Man claims viral app hack can help people get free meals from fast food joints throughout the year

Who could resist a free meal, especially when it's from one of your beloved fast food spots? The only downside? The usual cost of indulging in your cravings. Every fast food enthusiast is always looking out for combo offers and discounts on certain menu items when they are grabbing a quick bite. Yet, people find themselves in tricky situations when it comes to spending money on their wants, compared to their needs.

However, one inventive individual claims to have found a clever workaround for fast food aficionados, promising a method to snag meals for free via certain restaurant apps. A TikTok creator–who goes by @thankucheese–took a break from his usual content about automobiles and car sales and decided to make a video for people looking for some freebies from their favorite fast food brands. "If your money is tight, this is how you are going to get free food," he stated at the beginning of the video while listing about 30 food delivery and restaurant apps in the background.

"You can literally eat free food for every single day of the year. Imagine that you are hungry and you have no money on you, so this is what you are going to do," he continued in his video. "First, download an app for where you want to eat. For example, let's download KFC." After downloading the app, he tells his viewers to create an account on the app and when the account creation process asks you to enter your birthday, all one has to do is set their birthday to the same day when they want to eat some free food.

"Once you enter the date, you are going to get a message from the app saying, 'Congratulations, happy birthday. So, here is something for free on us.' Almost every single franchise app does this, so go ahead and give it a shot," he concluded while adding the names of some popular fast food joints like Papa John's, Chipotle, Tropical Smoothie Cafe and many more. Some of his viewers were convinced by the hack, but many doubted him as well. @gmonnney5 wrote, "Bro, they be giving you a free cookie." @nielgordon0 remarked, "Most times, you don't get the reward unless you do it a few weeks before." @user21551899 remarked, "Most apps patched this, they wait 24 hours to send you a birthday gift."

While some people definitely need these quick hacks on their food delivery apps to hopefully grab some free food, some places serve free meals to every hungry person, no questions asked. Perfectly Frank — a hot dog and burger shop — has been running a free meal initiative to feed the community with meal donations from customers. The program, Franks for Friends, offers one free meal per day to anyone who needs one ever since the pandemic struck. "Maybe COVID-19 hit them hard or they're in between job switches or maybe they're taking a meal for their neighbor," Tarah Morris, the owner of Perfectly Frank, told CNN.

"We don't ask any questions," Morris added. Anyone who needs a free meal can go to the restaurant, at 4408 Monarch Way on the Old Dominion University campus, pull a ticket off the Franks for Friends bulletin board, and exchange it for a menu item. "The idea for the initiative began with a single donation," Morris revealed. Community donations decreased after the restaurant reopened to in-person dining, as people felt a sense of normalcy returning. A friend and longtime customer gifted $2,000 to the restaurant, asking Morris to give $100 to each staff member and use the rest to feed the community. From there, Morris started a fund, allowing customers to pay forward a meal if they'd like to do so.

You can follow @thankucheese on TikTok for content on automobiles.