Mega Meal Challenge

Pretty sure the "Killer" part is Not Hyperbole...

"Resting right in front of me were two jumbo-sized parfaits that I couldn't help but find a perversion of nature. You could have it for free if you ate the whole thing within half an hour, but this thing was clearly not built for human stomachs."

— Ren Fujii, Dies Irae

Some times, a local restaurant (usually a steakhouse, at least in America) may decide to put the stomachs of gluttonous carnivores to the test. Usually has a time limit attached. Thus, they present a gigantic quantity of meat, possibly on a platter with other side dishes, that only those with iron stomachs can finish at all, much less finish in time. And should they succeed, fame and fortune awaits. Or at least their picture on a wall. The meal is usually as expensive as it is big, but anyone who wins the challenge doesn't have to pay for it. This is often extended to everyone at the challenger's table eating for free as well. Sometimes there is also an additional prize offered.

Differs from a standard Eating Contest in that where that trope is about two people eating to see which one can eat the most or finish the fastest, this one is about a single person taking on a gigantic platter of food, all alone with no help. Backing down or puking means game over.

Occasionally found in a Crossover with Masochist's Meal, where instead of having to eat an enourmous quantity of food, you eat a regular portion... that's been completely slathered in Blazing Inferno Hellfire Sauce.

Compare Gigantic Gulp and Giant Food. Frequently overlaps with Nutritional Nightmare.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You: Chapter 83 features a ramen shop owner trying various gimmicky ramen challenges designed to be impossible for customers to accomplish, only for each challenge to be bested when just the right girlfriend to take it on walks into the restaurant. The super spicy ramen is ordered by the chemists who are Unaffected by Spice, the steamy ramen fails because of Mei's Eyes Always Shut, and so on. The chapter ends with the shop owner's final attempt being a "Massive-as-Hell" Challenge Ramen, a bowl of ramen so monumentally large that it should be impossible for one person to eat. Enter Kurumi, the resident Big Eater, entering the ramen shop in an homage to the opening scenes of Attack on Titan and giving the shop owner a grim reminder of what a powerful appetite can accomplish.
• Crayon Shin-chan has a short where the Nohara family were forced to partake in a restaurant's XXXL-sized Ramen Challenge (finish a bucket-sized bowl of Ramen within 30 minutes, and the meal is free) on the returning journey from a road trip because it just happens Hiroshi left his wallet at home. Against all odds, they made it, but were too stuffed to walk out their seats in the aftermath.
• Jewelpet:
  • Jewelpet Sunshine: Ruby and five other Jewelpets take Kanon out to cheer her up after breaking up with Mikage. One of the stops is a patisserie offering this challenge which Ruby takes, only to regret it when she sees the huge pyramid of sweets. Ruby allows Kanon to only eat what she wants since the outing is for her sake.
  • Jewelpet: Magical Change: Airi and her four Jewelpets have to go to a certain restaurant and eat an "ultra-large" bowl of pork ramen each so they can open a gate to Jewel Land and answer Opal's compulsory summons.
• Urusei Yatsura has a restaurant challenge diners to finish their expensive and huge full-course meal, with it being free if they succeed. Since many of the main characters are some sort of Big Eater, the owner soon regrets this offer. Only Sakura makes it all the way through — and after taking appetite suppressant pills before hand!
• In Three Leaves, Three Colors, Futaba often wins these, to the point that she's banned from many restaurants with the notable exception of Stuffed Hut. Hajime, however, always seems to have an issue completing these and so sees Futaba his rival.
• Kanna and Saikawa both get extra-large parfaits that are free (plus a photo with one of the maids) if they're eaten in less than half an hour when they go to the Maid Cafe that Tohru works at in Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid: Kanna's Daily Life. Kanna eats about half of hers in less than five seconds.
• Flower Knight Dakini: Prakasha stops at ice cream and confectionery chain Polar Ice after seeing an advertisement for their Mega-Cream Donut Sandwich Pancake, which is a large pancake topped with two layers of donuts, another pancake, and a heaping dollop of cream. The challenge is to eat the whole thing by yourself, and you only have to pay for the cost of a regular pancake if you're successful. She does complete it, but even she thinks the size is excessive.
• Chapter six of the Prison School spin-off manga, Fukukaichou Ganbaru, has Meiko Shiraki participate in and win a challenge in which she eats a large meal of rice and curry and in ten minutes and gets a free meal out of it.
• Chapter 3 of Do Chokkyuu Kareshi x Kanojo sees Mako getting roped into helping Shinichi finish an enormous "Jumbo Parfait", a not-entirely-appetizing medley of ice cream, fruit, and grilled or fried meat. They manage to finish the entire thing in 90 minutes, and win a certificate for free parfaits for a year.
• In Hitomi-chan Is Shy with Strangers, Kaoru and her friends go out to celebrate after their school's sports festival and they order a "Monster size" parfait the size of a small child. Unlike most examples, it's "only" 90% off if they manage to finish it (500 yen instead of 5000), and everyone except Hitomi gives up after the first layer or two. She manages to eat the rest of it and even says she wants some fried chicken afterwards.
• Mitsuba of Seitokai Yakuindomo is known as a Big Eater, so the student council is surprised the judo club's dining expenses are so low when they audit club budgets. She saves by ordering and completing giant ramen bowls and similar challenges.

