Over the past several weeks, a fast food chain with its origins right here in the metro made national headlines and went viral online, though not necessarily in the way it intended.
Hawaiian Bros, founded in 2018 in Belton, recently launched its “Plates for Plates” promotion, offering a free classic lunch plate redeemable through its app the day after every Kansas City Royals home game in which the team scored at least six runs. As the Royals’ bats heated up, the promotion exploded in popularity and even drew national attention, with commentators on ESPN, Fox Sports, and other media outlets discussing it.
However, the excitement surrounding the promotion took a turn this past week as the Royals opened their first May homestand with a 6 to 2 victory over the Guardians. The next day, thousands of people, myself included, logged in to redeem their free meal. Unfortunately, things quickly unraveled as staff simply could not keep up with the overwhelming surge of customers attempting to use the promotion.
The goodwill and excitement the restaurant hoped to create rapidly turned into frustration and disappointment because of poor logistical planning. As a result of what had clearly become an unsustainable offer, Hawaiian Bros announced the following day that the promotion would be converted to a buy one get one deal. According to a company representative, more than 42,000 meals had already been redeemed, and leadership was surprised by the overwhelming popularity of the promotion.
What surprises me is that they were surprised.
Krispy Kreme ran a very similar promotion during the mid-2000s, allowing fans to redeem their ticket stub for a free dozen doughnuts the day after the Royals recorded 12 or more hits. Even though that promotion was limited only to fans who attended the game, it still resulted in massive traffic jams and extremely long lines at the company’s three metro area locations.
The logistical difficulty of offering free food to anyone in the city on specific days without knowing what days those will be until the evening before should have been obvious long before this program was launched. Think about it. How do you properly staff locations and maintain enough food inventory on only a few hours’ notice while still delivering the customer experience you want people to have? The simple answer is that you cannot. In my opinion, this represented a monumental failure in strategic planning.
Retirement planning works very much the same way. It is easy to become consumed by the exciting parts of retirement such as freedom, travel, hobbies, more time with grandchildren, and relief from the daily grind of work. But just like Hawaiian Bros discovered, enthusiasm without proper planning can quickly create unintended consequences. A retirement strategy that appears solid during favorable conditions can quickly fall apart if it’s never stress tested against reality.
That is why successful retirement planning is not simply about chasing returns or dreaming about the future. It is about building a plan capable of handling uncertainty. Markets fluctuate, inflation changes purchasing power, healthcare costs rise, and people live longer than ever before. The goal is not merely to reach retirement, but to remain financially secure throughout it. Good strategic planning means considering logistical realities before pressure arrives, not after. Because whether you are giving away free meals or funding a thirty-year retirement, the real challenge is not creating excitement. It is making sure the plan is sustainable.
(Past performance is no guarantee of future results. The advice is general in nature and not intended for specific situations)