# Burger King Foot Lettuce Burger King Foot Lettuce is a 2012 food-safety scandal turned copypasta, sparked by a 4chan photo of an Ohio Burger King employee standing shoes-deep in two lettuce bins. Users cracked the image's EXIF data within minutes, got three workers fired, and the story returned as a viral copypasta after YouTuber Chills narrated it in a 2017 countdown video. ## Overview Burger King Foot Lettuce refers to a July 2012 food-safety incident in which a Burger King worker in Mayfield Heights, Ohio uploaded a 4chan photo of his shoes planted inside two open bins of restaurant lettuce, captioned 'This is the lettuce you eat at Burger King'[1]. Within about 20 minutes, 4chan users had pulled the image's EXIF geolocation data, pinpointed the exact restaurant, and started phoning the store and local newsrooms[5]. Three employees were fired within days[2]. The scandal returned to the internet's front page five years later after Canadian YouTuber Chills used it as item 15 in a 2017 countdown video called 'Top 15 Mysteries Solved by 4Chan'[3]. His flat, monotone delivery of the opening line, 'Number 15: Burger King foot lettuce. The last thing you'd want in your Burger King burger is someone's foot fungus,' turned the intro into a widely quoted copypasta and reaction-video template on YouTube and Reddit[4]. The meme now points to two things at once: an actual health-code incident, and the audio clip that made the story funny again. ## How It Spread Cleveland Scene broke the story on July 17, 2012, the morning after the post[1]. When a reporter reached the store, the breakfast-shift manager reportedly answered, 'Oh, I know who that is. He's getting fired'[1]. Today, Gawker and The Daily Dot picked it up the same day, with Burger King corporate spokesperson Bryson Thornton confirming the location was independently owned by a franchisee and that three employees had been terminated over the staging[2]. The Cuyahoga County Board of Health cleared the restaurant after an inspection; deputy director Dave Covell told Cleveland Scene that more than the two visible bins had been affected, but none of the lettuce reached a customer[1]. The copypasta phase started on November 11, 2017, when the Top15s YouTube channel uploaded 'Top 15 Mysteries Solved by 4Chan,' narrated by Canadian YouTuber Chills. The video passed 1.4 million views[4]. On November 19, YouTuber ling clipped just the opening 'Number 15: Burger King foot lettuce' introduction, and on January 24, 2018, YouTuber madison did the same, each isolation gaining tens of thousands of views on its own[4]. The full monologue was reposted to Reddit's r/copypasta on January 28, 2018[4]. Remixes kept the format alive through spring 2018. YouTuber grandayy uploaded a parody on March 3 that also passed 1.4 million views, and Saltydkan posted a straight re-read of the same script on March 5 that cleared 119,000 views[4]. The clip's odd cadence made it a favorite for dub-over jokes, and food writers still point to the incident as a turning point in how fast-food brands treat social media[3]. In December 2024, YouTuber Epic Alex Time posted 'Burger King Foot Lettuce Guy (Full Story),' claiming to be the person in the photo; the video passed 24,000 views over the following seven months[4]. Know Your Meme interviewed Alex in February 2025, during which he said he regretted the stunt and confirmed it did cost him his Burger King job[4]. On July 10, 2025, friends announced that Alex had died, and his brother started a GoFundMe for funeral costs the next day[4]. ## How to Use The Burger King Foot Lettuce copypasta is typically deployed by quoting the Chills opening line, 'Number 15: Burger King foot lettuce,' either as a text drop or as an audio clip stitched over unrelated video[4]. Common conventions include using the full first paragraph as the intro to a fake countdown, dubbing the audio over other 4chan-style scandals for parody effect, or bookending short reaction videos with just the 'Number 15' beat[4]. The image of the shoes-in-lettuce photo itself often appears without any caption at all, since the visual carries the reference on its own[3]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is Burger King Foot Lettuce? It is a 2012 scandal in which a Burger King employee in Mayfield Heights, Ohio posted a 4chan photo of himself standing in two lettuce bins with his shoes on, which later returned in 2017 as a viral copypasta narrated by YouTuber Chills[1]. ### Where did Burger King Foot Lettuce come from? The original photo was uploaded to 4chan at 11:38 PM on July 16, 2012 by an anonymous user identifying himself as a Burger King employee[5]. ### What does Burger King Foot Lettuce mean? It works as shorthand for both the specific fast-food scandal and the Chills-narrated copypasta that begins 'Number 15: Burger King foot lettuce,' commonly used as an absurd cold-open joke[3]. ### How do you use Burger King Foot Lettuce? People typically quote the Chills opening line, dub the audio over unrelated video, or drop the shoes-in-lettuce photo without a caption because the image itself carries the reference[4]. ### Is Burger King Foot Lettuce still popular? It settled into classic copypasta status after 2018 and was pulled back into the news cycle in late 2024 and 2025 by Epic Alex Time's claim to be the man in the photo and his subsequent death in July 2025[4]. ### Where was the Burger King Foot Lettuce restaurant located? It was a Burger King on Mayfield Road in Mayfield Heights, Ohio, identified through EXIF GPS data left in the original 4chan upload[1]. ### How did 4chan users find the restaurant so fast? The uploader forgot to strip EXIF metadata, so the file's GPS coordinates pointed straight at the store; the branch address was posted back to the thread by 11:50 PM, about twelve minutes after the photo went up[5]. ### How many employees were fired over the incident? Burger King corporate spokesperson Bryson Thornton confirmed that three employees at the franchise were terminated over the staging of the photo[2]. ### Did any of the contaminated lettuce get served? No. Cuyahoga County deputy health director Dave Covell said management threw out all affected food the following morning and no illnesses were reported[1]. ### Who is Chills and why is he tied to the meme? Chills, also known as Dylan, is a Canadian YouTuber whose Top15s channel published 'Top 15 Mysteries Solved by 4Chan' on November 11, 2017; his monotone delivery of the opening line turned the story into a copypasta[3]. ### Who claimed to be the Burger King Foot Lettuce guy? YouTuber Epic Alex Time posted 'Burger King Foot Lettuce Guy (Full Story)' on December 31, 2024 claiming to be the person in the photo, and confirmed in a February 2025 Know Your Meme interview that the stunt cost him his job[4]. ## References 1. [https://www.clevescene.com/scene-and-heard/archives/2012/07/17/4chan-catches-mayfield-heights-burger-king-employee-who-snapped-pictures-of-himself-standing-on-food]() 2. [https://www.today.com/money/feet-lettuce-photo-hits-internet-gets-burger-king-employees-fired-893175]() 3. [https://www.thetakeout.com/1688032/fast-food-burger-king-foot-lettuce/]() 4. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/burger-king-foot-lettuce]() 5. [https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Burger%20King%20Foot%20Lettuce]() 6. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azSYefZhv1s]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/burger-king-foot-lettuce Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library