We all know the delight of doing a deep clean in our home only to find treasures once thought lost. A friendship bracelet from your high school bestie, an old Polly Pocket you can’t buy anymore, or—in one woman’s case—a decades-old coupon to your favorite fast-food restaurant.
Krisha Salim-Mendoza (the.reluctant.influencer) was the lucky winner of the latter. She found a free meal coupon to Burger King from 1992 when going through her elementary school things. She shared her discovery in a viral TikTok and brought viewers along as she tried to redeem it—33 years later.
A 33-Year-Old Burger King Coupon
In her original TikTok, Salim-Mendoza shows a “Certificate of Achievement” presented to her elementary school self in 1992 for being Student of the Month. It made her eligible for a free hamburger at Burger King.
The kicker? The expiration line had no date written on it.
So Salim-Mendoza did what anyone with a free burger voucher would do and headed straight to her local Burger King.
Did She Get Her Free Burger?
In a follow-up post, Salim-Mendoza films outside a Burger King Del Vista location with the coupon and her sixth-grade school ID in hand.
“So let’s see if they’ll give me a free burger, maybe cheese too, and not charge me extra for it,” she says.
She walks inside up to the counter and hands her coupon to the cashier. After explaining, the cashier walks away, and Salim-Mendoza tells the camera, “She said yes!”
However, a couple of other Burger King employees try to deliberate the validity of the coupon.
The clip then transitions to Salim-Mendoza saying they probably got “too excited” because the workers realized it was from 1992.
“They’re trying to see if they’re gonna let me do it,” she says. “I don’t think it’s gonna happen, guys.”
But luck was on Salim-Mendoza’s side: the clip concluded with her holding up a hamburger and the coupon.
“Look what I got,” she says, donning a paper Burger King crown. “Got my hamburger from 1992.”
Viewers Are Happy For Her
Salim-Mendoza’s original post received over 111,000 likes, so several were ecstatic to see she got her free hamburger.
One top comment compared it “finding money that was forgotten,” while many others praised Burger King for honoring the coupon. As one wrote, “I like that they weren’t petty.”
While neither Burger King corporate nor the official Burger King account responded to Salim-Mendoza, she praised her local BK.
“Shout out to Mily, the manager!!!! She’s a queen!!!” she wrote in a comment.
This isn’t the first TikToker to go viral after finding a decades-old coupon for a prize. In a viral post, a woman found out her mother kept a Gold Starburst as part of the “Hunt for Gold” Sweepstakes. At the time, despite finding the winning Starburst, she didn’t get the $10,000 because the deadline had passed. However, the woman’s TikTok went viral enough that Starburst ended up responding—and sending them the prize money.
“They blessed us, they did,” the woman said in an update video. “We’re good.”
BroBible reached out to Salim-Mendoza via TikTok direct message and to Burger King via email.