Whether it’s a date, two friends grabbing lunch or college roomies looking for alternatives to the awful dining hall food - dinner for two can be expensive.

Enter Krystal’s $10 for 10.

Now at all Krystal locations, you can purchase 10 Krystal burgers, any two sides of your choice and two drinks for only 10 bucks.

Not only does this give you a TON of delicious food with little strain on your budget, but it makes dividing the check at the end of the meal super easy.

Here’s a tip for those tailgating this weekend or throwing a Labor Day bash: Purchase a couple of $10 for 10 combo meal, then choose various sides and drinks with each order, and you’ve got yourself the perfect pre-game or party meal ready to serve to plenty of folks.

With noon rapidly approaching, soon it will be time for you and your co-workers to break for lunch.  And if your office, like ours, doesn’t have a cafeteria in the basement, everyone must either head out on their own or decide as a group what to eat.

For us this process usually begins around 11:30 a.m. then concludes an hour later with some unlucky person in charge of remembering everyone’s order as they run out to grab the grub.  Undoubtedly however, a co-worker’s order gets mixed up with someone’s sandwich having tomatoes, not on wheat bread or having the wrong side.

Now we know many of you are closet Krystal lovers and like to keep your undying love for all things small and square to yourself, but here’s a thought:  make your lunchtime routine easy by proclaiming your Krystal love and adding it to your office lunch rotation.

Think about how easy it is to pick up a couple of Sackfuls of Krystal burgers (some with cheese, some without), several Chiks, a couple of Pups and an order or two of Chili Cheese Fries - then voila - you’ve got the perfect office lunch. Everyone can pick and choose what they want, thus eliminating the inevitable whining that comes along with other take-out orders. Plus, think about how happy it makes you to indulge in Krystal, so we bet a couple of Pups will perk up even the grumpiest co-worker.

So the next time the “what are we going to eat for lunch today” question comes up (like in 10 minutes for those of us on the east coast), save your co-workers, and yourself, and say, “Let’s do Krystal today”.

Restaurant critic, food columnist and cookbook author Robb Walsh recently wrote a post about Krystal for Eating Our Words, the HoustonPress food blog.

In the post, Walsh reminiscences about being introduced to Krystal during his freshman year at the The University of Texas at Austin. He then goes on to discuss the history of the company, the restaurant opening in Houston and even links to Krystal’s Facebook page and website. Finally, Walsh shares his favorite way to enjoy Krystal burgers.

You can read the entire post here.

It’s always great to hear other people’s Krystal stories - especially when told by a famous food writer.

Got a Krystal story you’d like to share?

Shoot us an email at info@krystalist.com. We’ll read it, and possibly share it, even if you aren’t a famous writer.

Photo by Robb Walsh

For those of you wishing you had just ONE more Krystal burger to enjoy after devouring the #1 combo - you’re in luck.

This week Krystal introduced a new combo meal that includes five Krystal burgers, your choice of a medium side (like fries or a salad) and a medium drink, all for only - you guessed it -  five bucks.

The combo is currently available.

So next time you visit Krystal (like, say today for lunch?) be prepared to tell your “First Love” combo to step aside, there’s a new combo in town and she’s giving you more Krystal burger love for less.

No, seriously. Today is National Leave the Office Earlier Day. See, it’s listed right here in Chase’s Calendar of Events. Apparently the holiday was created to encourage employees to improve their productivity and commit to working no more than eight hours today, thus allowing more time at home with their families.

So what are you still doing reading this? Get back to work so you can leave on time. And hey, why not continue your streak of productivity and stop by your nearest Krystal for dinner? Not only will your family be delighted and surprised that you’re home early, but we’re pretty sure they’ll be excited about your dinner selection as well.

And while we’re observing holidays, it’s also National Yell “Fudge” at Cobras Day. So today at noon, walk outside and yell “fudge”, as fudge apparently makes cobras gag and scares them away. We are not making this up. There’s even a card for it here.

Photo courtesy of bioclastic’s Flickr photostream.

During our morning search for all things Krystal, we came across a couple of Twitter posts referencing the new Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull movie - except Crystal was spelled Krystal. And that made us chuckle. Then we saw this blog post, which we stole our title from (we can’t be clever all the time), and well, that made us laugh (that, or the fact that it’s the Friday before Memorial Day weekend. Either way, we’re giddy).

Then we started thinking about what a great parody Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Krystal Burger could be. Indiana Jones must rescue the sacred Krystal hamburger from the hands of the evil doers, as the Krystal holds the secret to all knowledge and grants its owner world domination. Or something like that. Call us Spielberg, we’ll work out the details.

Here’s the trailer for the real movie, which is out now. Looks pretty good, except pretend Harrison Ford is searching for a Krystal burger and that makes it a thousand times better.

Because we promised to give you an inside look at the inner workings of Krystal, we want to share this menu secret: you can add bacon, cheese and jalapeños to your Krystal burger.

Ok, so the secret is somewhat out as you’ve probably seen the gigantic signs at your nearest Krystal encouraging you to “pile it on”.

But, here’s the real secret: you can add these delicious toppings to your Krystal burger at anytime. Yeah, this isn’t an LTO (that’s the acronym us folks in the business use for Limited Time Offer). You can have yourself a Krystal burger with cheese, bacon and jalapeños anytime you want. Or, if you’re not a jalapeño fan, a Krystal with cheese and bacon. Or, you could ask for it with cheese and jalapeños, or bacon and cheese, or just bacon or, well, you get the idea.

So if you want to impress your friends with your mad Krystal-ordering skillz, wait a couple of weeks, or months, and then pull out the “I want a Sackful of Krystals with bacon, cheese and jalapeños” order. First they’ll be all like “you can’t order that anymore”. Then you’ll be like “oh yeah, well I’m on the inside track because I read krystalist.com, and I know for a fact that I can order Krystals with bacon, cheese and jalapeños anytime I want.” And then you’ll get your order with all the delicious toppings added, and your friends will be super impressed.

Ok, so that probably won’t happen. But you can still order Krystal burgers that have your favorite combination of toppings added, which is just as good, if not better.

You know what they say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery so when this article appeared yesterday in the Dallas Morning News we were, well, … flattered.

The article mentions that various versions of Krystal-like hamburgers have been appearing on the menus of restaurants all across Dallas and that even national chains have gotten in on the action including Chilli’s, T.G.I. Friday’s, Ruby Tuesday’s and Hardee’s.

While other restaurants going small is nothing new (Burger King, Wendy’s and McDonald’s all introduced small, square burgers back in the 1980s - see here), it seems others are finally realizing that it really is “hip to be square” and small, something Krystal has known for more than 75 years.