Comic Strips

• FoxTrot:
  • The first time Jason and Eileen go on a date (not that Jason would ever call it that), she convinces him to order a ridiculously huge bowl of ice cream bigger than his head.
  • Paige often orders huge sundaes, one so large that Jason has to wear cold weather gear simply to go to an ice cream store with her. In one strip, she gets a "kids' size cone" that's so big, she can barely lift it. (The ice cream store is clearly one that understands kids.)
• Blondie (1930) In this strip, Dagwood and Blondie visit a restaurant that has a "Mountain of Spaghetti Special" that's so big it comes with a mop and bucket to clean up with. (Hopefully, a box of napkins too.)

Fan Works

• Death By Chocolate... Right? has the League trapped upon a planet where they must either complete an eating challenge or die. Superman and The Flash fold, Hawkgirl completes it thanks to a pocket dimension in her stomach.
• Steve Rogers Vs The All-American Feast: During a team dinner at a small bbq restaurant in Hoboken, Steve Rogers is introduced to the world of eating challenges, which becomes an occasional hobby of his, culminating in the titular All-American feast, a massive burger with hot dogs cooked into the meat and smothered with chili. The only challenge he doesn't win in the story is a ghost pepper chicken wings challenge, which he bows out of after the second wing. Hawkeye ends up winning that one.
  • The other meal challenges mentioned are a five-pound pulled pork sandwich with fries, a five-pound cheeseburger with fries, an eight-pound meat-lovers pizza, and a "vertical foot of grilled cheese".
• Cat Tales: "World's Finest: Red Cape, Big City" has Lois Lane interview "Former Meteors Coach, three-time championship winner, now celebrity restaurateur Riff Fickly", who's opened a steakhouse in Metropolis. As part of the interview, he made her order and eat their specialty, a 48-ounce steak; she notes (as she hands a sack with a partial one in it over to Perry White, who tells her to give it to Jimmy Olsen instead) that "If you finish it, you get your picture taken and put up on the wall."
• Ultra Beast of the Bay: The Challenger is a burger weighing in at twelve pounds, plus five pounds of chili fries and a fifty-ounce milkshake, which has to be completed in an hour and a half to get your picture on the wall. According to Glory Girl, even Challenger, the cape it was named for, couldn't finish it on her first try. Taylor scarfs it all down in under ten minutes then orders another.
• In Voyages of the Wild Sea Horse, shortly after arriving in the Grand Line, Ranma Saotome and his crew come to the Turtle Island nation of the Grand Octopus Shogunate, and when looking for lunch, find their restaurant of choice offers something called the "Fifteen Dozen Challenge" — 15 plates of oysters, with a dozen oysters on each plate. On a whim, Ranma decides to take the challenge and his would-be lovers Ukyo, Shampoo and Kodchi decide to order the same, thinking tis will let them participate. Instead, each of them ends up with their own 15 dozen oysters to eat, but a cocktail of pride, jealousy and suspicion means they refuse to acknowledge their mistake and so set down to eat. Incredibly, not just Ranma but all three of the girls finishes the titanic seafood meal, although it's noted as quite the struggle.
• Harry and the Shipgirls has the Nine Clan Heads challenge, which consists of nine full courses - the "Little Burger", a smash-style burger with all the works and two patties, with a pound of meat per patty; the Die-Maru, which was an even bigger burger with additions such as a massive amount of pulled pork alongside the lamb, chicken, and veal patties that made it up beside the beef ones; the Steakmaru of the 100 Pounds, a 100 pound steak plus sides and trimmings; "The Hunted", a meat lovers pizza nearly as wide as most are tall; the Nigiri-iator, a massive course of sushi; the "Meter of Just This", meter tall and long roll sandwiches filled with all sorts of things; the "Wheel of Meat Fortune", a round plate the size of a small table that has a meat platter on it; "The Marbling of the Northern Beef", a wagyu beef Sukiyaki placed inside a large cauldron than the normal hot pot; and finally the Parfait-Bound, a parfait served in a vessel the size of a large punchbowl with the parfait itself being about the size of a medium chandelier. Needless to say, only the biggest of eaters can successfully beat this challenge, but 90 years of free food and a picture on the wall for succeeding has drawn many contenders.
• Hero Academia D×D: Koneko takes up the Big Bang Challenge, which consists of a one-meter-tall tower of buns, patties and condiments she has to eat in thirty minutes for it to be free. Twenty minutes later, she's eaten it all and asks if they have dessert.
• Type-2 Hero: In a side story, Izuku takes Ashido, Todoroki, and Moroboshi to a spicy food restaurant that has a standing challenge: they have a set of curry dishes (graded 1 to 10, 10 being so hot it seems to glow) that have to be eaten in twenty minutes. If you finish in time, you get a discount (and the 10 gets you twice the price of the dish); if you finish outside of time, you pay the normal price; and if you are unable to finish, you pay double the price. You can drink two glasses of milk during the challenge. Oh, and asking for a third glass of milk, falling off the stool, or activating your Quirk deliberately, means you lose. Moroboshi manages to be the first ever to eat the 10, earning a place in the restaurant's Wall of Fame.

