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Thirty years after a teenage boy ordered a McDonald's Quarter Pounder, it still looks good enough to eat — although its owners insist it is "no longer food."
The story began in Adelaide, South Australia, in November 1995 when teenagers Eduards Nits and Casey Dean asked Nits' sister to take them to a McDonald's drive-thru. It had been a long day in the studio following Dean's win in a local battle of the bands, SFGate reported.
A third friend with them couldn't finish his Quarter Pounder — so Nits said he would hold onto it until the friend came back to visit them in Adelaide.
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"Being teenagers, we ordered a truckload of food, and it was just way too much," Dean told AFP in 2019.
"We were joking, 'Imagine if we kept this forever,' and here we are."
A Quarter Pounder belonging to Casey Dean, pictured in background left, and Eduards Nits, has become a viral piece of fast-food history. (William West/AFP via Getty Images)
The friend never returned to claim his burger, and Nits' mother begged him to get rid of it since it had been sitting on his desk for weeks.
But the teen stashed it away in a box instead. Over time, it became part of the "family." Nits' mother, a teacher, even brought it to school to show it off to her students.
The burger was never refrigerated and spent most of its life in cupboards, garbage bags and sheds. It even traveled across Australia years later with Nits' sister as she moved between military bases with her husband.
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To this day, the so-called "Senior Burger" remains "eerily intact," Dean told SFGate upon its 30th anniversary. The burger is still wrapped in its original waxy beige paper featuring 1990s-era McDonald's branding.
Dean and Nits have since shared the story on Russian television and local news outlets. They caught the attention of podcaster Joe Rogan — who joked in 2015 that the burger was "disturbing," after the story first went viral internationally — and the two even launched a YouTube livestream featuring the decades-old patty.
The three-decade-old Quarter Pounder has been featured on TV, podcasts and social media feeds. (William West/AFP via Getty Images)
Dean, a musician and dog trainer, became the public face of the "Senior Burger," while Nits, a bricklayer from Adelaide, has actually kept and preserved the burger all this time, according to reports.
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"The only thing that's happened is it's shrunk in size," Nits told SFGate.
"It just looks like artwork."
The men have also told other outlets that the burger has hardened, yet it hasn't developed any odor or mold. "It's no longer food," Nits added. "It just looks like artwork."
But the friends are not the only keepers of long-lasting McDonald's relics.
The Quarter Pounder was purchased in 1995 — and reportedly has never been refrigerated. (William West/AFP via Getty Images)
A Utah man who purchased a McDonald's burger in 1999 also discovered that it stayed mostly intact after more than two decades, according to multiple reports.
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And Melana Monroe, a grandmother from Texas, has held onto a McDonald's hamburger she bought nearly 30 years ago.
She originally purchased it for a science experiment, tossed it in her car trunk and forgot about it — only to later realize that it never rotted.
The company has clarified that the decades-old burgers seen online are dehydrated, not preserved by chemicals or additives. (iStock)
Monroe's daughter and granddaughter helped make it famous after sharing the find in 2020 on TikTok, where the clip went viral with millions of views.
"The burger belongs to American culture," Monroe's daughter, Katie Frugé, told SFGate. "It’s kind of an American icon."
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That viral moment prompted McDonald's to address the long-running myth that its burgers "never rot," explaining that the food simply dried out in a moisture-free environment, which prevents mold and bacteria from growing.
"The burger belongs to American culture."
"In the right environment, our burgers, like most other foods, could decompose," the company said at the time.
"Look closely — the burgers you are seeing are likely dried out and dehydrated and by no means 'the same as the day they were purchased.'"
Experts say that when a burger is kept in a dry environment, it dehydrates instead of rots. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
McDonald's added that its burgers are made only with 100% USDA-inspected beef, with "no preservatives or fillers," and that "the only thing ever added is a touch of salt and pepper on the grill."
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Several experts previously said the lack of moisture and high salt content, combined with the burger's small size, likely helped preserve it.
Fox News Digital reached out to McDonald's for further comment.
Deirdre Bardolf is a lifestyle writer with Fox News Digital.
