Table of Contents
Wimpy UK vs South Africa: Prices Compared (2026)
Last updated:
Wimpy is one of the few restaurant brands a South African can walk into in London and feel at home, and one of the few a Brit can find waiting for them in Durban or Johannesburg. The odd part is who owns both sides. South Africa’s Famous Brands bought Wimpy South Africa in 2003, then bought Wimpy UK in 2007. So the Wimpy in a Kent high street and the Wimpy in a Gauteng mall answer to the same head office in Midrand. The menus, though, have spent twenty years drifting apart, and so have the prices.
The first Wimpy Bar opened in London in 1954, run by J. Lyons under licence from the American Wimpy Grills. South Africa got its first Wimpy in 1967, in Murchies Passage in Durban, and reportedly drew a thousand people on opening day. Today the balance of the brand has flipped: about 61 Wimpy restaurants remain in the UK, against 457 in South Africa at the end of Famous Brands’ 2026 financial year. This page compares what the same meal costs in both countries, item by item.
One method note before the numbers. Wimpy UK has no single national price list: each restaurant sets its own prices, and its official site publishes a menu per location. The UK in-store prices below come from those official location menus (Ashford, Birkenhead and Felixstowe), checked on 4 November 2026. Delivery apps charge more, so where Deliveroo, Just Eat and Uber Eats branch menus differ, that range is given too. South African prices are the national menu prices from our Wimpy menu prices in South Africa guide, checked against wimpy.co.za on 4 November 2026. Pounds are converted at £1 = R22.21, the rate on 4 November 2026.
The Burgers, Side by Side
| Item | Wimpy UK (in store) | UK price in rand | Wimpy South Africa |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hamburger / Wimpy Burger | £4.20 | About R93 | R79.90 |
| Cheeseburger | £4.85 | About R108 | R92.90 |
| Quarterpounder with Cheese / Big Cheese Burger | £6.15 | About R137 | R114.90 |
| Double Cheeseburger / biggest SA burger | £7.60 | About R169 | R139.90 (Big Champion Burger) |
| Chicken Burger | £6.75 (Crispy Chicken) | About R150 | R89.90 |
| Chips (regular portion) | £3.40 | About R76 | R38.00 (medium) |
| Milkshake | £4.95 (delivery menus) | About R110 | R47.90 (Classic Milkshake) |
South Africa wins every row, but the size of the win changes a lot by item. The plain burgers are the closest contest. A UK hamburger at the Ashford in-store price of £4.20 works out to about R93, against R79.90 for the standard Wimpy Burger at home. The cheeseburger gap is similar: £4.85, about R108, against the R92.90 Cheese Burger on the South African menu. Order that same cheeseburger on a delivery app in the UK and the gap widens fast, because branch delivery prices run from £5.30 in Morden, Strood and Clacton up to £5.75 in Farnborough and £5.85 on one national listing, which is R118 to R130 for a single cheeseburger.
The chicken burger is where the two menus stop looking like cousins. The UK Crispy Chicken is £6.75 in store, about R150, and £7.40 to £7.70 on delivery. The South African Chicken Burger is R89.90. You could add a medium chips at R38.00 to the South African order and still pay less than the UK charges for the burger alone. The big burgers tell the same story at a higher level: the UK Original Quarterpounder Cheese is £6.15 in store (about R137), while the closest South African equivalents, the Big Cheese Burger and the double cheese builds, sit between R114.90 and R124.90.
Breakfast, Where the Gap Gets Silly
Wimpy built its name on cooked breakfasts in both countries, and breakfast is where a South African visiting Britain will feel the exchange rate bite hardest. The UK flagship plate, the Big Brekkie, costs £11.85 in Ashford, £11.80 in Birkenhead and £12.15 in Felixstowe on the official menus. At R22.21 to the pound, that is R262 to R270 for one breakfast. The South African equivalent, the Mega Breakfast, is R114.90. Two Mega Breakfasts, R229.80, still cost less than one Big Brekkie.
Drop a size and the pattern holds. The UK All-Day Breakfast is £9.85 to £10.05, roughly R219 to R223. The smaller Sunrise plate is £7.35 to £7.50, roughly R163 to R167. South Africa’s Classic Brekkie is R59.90 and the Mzansi Brekkie, a local plate the UK menu has no answer to, is R54.90. Even the UK breakfast muffins, the cheapest cooked item on the British menu at £3.60 to £4.45 in store (about R80 to R99), cost more than a full plated Classic Brekkie in South Africa. The one British breakfast South Africans will recognise by name is the Classic Wimpy Grill, a patty, frankfurter, egg, tomato and chips plate at £10.25 in Ashford, about R228. South Africa’s Mixed Grill is R179.90.
