I get the feeling that the gritty details behind fast food politics don’t exactly excite all my readers, so I’ll get the backstory out of the way right off the bat: Burger King has seen sales decline since 2009, so it looks like they’ve brought in a new creative team to shake things up. They’re even inviting select franchisees to share their ideas, which rarely, if ever, happens.

The result of this shake-up is the interesting part: the restaurants will be revamped to exude a sleeker look; among other things, the interior design will go from earth tones to red and black, and look out for a striking black tower to be featured on the exterior.

Marketing efforts and menu items will shift away from targeting just young males and expand to appeal to a broader audience, including – gasp! – females!

The King will be going on an “extended vacation”, which fills me with relief, as I will no longer have to check my balcony before I go to bed to make sure he’s not lurking outside. Actually, now that he’s out of work, he’ll have a lot of time on his hands…okay now I’m even more terrified. But at least I won’t be seeing his nightmare-inducing mug on my television anymore.

But what about the food? The Whopper will remain, but their value menu will take a backseat to new, healthier items. BK is introducing more than a dozen new items in test markets across the country; here are just a few that have been confirmed:

An Asian chicken salad “with baby edamame, red cabbage and sesame lime vinaigrette; oatmeal “with dried fruit and maple sugar”, and mango and mixed-berry smoothies.

For carnivores, the Miami Herald reports that there will be “a new premium homestyle burger on a brioche bun with thick-cut bacon, romaine lettuce and a new spicy pepper grill sauce”, as well as a chicken BLT wrap with bacon and “country dijon” mustard.

Any of these new offerings sound familiar? Have you tried any of McDonald’s Premium Salads? How about their Fruit and Maple Oatmeal? Maybe a Mixed Berry Real Fruit Smoothie? Picked up a Snack Wrap lately?

It’s disappointing to see BK trying to turn themselves into McDonald’s in order to boost their sales and expand their menu and target audience. However, all new items are still in the testing stage, so we’ll have to wait and see what actually sticks. It’ll also be weird to see a black tower instead of a mansard roof as I drive past my local Burger King. However, as I mentioned before, there’s more than a dozen new products being tested out there, and hopefully something unique will pop out and get me excited about trying out their new menu.

(PS I totally knew the term “mansard roof” before I wrote this post because I secretly used to do construction as a side job and went to Roof College and everything. In no way did I read it on one of my source materials and have to look it up in Wikipedia to see what the hell it meant.)

Sources: Miami Herald, Burger Business and AdAge