Am engineer has told how he decided to spend his Saturday off travelling around Ireland rating Supermacs famous cheeseburgers.
Ronan O’Healy, 29, dubbed The Supermacs Advisor on Instagram, took a notion on Wednesday to organise a solo road trip to test out Supermacs cheeseburgers at eight plazas around Ireland.
Speaking exclusively from us, the Ballinasloe native, who is a mechanical design engineer working for a company in Dublin, told us how he spent over 13 hours driving in the car to test out the fast food.
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“I did this for a bit of craic like, but I’m an engineer up in Dublin so that’s my 9-5,” Ronan told us.
“The cheeseburger from Supermacs is an iconic burger. It’s a unique burger. The plaza as well so I wanted to combine them both.
“I was up at 9am, left Rathmines at 9am and I went from there to Kinnegad – that was the first burger. Then I went down to Tipperary town. I should have gone to Barack Obama plaza but I made bits of the route.
"It was Kinnegad to Portlaoise, then Portlaoise to Tipperary, Tipperary to Barack Obama then Barack Obama to Mallow and then Mallow to Tuam, Tuam to Charlestown and then Charlestown to the Galway Plaza. So, eight in total.
“That’s every plaza in Ireland."
Ronan has a dedicated Supermacs page, ratemysupermacs, rating each outlet on his Instagram page.
“I have the Instagram page going for two years now but I was doing it anonymously up until now. I thought it was something to do. Something to pass a Saturday.
“I thought it would get a good bit of traction online and it seemed to do that.”
Ronan said he was leaving the gym on Wednesday when he was trying to decide what his weekend plans should be.
“I was trying to plan what to do for the weekend. So, I was like ‘I might as well travel around Ireland eating burgers’. I’m off the beer too, so I need to fill up my Saturdays so.”
He said he started the Instagram page just before the Covid-19 pandemic hit after he got a “brutal” Supermacs burger from Heuston Station.
“How it started was I was getting the train back from Heuston station, I was heading back to Ballinasloe one Friday and I got a Supermacs in Heuston Station and it was absolutely shocking, it was brutal. I tweeted about it on a train home that I thought it was a disgrace that Heuston was serving this sort of dirt.
“They weren’t doing Supermacs justice. That’s a habit with Supermacs in Dublin, they’re not near as good. They don’t do it justice.
“It got traction on Twitter and one of the boys said, ‘you should make an Instagram page about this and go on the rating route’. So, I started going to Supermacs around the country and rating them anonymously.
“The fact that I don’t work for Supermacs means I can be brutally honest.”
Ronan rated the Galway Plaza as the best rated Supermacs cheeseburger, while Mallow in Cork’s Supermacs was the worst – and the 29-year-old almost got his car stolen while there.
“The Barack Obama Plaza really surprised me as well. Thomas, the manager, was an absolute gent. The actual burger itself, it was an absolute phenomenal burger like. That came out at a 9.4. I didn’t even think they would make the top three but ended up being second.
“Mallow was the worst – Mallow was hectic, so I wasn’t going to eat in there. I got the burger, and I came back to the car, I dropped the burger into the car and I went back in to get a coffee for the drive. Obviously when I was making the coffee, I must’ve let my keys down on the counter and then walked off so I went back to the car, I realised I had no keys.
“When I was walking back into the shop, I saw this fella looking and I have this little yellow illuminous tag on my keys, and I saw that he had it in his hand.”
Ronan followed the man out, who was making his way towards Ronan’s car.
“I let a roar at him, I asked him what he was doing. He said he was trying to see what the car reg was but look, I don’t know. I got the keys back.”
And after his Saturday adventures, Ronan said he could still eat a cheeseburger despite eating so many on Saturday.
A spokesman for Supermacs said: “We had previously heard of the Wild Atlantic Way but we weren’t aware of The Plaza Group Way until we heard what this young man was doing yesterday! He is very committed to, and obviously knows his Supermac’s, so we are delighted that he enjoyed our cheeseburgers so much that he decided to go on a road trip to find the best one.
“It was a good bit of craic and the staff were well up for it and they enjoyed the bit of fun as well. Thankfully our cheeseburgers stood up to the test. They are on a roll!”
And Supermacs have already reached out to Ronan, with Ronan adding: “I’ve loads of ideas, I’ve loads of plans.”
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