What if you walked into a restaurant, looked at their menu, and saw that there was food challenge on the menu. It says if you’re able to eat their exorbitantly hot chicken wings, or their insanely sized pizza, then you’d win $100,000. Is it too good to be true? Is it even possible if they’re willing to pony up that much cash? How could the restaurant even afford to have such a challenge?
Easily. They probably took out contest insurance. Most times contest insurance covers one-day events, tournaments, or competitions rather than long-running challenges, but it’s certainly possible to arrange some kind of contest insurance coverage like that.
It works rather simply. Take a hole in one competition for example. The odds of getting a hole in one are pretty astronomical (12,500:1), but it’s entirely possible. The hole in one contest offers an amazing prize for anyone who can make a hole in one on a par three hole. If no one gets a hole in one, no one wins the prize. The contest organizers pay a premium for the contest insurance and that’s that. Should someone defy the odds of a hole in one, they’d win said fabulous prize, and the contest insurance providers would have to handle the pay out, without the organizers having to pay a single cent of it.
Of course, some eating challenges are so hard they probably don’t even need contest insurance since a rare, bold few will ever be able to conquer them. Here are a few such eating contests!
Fire In Your Hole.
Munchies in Sarasota, Florida, bets hungry patrons that they won’t be able to eat 10 wings, a typically sized order. Why is it a challenge? Oh, only because they’re coated in a sauce that’s made with the ghost pepper, which isthe hottest pepper in the entire world. Plus, challengers only have 20 minutes to eat them, too. Conquerors get their photo on the hall of fame.
Pho Garden.
At Pho Garden in San Francisco, California, if you can manage to eat your way through four total pounds of tripe, beef, and noodles in a seemingly never ending amount of broth in just one hour, you win a spot on the wall of fame.
Kitchen Sink.
The San Francisco Creamery Co. in Walnut Creek, California dares anyone’s sweet tooth to work its way over a mountainous ice cream sundae called the “kitchen sink” built from eight scoops of ice cream, eight toppings, three bananas, whipped cream, nuts, and one cherry on top. Now, if someone manages to demolish the sugary titan, they earn free ice cream at the restaurant for a year, though chances are they’ll be put off of the sweet stuff for longer than that.
Although most of these challenges only offer the prize of bragging rights and a spot on the wall of fame, these restaurants could easily take contest insurance out to offer bigger, better prizes. If they did, they’d surely attract exponentially more customers! If you have any questions about contest insurance, feel free to ask in the comments. Visit here for more.