Films — Animation

• The Twelve Tasks of Asterix: The sixth task is one of these. Obelix must eat the entire banquet provided by the chef Mannekenpix, with the courses comprising of a wild boar, a flock of geese, some sheep, an omelette made with eight dozen eggs, a school of fish, an ox, a cow, two whole veal (the children of the previous ox and cow, the chef didn't want to separate the family), a mountain of caviar (and a piece of toast), a camel, and an elephant. Obelix wolfed it all down thinking it was just for starters, then ate the Eldritch Abomination the Gauls were supposed to confront in the next task as an encore.

Films — Live-Action

• The Great Outdoors: Chet accepts a restaurant's challenge to finish a 96-ounce steak^note That's six pounds of meat, by the way. in one sitting, in exchange for his table eating for free. There ends up being a disagreement as to whether he must eat the gristle and fat to complete the challenge. He does.
  Roman: Tell ya what: if I can get a dessert down him, think you can throw in some Paul Bunyan hats for the kids?
  Chet: [whimpers]
• In Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, an ice cream dish called the Ziggy Pig seems to be this; after Napoleon Bonaparte finishes it, the garishly dressed employees make pig noises and give him a sticker.
• In Whip It The Oink Joint serves one of these called "The Squealer."
• Small Town Of Anara is about a huge drinking horn that can only belong to one who can drain it in one go.

Literature

• Referenced in Diary of a Wimpy Kid, where Greg mentions that his Uncle Gary finished the "Monstrilla Burger" in one sitting and got a tattoo for it.
• Robert A. Heinlein's "Puddin'" short story "Cliff and the Calories".
  Cliff: Have you ever had a Mount Everest?
  Maureen: Huh?
  Cliff: They start with a big platter and build up the peak with twenty - one flavors of ice cream, using four bananas, butterscotch syrup, and nuts to bind it. Then they cover it with chocolate syrup, sprinkle malted milk powder and more nuts for rock, pour marshmallow syrup and whipped cream down from the top for snow, stick parsley around the lower slopes for trees, and set a little plastic skier on one of the snow banks. You get to keep him as a souvenir of the experience.
  Maureen: Oh, my!
  Cliff: Only one to a customer and I don't have to pay if you finish it.
• In I Blame Society by Rich Hall (a spoof autobiography of Rich's alter-ego, Otis Lee Crenshaw), Otis remembers his Dad taking him to the Great Smokey Steak House to try the "72-ounce Rib Eye. Eat it all and you don't pay!" challenge.

