Photo by thehfo

Of the many (many, many, many) restaurants offering deals to government employees affected by the shutdown, Z-Burger was one of the most generous. The D.C. area burger chain gave away the cooked beef patties for free to furloughed workers and learned quickly that people are into that sort of thing.

According to Eater, Z-Burger gave away 15,840 burgers over three days. That’s more than $88,000 worth of food. Owner Peter Tabibian explained why they had to stop (a.k.a. the obvious) to the Huffington Post.

“Every day we are giving away $30,000 worth of food,” he said, explaining that this amount translates to about “5-6,000 burgers” per day at his four D.C. locations. Tababian also said lines “200 deep” are burning out his employees.

“I’m sorry I can’t do it longer than Thursday. It’s going to put me out of business,” he said.

Congress claims another victim.