The Real Reason Wendy's Burgers Are Square
If you stripped the bun and the toppings, you might be hard-pressed to pick which burger patty belongs to which fast food chain. Except for one. While the vast majority of burger joints use round hamburger patties, Wendy's is a bit of an outlier given that all of their burgers are shaped like a square instead of a circle (via Taste of Home).
According to Frank Vamos, Wendy's director of brand communications, the reason dates all the way back to the company's founder, Dave Thomas (via Thrillist). Vamos says that Thomas was extremely proud of the quality of Wendy's meat and "he wanted to make sure that the patty sticks out of the bun so that everyone can see it, see the juiciness. And the square patty does that."
So there you have it, the square patty is considered to be visual proof that the meat used by Wendy's is superior to its competitors.
Wendy's explains their square burgers
The Wendy's official blog, which is quite cleverly called The Square Deal, offers up a similar reason. Dave Thomas was apparently obsessed with quality. He often spoke with industry experts to establish how to best distribute produce and beef around the country so that they wouldn't have to freeze anything. This gave rise to the company's slogan "Fresh, Never Frozen." Even as the restaurant has gone from one original location to more than 5,000 across the world, the company strives to keep standards high in a way that would make their founder, who died in 2002, proud (via The New York Times).
According to the blog, Dave Thomas' vision for the company meant taking no shortcuts, and cutting no corners. The square corners on their burgers are symbolic of this. The idea is that not only does Wendy's not cut corners on its business practices at large, they don't cut corners on their actual menu items either.