Chips, Shakes and the Small Stuff
The sides underline the point. A portion of Wimpy chips in the UK is £3.40 on the official Ashford menu, about R76, and £3.75 to £4.00 on delivery. A medium chips in South Africa is R38.00, almost exactly half the converted UK price. A UK Thick Shake is £4.95 on the delivery menus checked, about R110, against R47.90 for a Classic Milkshake in South Africa. South Africa also still runs its own coffee identity, the Famous Wimpy Coffee at R25.90, a line the British menu does not carry in the same form.
The Full Wimpy UK Menu
Most people searching for the Wimpy UK menu want the whole thing in one place, so here it is. Wimpy UK does not publish one national price list, and its national menu pages show items and calories with no prices at all. The prices below are the in-store prices from the official Ashford, Kent location menu, checked on 5 November 2026. Your local restaurant will be close to these figures but not identical, and the note under the breakfast table shows how much they can move.
Burgers
| Burger | Ashford in store |
|---|---|
| Wimpy Hamburger | £4.20 |
| Wimpy Cheeseburger | £4.85 |
| Bendy and Cheese | £5.30 |
| Original Quarterpounder Cheese | £6.15 |
| Spicy Bean and Slaw (vegetarian) | £6.25 |
| Fish Burger | £6.35 |
| Crispy Chicken | £6.75 |
| Crispy Chicken Stack | £7.55 |
| Double Wimpy Cheeseburger | £7.60 |
| Quarterpounder Bacon and Cheese | £7.85 |
| Hot N Loaded | £8.50 |
| Chicken Bacon Stack | £9.05 |
| The Beyond Burger (vegan) | £9.65 |
| Original Halfpounder | £9.85 |
| Big n Mighty | £10.95 |
| Halfpounder Bacon and Cheese | £11.55 |
Sixteen burgers is a bigger line-up than most visitors expect, and it runs from the £4.20 hamburger to the £11.55 Halfpounder Bacon and Cheese. Two names are pure Wimpy: the Bendy and Cheese, built on the chain’s curly pork bendy, and the Quarterpounder, a name Wimpy kept in Britain long after everyone else moved on. The Beyond Burger is the vegan option, and Wimpy says it is cooked and prepared completely separately from the meat burgers.
Classic Plates and Chicken
| Item | Ashford in store |
|---|---|
| Chicken Wrap | £5.25 |
| Meat-Free Wrap with Plant-Based Strips | £5.25 |
| Jacket Potato with 1 Topping | £6.45 |
| Club Sandwich | £6.95 |
| Mini Grill | £6.95 |
| Loaded Cheesy Chips | £6.95 |
| Strips and Chips | £7.55 |
| Plant-Based Strips and Chips | £7.55 |
| Jacket Potato with 2 Toppings | £7.60 |
| Chicken Salad Basket | £8.25 |
| Meat Free Salad Basket | £8.25 |
| Classic Wimpy Grill | £10.25 |
| Fish, Chips and Peas | £10.95 |
| The Big Grill | £13.25 |
Jacket potato fillings are baked beans, grated cheese, mushrooms, coleslaw or bacon. The Big Grill at £13.25 is the largest plate on the menu and the current flagship of the grills.
Breakfast
| Breakfast | Ashford in store |
|---|---|
| Toasted Teacake | £2.55 |
| Bacon and Egg Muffin | £3.60 |
| Sausage and Egg Muffin | £3.60 |
| Hash Brown and Egg Muffin | £3.60 |
| Bacon, Egg and Hash Brown Muffin | £4.30 |
| Sausage, Egg and Hash Brown Muffin | £4.30 |
| Meat-Free Mini | £5.70 |
| Breakfast Stack | £6.70 |
| Sunrise | £7.40 |
| All-Day Breakfast | £9.95 |
| Big Brekkie | £11.85 |
Every muffin comes with a free-range fried egg and a cheese slice in a toasted English muffin, with Wimpy Ketchup or HP Sauce. Breakfast add-ons (an extra bacon slice, sausage, egg, hash brown, beans or mushrooms) are £1.55 each at Ashford. A small honesty note on the All-Day Breakfast: Ashford’s own breakfast page prices it at £9.95 while its mains page says £9.60, and the chips on the two pages differ too (£3.40 against £3.65). Even one restaurant cannot agree with itself, which is exactly why this page names the location behind every UK price.
