Do I have to write this review? Can I just type the word “nope” a few hundred times, include some photos, and call it a day? Because seriously: NOPE.

On the surface, the Reese PBC Stuff’d Burger seems like it should be an interesting novelty, cut from the same cloth as a doughnut burger, a McGriddle, or a Twinkie wiener sandwich (okay, I don’t think that last one exists outside of UHF, but it should). Sweet and salty novelty sandwiches aren’t exactly fine dining, but they can be tasty.

Stuffing (and topping) a burger with Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups seems, if nothing else, like it should be fun.

Again: NOPE.

Eating it is absolutely not fun, unless you consider eating disgusting food to be fun, in which case it’s a barrel of laughs.

Aside from the peanut butter cups, the burger is also topped with a couple of strips of bacon, and a fairly generous pile of crispy onion strings.

I don’t think I can be emphatic enough: do not, under any circumstances, order this hamburger. It is a disgusting, piping hot slurry of sickly sweet Reese’s goo and shoddy, dry beef.

You shouldn’t underestimate how face-burningly hot this thing is. I cut it in half, spent several minutes taking photos, and still managed to burn the Dickens out of my tongue on the first bite.

I’m not going to say that’s because this is a malevolent, hell-spawned creation of pure, unrequited evil whose sole purpose is to inflict as much anguish as possible on the world, but… if the shoe fits.

Aside from the mouth-searing temperature, the flavour is completely out of whack; it’s all cloying sweetness with no balance whatsoever. The crispy onions add some texture but are completely overwhelmed, and the bacon may as well not even be there.

The burger basically tastes like dessert, only with beef and onions. It’s just wrong in a very fundamental way.

It probably doesn’t help that the beef is awful — dry, tough, and studded with bits of sinew and gristle, it’s actually shockingly bad considering that burgers are this restaurant’s stock-in-trade.

The longer I ate it, the more oppressive it became; I finished it, but I’m not sure why.

It’s pretty clear that this was created entirely to get as much media attention as possible, with no regard at all for flavour. And on that level, I guess it’s a success? But ordering and eating it is essentially a metaphorical middle finger from The Works to you. They want that sweet, sweet free press; all the people who have to suffer through actually eating it are just collateral damage.

So for those keeping score, that’s The Works: 1, humanity: 0.

(Nutrition Facts – Not available on The Works website.)

Item: The WORKS Reese PBC Stuff’d Burger (Canada)
Purchased Price: $15.98 (CAN)
Size: N/A
Purchased at: The WORKS Gourmet Burger Bistro
Rating: 1 out of 10
Pros: It’s food, I guess?
Cons: An affront to humanity. Shoddy beef. Off-putting flavour. Cloyingly sweet. Face-meltingly hot. Literal hot garbage.