Live-Action TV

• Svengoolie, Jim Cornette tried to eat a giant "Svengoolie Burger," double order of fries and a milkshake in 30 minutes at the Squared Circle, a restaurant in Chicago owned by Lisa Marie Varon. Cornette jobbed to the burger. Cornette claims to have successfully beaten the challenge at other restaurants including the Heart Attack Grill.
• Man v. Food is basically a collection of these. One of the biggest meals our host Adam had to try to finish was a burger the size of a truck tire and even then he needed the entire restaurant to eat it with him. Another was eating an omelette... made from a dozen eggs. Not all of these are big food, mind you: one had him eat fifteen dozen raw oysters and another was eat just eight wings in 30 minutes. Said wings are marinated in the sauce of "Container of Poor Judgement" (marinated left over wing sauce that's added to everyday), you can only eat the wings when you start, only use your teeth and hands and the one napkin they give you.
• The Bob Newhart Show: Bob & his friends go to a gourmet ice cream shop and one of his friends orders a "Whale," a giant sundae. The singing waiters bring it over with much fanfare. "You caaaaan't do it...you caaaan't do it..you can't eat a whale!" Bob doesn't want all that attention so he just orders a single scoop of ice cream. But the waiters still make a fuss: "Single scooper single scooper this man is a party pooper!"
• On the Even Stevens episode "The King Sloppy", Louis and Twitty attempt to take on the titular burger. The challenge allows one bathroom break, so they both dress up in identical costumes and attempt the challenge under a fake name, planning to switch places in the bathroom and only eat half the burger each. They end up getting caught, though. Meanwhile, the British exchange student Ren is supposed to be looking after manages to escape from her, stumbles upon the steakhouse, and eats an entire King Sloppy by herself with little effort.
• On Liv and Maddie, Maddie's teammate Stains takes on a restaurant's challenge of eating an entire roast chicken in under an hour to win a T-Shirt. She wasn't allowed to use her hands at all, and she's later seen wearing the T-Shirt while another character tells her that she didn't have to eat the bones too.
  Stains: Hey, when I commit, I commit, man.
• Shake it Up overlaps this with Credit Card Plot, where the characters eat a big meal at a restaurant, then realize that they've maxed out the card and can't afford to pay their bill, so they are forced to take on the restaurant's mega meal challenge while they are already full from their meals in order to eat for free. Multiple people were allowed to eat from the same meal, which is unusual for the trope.
• On an episode of Mystery Diners, a restaurant owner hired Charles to find up out why the number of winners of his mega meal challenged had skyrocketed, and why most of the new winners were petite woman (as opposed to the large guys who had made up the bulk of previous winners). It turned out one of the waiters was helping pretty girls to win by allowing them to share the sandwich with their friends, and sometimes throwing some of the food out for them.

Video Games

• Persona:
  • Persona 3 Reload: One of Elizabeth's new requests has the Protagonist participating in the aptly-named "Big Eater Challenge" where he must finish a pile of burgers at the Wilduck Burger restaurant. Prevailing in it allows him to order the Weekend Wilduck Set on Saturdays and Sundays.
  • Persona 4 has the Rainy Day Special Mega Beef Bowl Challenge. Served at Chinese Diner Aiya, the bowl helps raise three random character statistics, making it an ideal way for the player to spend rainy days, where most Social Links and other related activities are deactivated. The bowl can only be finished if the player maxes out the four stats needed (Understanding, Knowledge, Courage, and Diligence). In Golden, taking the challenge eight times (regardless of whether you pass or fail) earns you a book (appropriately, one on Chinese cooking).
  • Persona 5 has the Big Bang Challenge at Big Bang Burger, which involves eating increasingly oversized burgers to win accessories and parameter gains in 4 of the 5 social stats categories. Each successive challenge requires two, three, then four levels each in the Guts, Knowledge, and Proficiency stats. Completing the challenge also gives points towards Charm, but they are not required for the challenge itself.