Sides, Add-Ons and Sauces
| Side | Ashford in store |
|---|---|
| Mini Corn on the Cob | £1.35 |
| Coleslaw | £1.35 |
| Peas | £1.50 |
| Mushrooms | £1.50 |
| Heinz Baked Beans | £1.50 |
| 4 Mozzarella Melts | £3.35 |
| 6 Onion Rings | £3.35 |
| Wimpy Chips | £3.40 |
| Steakhouse Seasoned Chips | £3.50 |
| 3 Chicken Strips | £3.95 |
| 10 Onion Rings | £4.50 |
| Sweet Potato Chips | £4.60 |
| 6 Mozzarella Melts | £4.60 |
| Cheesy Chips | £4.65 |
| 5 Chicken Strips | £6.95 |
| 10 Chicken Strips (takeaway and delivery only) | £11.95 |
Plant-based strips are priced the same as chicken strips. Add-ons run from £1.00 for a cheese slice to £1.50 for bacon, a fried egg, a hash brown, sausage or jalapeños, with a Pork Bendy at £3.60. Sauces are Wimpy Special Sauce, Wimpy Ketchup, Wimpy Mayo, BBQ, HP Brown Sauce and Vegan Mayo; the location menu does not price the dip pots, so ask in store.
Meal Deals, Kids Meals, Desserts and Drinks
The deal to know is Wimpy Wednesday: a choice of four burgers with Wimpy Chips and any sparkling drink for £8.50, dine-in on Wednesdays, listed on the official national menu. Individual restaurants run their own offers on top. Ashford’s current savers list has a Saver Cheeseburger, Saver Sausage Burger or Saver Chicken Burger at £2.95 each, a Saver Whirl at £1.85 and a Saver Sparkling Drink at £1.95, plus a muffin and hot drink deal at £4.50. On delivery apps the menu is rebuilt around Burger Meals (the burger with chips and a sparkling drink), which run from about £12.85 for a Hamburger Meal to about £20.90 for a Big N Mighty Meal on the listings checked, well above in-store prices.
The kids menu is a combo: pick a main (Junior Hamburger, Junior Cheeseburger, two Crispy Chicken Strips, Plant-based Strips or a Sausage), a side (chips, beans, peas, a hash brown or mini corn), a drink and a dessert (waffle and ice cream, jelly and ice cream, or a Junior Whirl) for one price, £4.95 at the official Eltham location. A kids Thick Shake is a 65p upgrade.
Desserts are a bigger range than the old Wimpy is given credit for: three sundaes (Churro Whirl, Brownie Whirl and the Wimpy Whirl), Loaded Churros, Caramel Apple Pie, Berry Nice Cheesecake, a Waffle Stack with ice cream, a Brown Derby and a Chocolate Brownie, plus Wimpy Whirl tubs with toppings from chocolate sauce to Biscoff crumb. The official site lists no dessert prices; menu listings put a plain Wimpy Whirl at about £3.25 and one with sauce at about £4.35. Drinks are the expensive surprise on the UK menu: soft drinks such as Pepsi, Pepsi Max, 7UP Zero and Tango are listed around £3.65 to £3.70, Lipton Ice Tea about £4.05 and Iced Coffee about £4.30, before you get to the six Thick Shake flavours (Vanilla, Chocolate, Strawberry, Banana, Salted Caramel and Coffee) at £4.95 on the delivery menus checked for this page and up to £5.40 on other listings.
Two Menus That Grew Apart
Same owner, same red branding, but the two Wimpys no longer sell the same food. The British chain kept the format Britain invented for it: you are shown to a table, a server takes your order, and the food arrives on a plate. That table service model is still standard across the UK restaurants. South Africa went the Famous Brands route of counter ordering and mall food courts, and its menu filled up with local items Britain never sees: the Mzansi Brekkie at R54.90, wors rolls from R69.90, toasted sandwiches and the Fully Loaded Dagwood at R154.90. Our Spur vs Wimpy comparison shows how that local menu stacks up against its sit-down rivals at home.
Britain kept things South Africa dropped or never had. The Quarterpounder name survives there, breakfast comes in a toasted muffin, and fish and chips is a proper menu line (Fish, Chips and Peas at £10.95 in Ashford, about R243). South Africa’s Wimpy, with 457 restaurants to Britain’s 61, is by far the bigger business now, and its menu reads like a South African family restaurant that happens to share a name with a British diner. For a wider look at how far the rand stretches on fast food, our Big Mac Index 2026 page runs the same conversion exercise on McDonald’s.
Read the Conversions With Care
A straight currency conversion always flatters South Africa, because British wages and British prices are both higher. A £5.30 cheeseburger is an ordinary price in Morden; it only looks dramatic when you turn it into R118. So treat this comparison for what it is: a traveller’s guide. If you are a South African landing in London, these are the rand amounts that will actually leave your account. If you are a Brit on holiday in Durban, Wimpy is one of the cheapest familiar meals you will find, with a full breakfast for the converted price of a London coffee and a muffin. We run the same exercise for Nando’s in our Nando’s South Africa vs UK comparison, and the shape of the result is similar.
