As the days count down to Halloween, a deal between Chipotle and Spirit Halloween for novelty costumes has added to the options consumers have had at their disposal to dress up as their favorite fast-food dishes come October, whether for trick-or-treating or holiday parties. In fact, quick-service restaurant chains offering costumes depicting fan-favorite foods has been a mini-trend for at least the past five years:
- Chipotle’s just-announced initiative, which saw products debut on September 6, is based on a meme it created two years ago featuring a Chipotle fork bodysuit, inspired by the annual meme trend where fans create funny costume ideas and Photoshop them onto the Spirit Halloween costume bag. The Mexican chain followed up with a Chipotle napkin bodysuit the next year. After 700,000 engagements across the two memes, it brought those two ideas to life as real costumes this year, along with three others: a water cup, a to-go bag, and a burrito. All five are available in sizes adult small to XXL. The chain holds a Boorito promotion, which includes a burrito-themed costume contest, every Halloween season.
- Sonic offered a pet costume on its Sonic Swag Shop in 2022, allowing fans to dress their dogs as either a Sonic hot dog in its branded packaging or a branded Cherry Limeade with a cherry (hat) on top. The costumes came in two sizes to accommodate both small and large dogs.
- White Castle got into the market in 2021 with two official licensed costumes depicting the White Castle Slider and Chicken Rings, respectively, each in their familiar blue and white box. These marked the first costumes for the hamburger chain. The pairing was in response to demand from White Castle fans, or “Cravers.”
- Dunkin’ entered the space in 2020 with two costumes, a donut and a cup of Dunkin’ coffee. They sold out and were brought back in 2021, along with two new options, a cup of Dunkin’ Cold Brew for adults and a box of Munchkins Donut Hole Treats for kids. In 2024, a pet costume is on offer, allowing dogs of various sizes to dress up as Dunkin’ workers.
- Taco Bell introduced four hot sauce packet costumes in tunic or dress styles, as well as a Cheesy Gordita Crunch tunic and a baby-sized burrito wrap, back in 2019. The packets came in four flavors—hot, diablo, verde, and fire—and each featured a hot and saucy double-entendre slogan. The costumes were available on the chain’s Taco Shop e-commerce site.
- KFC also entered the market in 2019, offering a Colonel Sanders white suit, in youth and adult sizes, complete with a family-size KFC chicken bucket as the trick-or-treat bag and accessories such as a wig, mustache and goatee, and glasses. Fans were encouraged to wear their costumes during a window extending from Colonel Sanders’ birthday on September 9 through Halloween. This Spirit Halloween collaboration followed a 2017 effort available on the company’s e-commerce site that included a plastic mask and bib.
While many companies serve as licensees for Halloween costumes, Spirit Halloween is the leading player in costumes based on corporate brand licenses, and especially those with fast food themes. In fact, it was the partner in all of these examples except Taco Bell, Sonic, and KFC’s earliest effort, all of which were offered only on their respective proprietary merchandise sites.
Most of these initiatives are very limited programs, although some reappear on the market in some form after the first iteration. They are not big revenue or awareness generators for the brand owners—although they often attract some good publicity—but they are a simple and fun way to cultivate fan engagement and satisfy the demands of their loyal, Halloween-celebrating customers. And, as indicated by the prevalence of DIY examples posted annually, not to mention generic costumes of French fries, tacos, and other fast-food dishes that sell year after year, many Halloween celebrants gravitate toward fast food-themed costumes.
There is still room for growth in this space; surprisingly few of the top QSR chains have tested Halloween costumes yet, especially given the wide variety of novelty merchandise many of them have made available to their fans in recent years.
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