Visual Novels

• Dies Irae features a small scene with two of the main characters potential love interests, Marie and Kasumi, engaging in an Eating Contest involving two Jumbo-Sized Parfaits that you have to eat in under half an hour or have to pay up 7000 yen for each. Marie ends up finishing hers within the time limit while Kasumi fails and ends up going home with a stomach ache. Fortunately for her, Ren bailed her out on the pay.

Web Animation

• Kirby Guardian: Kawasaki's restaurant has one of these in the form of the Bottomless Pit, which consists of 100 plates in total. Adeleine orders this and she and the ten Kirbies complete the challenge together. In doing so their prize is that they don't even have to pay.

Webcomics

• El Goonish Shive: During a road trip Grace orders a huge pancake breakfast. Even though only three people in the 25-year history of the restaurant have succeeded in finishing the "Pancake Mount Doom" meal, Grace does so with ease and gets her picture on the Wall of Fame.
• In the Touhou Project 4koma doujin Life of Maid, Hong Meiling, the Scarlet Devil Mansion's resident Chew Toy, talks Sakuya into going with her to an ice cream parlor that they find out is run by Letty and Cirno. The ice cream parlor has a Super Winter Earthquake challenge, which has entrants trying to eat a massive bowl of ice cream in 30 minutes or less to try to win 30,000 yen. The reigning champion of the contest is resident Touhou Big Eater Yuyuko, who finished it off in 5 minutes. When Meiling tries to take on the challenge, she fails miserably, and learns that those who lose have to pay 10,000 yen, resulting in Meiling having to Work Off the Debt as a waitress after Sakuya bugs out with her time-stopping ability.
• Hang In There Kogasa San has seen a few of these, thanks to the author being a major foodie. For just one example, the arc relating his trip to Anime Boston 2012, the group ate at Eagle's Deli and one of them (represented by Momiji) tried the "Challenge Burger", a gigantic bacon cheeseburger and five pounds of french fries that has to be eaten within one hour, with those who succeed getting the right to name a new burger. Unfortunately, Momiji wasn't able to finish it.
• Sam & Fuzzy: During Mr. Blanks search for Sam and Fuzzy during the prologue to the Noosehead arc, he stops at a diner called the Gas N' Gulp, which serves one of these challenges; The Terminator! It's not stated exactly what the dish is, but the art makes it look like an enormous omelette, and apparently contains refried cheese, refried pork, and re-refried beans among other things. It also gives Blank a clue, as Sam's photo is on the wall of diners who have succeeded in eating the whole thing.
  Blank: No wonder it's called the Gas N' Gulp...
  Owner: Don't be crude, you're agitating the mayonnaise.
• Whomp!: "Beast of Burgin'" has Ronnie trying to finish a five pound burger.