Verdict
On price, it is not close. South Africa’s Wimpy is cheaper on every comparable item, narrowly on the plain burgers and by a wide margin on chicken burgers, chips, shakes and especially breakfast, where the flagship plate costs less than half the converted UK price. The UK Wimpy’s appeal is different: table service, a smaller and more old-fashioned menu, and the novelty of eating in the country where the Wimpy Bar started. If your budget is doing the choosing, eat your Wimpy in South Africa. The full South African price list is on our cheapest fast food in South Africa page if you want to see where Wimpy sits against the rest.
Questions People Ask
Is Wimpy a South African or British brand?
Neither, originally. Wimpy started in the United States in 1934, J. Lyons launched it in Britain in 1954, and the first South African Wimpy opened in Durban in 1967. Today both the UK and South African chains belong to South Africa’s Famous Brands, which bought Wimpy South Africa in 2003 and Wimpy UK in 2007.
How much is a Wimpy cheeseburger in the UK vs South Africa?
On official UK in-store menus the Wimpy Cheeseburger is £4.85 (Ashford), about R108 at £1 = R22.21. On UK delivery apps it runs £5.30 to £5.85 depending on the branch, about R118 to R130. In South Africa the Cheese Burger is R92.90.
Why do Wimpy UK prices vary so much by branch?
Because there is no national UK price list. Each Wimpy restaurant in the UK sets its own prices and publishes its own menu on the official site, and delivery platforms add their own markups on top, typically £0.45 to £0.90 per burger on the branches checked.
How much is a Wimpy breakfast in the UK vs South Africa?
The UK Big Brekkie is £11.80 to £12.15 on official menus, about R262 to R270. South Africa’s Mega Breakfast is R114.90, and the Classic Brekkie is R59.90, less than the converted price of a UK breakfast muffin (£3.60 to £4.45, about R80 to R99).
Does Wimpy UK still do table service?
Yes. Table service is still the standard format in UK Wimpy restaurants: you are seated, order at the table and eat off a plate. South African Wimpys mostly use counter ordering, especially in mall and food court locations.
How many Wimpy restaurants are there in the UK and South Africa?
About 61 in the UK (the latest Wimpy-specific published figure, January 2025) and 457 in South Africa at the end of Famous Brands’ 2026 financial year in February 2026.
Is Wimpy cheaper in South Africa?
Yes, on every item we compared, once UK prices are converted at £1 = R22.21. The gap is small on plain burgers (about R93 vs R79.90 for a hamburger) and large on breakfast (about R263 vs R114.90 for the flagship plates), chicken burgers (about R150 vs R89.90) and shakes (about R110 vs R47.90).
What is on the Wimpy UK menu?
Sixteen burgers (from the £4.20 Hamburger to the £11.55 Halfpounder Bacon and Cheese at Ashford), classic plates including grills, fish and chips and jacket potatoes, chicken strips, wraps and salad baskets, a full breakfast range with muffins from £3.60, a kids combo menu, desserts built around the Wimpy Whirl, and Thick Shakes in six flavours. The full list with prices is in the menu section above.
How much is a Wimpy burger meal in the UK?
In store there is no single national meal price, because each restaurant sets its own. The standing national deal is Wimpy Wednesday at £8.50 for a burger with Wimpy Chips and a sparkling drink, and some branches run saver burgers at £2.95. On delivery apps, Burger Meals (burger, chips and a sparkling drink) run from about £12.85 for a Hamburger Meal to about £20.90 for a Big N Mighty Meal.
Is Wimpy UK halal?
No. Wimpy states in its own FAQs that none of its UK restaurants holds halal accreditation. The menu does carry vegetarian options and a vegan Beyond Burger, which Wimpy says is cooked and prepared completely separately.
Does Wimpy UK have a kids menu?
Yes. The kids menu is a combo: a main (Junior Hamburger, Junior Cheeseburger, two Crispy Chicken Strips, Plant-based Strips or a Sausage), a side (chips, beans, peas, a hash brown or mini corn on the cob), a drink and a dessert for one price, £4.95 at the official Eltham location page, with a kids Thick Shake as a 65p upgrade.
Sources and checking: UK prices from Wimpy’s official location menus at wimpy.uk.com (Ashford, Birkenhead, Felixstowe) and Deliveroo, Just Eat and Uber Eats branch menus (Morden, Strood, Clacton-on-Sea, Wembley, Farnborough), checked 4 November 2026, with the full menu section taken from the official Ashford location menu, checked 5 November 2026; UK prices vary by restaurant and delivery platforms charge more. South African prices from wimpy.co.za, checked 4 November 2026. Exchange rate £1 = R22.21 (currency.me.uk, 4 November 2026). Store counts: Famous Brands reporting. This site is an independent price guide and is not affiliated with Wimpy or Famous Brands.