‘Mammoth’ crowd causes frenzy in malls over P8 burger promo

A mammoth crowd caused quite a frenzy in SM malls on Monday just to take a bite of an P8-burger promo for a local burger joint’s eight anniversary.

The branches of Zark’s burger in SM City Bacoor and SM San Mateo was overwhelmed with a huge crowd of people hoping to be among the 80 lucky customers who could avail themselves of the burger joint’s anniversary promo.

The anniversary promo happened to be scheduled on a holiday, as the country commemorates National Heroes’ Day.

Netizen Sacen Sacay shot the whole ordeal in a Facebook video post, showing people at SM City Bacoor clambering over the stairs in a mad rush to avail themselves of the promo.

A laughing voice on the video can be heard: “Para sa Zark’s!”

Netizen Pauline Cabal Estrada also posted a Facebook video taken at SM San Mateo showing people thronging into the glass doors of Zark’s.

She even coined the famous line from the HBO show “Game of Thrones,” “Winter is here,” in an apparent comparison of the huge crowd to the show’s ice zombies called White Walkers.

On Twitter, netizens called out the comparison to the zombies in the Korean movie “Train to Busan.”

zark’s 8-peso promo, more like train to busan pic.twitter.com/M6x6JBETza

— sheen (@shnnt_) August 28, 2017

They heaved a sigh of relief that the incident that could almost have been a “mini-stampede” did not result in more serious damages.

At SM North Annex, a relatively smaller crowd was seen pushing against members of the security personnel who barred the doors to the Zark’s branch there, as seen by this reporter who came by the scene.

On its official Facebook account, Zark’s expressed its gratitude for the “mammoth” support, but apologized for the inconvenience caused by the incident.

“We at Zark’s Burgers express our deep gratitude for the mammoth response to our P8 for first 80 customers in-store promo to celebrate our 8th anniversary. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience experienced by patrons and other mall shoppers unintentionally brought about by this celebration that was intended to thank all of you for 8 years of loyal support and patronage,” the statement read.

“We would also like to thank all officers, mall managers and security teams for ensuring everyone’s safety. Thank you,” it added.