Western Animation

• An episode of Camp Lazlo revolves around the characters trying to get Camp Kidney on a Prickly Pines restaurant's place mats, which feature a map of the Prickly Pines area, including a vacant spot where Camp Kidney is located. The cost-effective way of doing this is to eat a gigantic steak that still continues to grow with each bite. The task goes to Scoutmaster Lumpus because of his established fondness for meat.
• The Simpsons:
  • "Maximum Homerdrive" has Homer challenging the trucker Red Barclay to an eat-off involving a very large steak. Homer loses the challenge, Barclay finishes the meal, and promptly dies of a heart attack. Also responsible for this golden line from Marge:
    Marge: Homie, NO! Don't fill up on bread!!
  • "The Dad Who Knew Too Little" has Homer trying to learn more about Lisa by hiring a private investigator to spy on her. The bill includes 40 dollars for a steak. The detective explains that it'd be free if he managed to eat it all.
• In the Rocko's Modern Life episode "Road Rash", Heffer stops at a diner while Rocko tries to fix the tape player on their motorbike (and accidentally trashes it in the process). Heffer asks for the biggest thing on the menu, which happens to be the Knockwurst Nightmare, a dish consisting of 570 pounds of pig parts in two miles of intestines, which no one has ever finished. Heffer asks for two, only to be told that "there aren't enough pigs in the country." Heffer eventually finishes it, and wins a hot-dog-shaped truck for him and Rocko to finish their trip.
• In the Regular Show episode "Eggscellent", Rigby tries to finish a giant omelet to win a trucker hat. When he's hospitalized in a food coma as a result (he's allergic to eggs), Mordecai takes on the challenge for him, in hope that winning the hat might snap Rigby back to normal. Using the notes kept by a previous park worker who also tried to win the hat and the help of Benson and the other park workers, and despite the best efforts of the cook to stop him, Mordecai finishes the omelet and is transported into a cave where he has to pick the correct hat or die. He chooses the correct hat and brings it back to Rigby, who wakes up. Then he sees another ad on TV advertising the Raise the Steaks challenge, a steak and eggs challenge meant for two contestants. Rigby wants to do it by eating the steak while Mordecai eats the eggs. Mordecai and the rest of the gang decide to take the hat back, hoping he'll slip back into a coma.
  • The "Inferno Wings" Skips eats in one episode would normally fall under Blazing Inferno Hellfire Sauce, but it's also this trope, as the challenge consists of an entire cast iron pot filled with wings, and the time limit is only two minutes. It's not just a difficult challenge either, it's outright deadly, as the sauce contains black widow venom and magma extract.
• King of the Hill:
  • In "The Company Man", Hank takes potential client Mr. Holloway, a Bostonite with stereotypical opinons of Texans, to the Texas Panhandler Steakhouse, where he decides to have a 72 ounce steak as part of its Mega Meal Challenge, but due to him eating some things from the all-you-can eat buffet, after one small bite, he's done, which pisses off everyone watching.
  • In "And They Call It Bobby Love", Bobby has just gone through a bad breakup with a girl, who was a vegetarian. When the Hills are out to dinner at the Panhandler, he sees that she is also there with her family. He then snaps out of his funk and decides to attempt the steakhouse's challenge, while looking her straight in the eye the whole time, and orders his huge steak rare for maximum spite. He succeeds, but vomits in the alley when he gets home.
• In the We Bare Bears episode "Burrito", Grizz takes a restaurant's burrito challenge, in which he must eat one of every kind of burrito they sell in one hour. He bets that he can do it in 30 minutes; he ends up eating them all in fifteen, but then they bring in the last burrito, one as big as Grizz himself. Rather than eating it, Grizz becomes oddly attached to it because the tin foil it's wrapped in triggers a childhood memory of being rescued by a fireman who let him cling to a reflective safety band on his arm to help him down from a tall tree when he was a cub, and decides to make it his Companion Cube instead.
• Bob's Burgers: In "Friends with Burger-Fits", Bob bans Teddy from the restaurant due to becoming concerned over his health since he insists on eating a cheeseburger and fries there every day. Teddy eventually runs off to another restaurant, where he orders a burger challenge meal in a fit of spite after Bob said the two weren't friends for real. The last act of the episode revolves around Bob trying to talk Teddy out of eating it.
• In Green Eggs and Ham, Sam-I-Am is implied to be the only person to have ever finished the "Ham-Egg-Edon": a dozen green eggs on top of toast on top of an extra-large ham on top of more toast, all folded into a giant egg (and a fruit salad on the side). The diner which serves it has several photos of him and only him on their "Wall of Fame." Glunts tries to take it on herself and is later seen looking nauseous and very full after only eating 1/5th of it.
• In the Big City Greens episode "Desserted", in order to be able to pay for the whole family meal since he doesn't have enough money, Cricket has to eat a giant sundae by himself since his family is too full. To make matters worse, Cricket knew his family wouldn't go along with his plan, so he replaced all of Bill's money with fake cash so he wouldn't have to pay for the expensive meal.
• In one episode of Momma Named Me Sheriff, a restaurant that serves chicken, specifically only rooster, has a challenge to eat a trash can full of rooster wings for a t-shirt. Dispatch takes it and finishes all of the meat, only to be told that he also has to eat the bones and the can itself, and after that, he's told that he still failed because he was 3 seconds past the time limit.
• F is for Family: When Frank accompanies Bob Pogo, Rosie and Red on a business trip to Cleveland, Pogo insists on taking on the Clam-Ageddon Challenge at Captain Hank's Clam House, which consists of eating 100 clams in 10 minutes. He actually succeeds, but there are some... unpleasant consequences. The next day, it turns out Pogo managed to destroy the plumbing for the groups hotel room in the ensuing, and almost literal, shitstorm.
  Bob: WARN THE FOLKS IN THE NEXT TOWN!!

