President Joe Biden celebrated record-setting small business figures on Tuesday with a quintessentially American meal: a burger and fries.
In a statement Tuesday, President Biden hailed the fact that more than 10 million small businesses were created in the first two years of his administration, calling it “two greatest years for new small business applications on record.”
“Small businesses are the engines of our economy and the hearts of our communities,” Biden said in the statement – and to mark the achievement, the president turned to a local business in the Washington, D.C., community: Ghostburger, a restaurant that started out as a pop-up during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In a video showing Biden calling in his order to Ghostburger, Biden hailed the "great news," adding: "10.4 million people have applied to start a new business, that's more than any time in American history in a single period."
Biden called the restaurant to place his order and spoke to Brittany Spaddy, the restaurant's first employee, according to the Washingtonian.
"I may’ve caught Brittany off guard," Biden wrote in a Twitter post alongside a video of him speaking to Spaddy.
The restaurant's owners, Josh and Kelly Phillips, told The Washington Post that Spaddy wasn't scheduled to work that day, but they asked her to come in to help with a VIP customer.
"She earned that call," Josh Phillips said to the outlet.
"I feel like he said, ‘How’s your day?’ Because when I tell you I froze, I froze," Spaddy told The Washington Post. "Like, I kind of felt embarrassed at how much I froze on the phone."
"I’m like, he’s not even in front of you, and you’re fiddling with the computer screens, just trying to take the order properly," she added. "You don’t want to mess this order up!”
According to a receipt posted on Instagram by Kelly Phillips, Biden and Harris ordered two single Ghostburgers – which, according to the restaurant's menu, are topped with American cheese, red onion, pickles and "spooky sauce" – and two orders of crinkle-cut fries. The president ordered bacon on one of the burgers.
"Thank you for the honor and for supporting a local small business!" Kelly Phillips wrote on Instagram.
Ghostburger is not the first restaurant Biden has frequented owned by this restaurant group; the president visited Taqueria Las Gemelas, also owned by Destination Unknown Restaurants, in honor of Cinco de Mayo last year.