelphia, but it’s just a burger in a butt bun. Everybody has burgers and butts.

Oh okay, I suppose it’s the liquid cheese that makes it Philly. We do serve a lot of that. We know it’s wrong. And, if we’re being honest, a lot of Philadelphians would eat a Philly Cheese Stack if you put it in front of them. We are like animals in that way.

By the Numbers

$500,000: How much a Nevaaaada family was willing to spend on house when started to thinking of moving to the Philly area, as profiled in this New York Times real estate piece. They really do get too personal in these articles. I have no problem with Bethanie taking a gap year, but I hope she continues her studies.

$42,000: Approximate street value of the three pallets of crab meat a bunch of masked men stole from a tractor trailer at 7th and Packer early Wednesday morning. I’m probably supposed to write a joke here, but I just think it’s sad all those fishermen risked their lives to haul in those crab pots, and a whole mess of dead-on-their-feet factory workers toiled to cut and package the meat, and all those supermarkets paid good money in hopes of bringing that meat to market. Money is distilled labor, you know. Oh sure, the fishermen and the factory workers still got paid, and the supermarket man, he has insurance. But it’s wasted time, wasted effort. Nobody wants to spend those pieces of themselves without a purpose. You can’t put a price on purpose. Oh, and the crabs. What kind of hell is it being a crab, wandering the featureless ocean floor in search of carcasses, dreamless, endless. And on top of that you get yanked away, cracked and scooped and quartered and frozen, and for what? Just to rot in some unrefrigerated van while a crook who never thought he’d get this far is on the phone to every unscrupulous chef in town trying to dump the stolen meat at rock bottom prices. At best these room temperature crabs will become the tummy-ache half of some surf and turf special on greasy Fiesta ware, at worst their heartiest microbes and parasites will survive the cooking process with murder on their minds.

13: How many leadoff homers Kyle Schwarber has hit this year, counting last night.

32: Internet domains shut down by the Philly FBI office under suspicion that they were part of a Russian operation to spread disinformation in swing states. You should read the affidavit; it’s bonkers. When they’re not trying to stir up antisemitism or trick Pennsylvanians into voting for CANDIDATE A (Trump) with fake news or stoke a new civil war, the Russians ops are trying to make Canada mad at us. Dude, Canada and the U.S. are friends for life, nothing can change that.

1: Days until the Eagles play the Packers in Brazil, which is kind of a shame because Philly’s away team reporters are writing some funny stuff. See: “Eagles in São Paulo: Commentators educate audience about NFL in soccer-crazy Brazil.” Kickoff is at 8:15 p.m. Friday night.

The Passyunk Menagerie

Hey you know that old Acme in South Philly? Corner of Reed and Passyunk. Some people call the place Prison Acme, as it resides on the site of the old Moyamensing Prison that once held abolitionist Passmore Williamson, serial killer H.H. Holmes, and nutty scribe Edgar Allan Poe.

Anyway, somebody’s arranged a motley zoom of toys out there on the corner, and it’s delightful. I mean, eventually, all this stuff will roll into the gutter and steep in our water supply like toxic Darjeeling. But right now: totes delightful. Especially the little cheetah. Cute!

who is behind this small army of figurines guarding the acme on east passyunk pic.twitter.com/xSi7CDNBHv

— Ellie Rushing (@EllieRushing) September 5, 2024