Real Life

• Certain restaurants have a menu item that due to its large size or spiciness, finishing it is considered impressive and the person gets either a photo on a wall or even the meal for free. These promotions are on the decline due to a combination of bad publicity over what is seen as base gluttony, and a growing number of supposed "winners" actually being granted a free meal by colluding friends who work at the restaurant. Notable promotions include:
  • The chain Buffalo Wild Wings has photos of people that eat a full order of their "Blazin'" wings.
  • Rudford's restaurant in San Diego, California USA. The Big Nick Challenge involves eating a huge 3.5 lb. hamburger (2 lb. beef, 4 oz. hash browns and 4 eggs) and 4 oz. of French fries. Finish it in 30 minutes or less: it's free and you get your photo on the Hall of Champions Wall. Fail: it costs you $20 and you get your photo on the Losers' Wall.
  • The Westport Flea Market Bar and Grill in Kansas City, Missouri USA has the "Super Flea" challenge. Five ten-ounce hamburger patties, each one topped with bacon and cheese, stacked on a bun, plus two pounds of fries. Finish it without help in 30 minutes or less, it's free and you get your picture on the wall. (Fail, and it costs $39.)
  • The Big Texan Steak Ranch in Amarillo, Texas offers a 72-oz. steak dinner for free if eaten within 1 hour ($72 otherwise), and maintains a record of everyone who successfully completes the challenge. Aside from the steak, the meal includes a baked potato, a shrimp cocktail, a salad, a bread roll and a drink, and is based on the winner of an eating contest held in 1960, shortly after the steakhouse opened.
  • Denny's Beer Barrel Pub in Clearfield, Pennsylvania has done these with burgers that clock in at ten pounds and up.
  • The Burger Barn chain located in a few towns in Southeast Texas hosts the Monster Burger, a 4 pound beef patty with 4 slices of cheese and a massive amount of toppings, such as bacon, avocado, and mayonnaise, all on a toasted bun: Finish it in 30 minutes for a t-shirt and a spot on the website.
  • For some time, the deli sandwich chain Togo's had a challenge involving their gigantic pastrami sandwich in which anyone who finished one alone while in a Togo's restaurant would win a special shirt.
  • Red Devil Pizza in Granada Hills, California (moved to Upland, California) is unusual in that it has a two-person challenge: A straightforward 28-inch pizza with any choice of toppings and a time limit of 45 minutes. Red Devil displays both winners and losers of this challenge, as a "Wall of Fame" and a "Wall of Shame," respectively. A step into the restaurant indicates this challenge has a roughly 20% win rate.
  • The Heart Attack Grill in Las Vegas, Nevada. It prides itself on its heart attack inducing menu (including a milkshake with a slab of butter as a garnish and a concoction known as the Triple Bypass Burger). Some other gimmicks include wait staff dressed as sexy nurses, and a weigh-in at the beginning of your meal. Sadly, a customer eventually did die of a heart attack, and the restaurant's spokesperson died at just 29.
• Final Fantasy XIV held a promo in China with KFC that gave away a code for a Fat Black Chocobo mount if they purchased a family meal for four in-restaurant. (It was believed they also had to finish the meal in one go to receive the code, but this fact was disproven.) While it was perfectly acceptable to share the meal with other people and receive one code each time, it didn't stop people from trying to solo the entire meal. Naturally, jokes treating the meal like an in-game raid followed.
• A number of YouTube channels are devoted to "mukbangs". The trend started with content creators out of South Korea, streaming video of themselves eating large amounts of food. While it started with relatively normal portions, sort of like sitting down to a meal with a friend, other creators began making videos with larger and larger amounts of food. Some other trends include "eating challenges" such as 10,000 or more calories in a day.

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