Well, that was quick. 
 
 Venison fans, if you were planning on making an Arby’s run this weekend, you’re out of luck. The fast-food chain’s dabble into the deer-hunting demographic sold out in 15 minutes at the one Twin Cities outlet – in St. Louis Park – where it was available. 
 
 “The PR storm preceding it exceeded our expectations,” said John Kelly, Arby’s senior vice president of operations, West region. “The phones have been ringing off the hook.” 
 
 Kelly arrived at 9:30 a.m. for the restaurant’s opening at 10. 
 
 “And there were people lined up,” he said. “The parking lot was full.” 
 
 I found a parking spot in a nearby lot at 10:05. One of the customers in line ahead of me was trying to buy four sandwiches. No can do: the limit was two. When I ordered mine, a voice rang out from the stove: “We’re almost out.” 
 
 By the time my order arrived a few minutes later, the polite man working the cash register was breaking the bad news to customers: No more venison. The restaurant's allotment of 70 sandwiches had sold out. 
 
 Would I order another, were that possible? Probably not. Then again, the acquired taste that is venison isn’t my thing. It was a generous portion (it probably landed somewhere in the neighborhood of 4 ounces) of farm-raised meat, cooked (I’m guessing the more accurate verb would be “pre-cooked”) to a juicy medium rare. 
 
 I'd been expecting a shaved meat sandwich, along the lines of Arby's roast beef sandwiches, but no. It was a chop. Venison is a notoriously lean meat, and I was expecting a fairly tough texture, but it wasn’t, landing somewhere on the continuum between Salisbury steak and brisket. Not bad. 
 
 The predominant flavor – at least at first – was the peppery/sweet punch of Arby’s Sauce. Ugh. But underneath? The unmistakable gaminess of deer meat. (I’ll admit: it took far more Curly Fries than I would normally allow myself to cleanse my palate). A handful of soggy fried onions was the sole garnish, and the sturdy bun, with its criss-cross scored top – held up quite well. 
 
 File this one under “V” for “Viral Food Novelty.” Given its propensity for generating talkers, the Minnesota State Fair would be an ideal venue for this sandwich. Fairgoers would undoubtedly line up for the sandwiches, particularly given the surprising low price: $5. 
 
 The near-instantaneous sellout in St. Louis Park mirrors the company’s experiences elsewhere. 
 
 “I was at the Nashville restaurant on Monday,” said Kelly. “They had more inventory there, and they were still sold out by lunchtime.” 
 
 Forget about tapping any inside connections. Kelly said that a number of friends asked him to set a sandwich aside. 
 
 “I was like, guys, I’m going to get crushed here,” he said with a laugh, adding that the restaurant’s staff didn’t even get a crack at the delicacy. 
 
 Will there be a repeat performance? Probably. 
 
 “It’s going to take a process to get it in,” said Kelly. “I don’t know that there’s a supply the size that’s big enough for us. We went to places that have the most hunters per capita. We might do it for a specific regional market, say, Minnesota-Michigan-Pennsylvania-Ohio. But we’re also getting responses from people saying, ‘We hunt in North Carolina, too.’ There are hunters everywhere.” 
 
 Just as I was leaving, a friend of Kelly’s – and a hunter -- walked in and got the bad news. 
 
 “Sorry about that,” Kelly said to him. “You’ll have to go get your own now.” 
 
 Fortunately, Minnesota's deer hunt firearm season opens Saturday. 

 A sizable crowd was observed in the Arby’s restaurant in the Minneapolis suburb of St. Louis Park, Minn., at lunchtime Friday. But many customers didn’t get what they came for: Venison. 
 
 The restaurant ran out of a Venison Sandwich in just 15 minutes on Friday, a scene that has played out at several locations where Atlanta-based Arby’s has tested the limited-time offer. 
 
 According to a company spokesman, Arby’s started testing venison at a single location in Nashville, Tenn., on Monday and sold out shortly after lunch. On Friday, the company started testing the sandwich in Atlanta, in addition to five locations in Minnesota and Wisconsin. 
 
 The sandwich is being tested in a total of 17 markets for a very limited time, starting at the Nashville, Tenn., restaurant on Halloween and continuing in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania at various points throughout November. 
 
 The common denominator among the locations where the sandwich is being tested: They’re popular deer-hunting states. 
 
 The Atlanta location sold out of the sandwich in 90 minutes, Arby’s said. Some locations in Minnesota and Wisconsin, where there were fewer sandwiches available, ran out in just 15 minutes, including the St. Louis Park location. 
 
 “We were very confident that hunters and even non-hunters would love this sandwich,” Arby’s spokesman Luke DeRouen said. “But it’s safe to say that the response has exceeded our lofty expectations.” 
 
 Arby’s has emphasized its place with meat lovers to great effect, generating six straight years of same-store sales increases and turning around a brand that had struggled for years. 
 
 That focus has led to menu items like brisket sandwiches and, more recently, a pork belly sandwich. But venison was perhaps its boldest step yet. 
 
 The sandwich consists of a thick-cut venison steak with crispy onions and a juniper berry sauce, served on a specialty roll. The venison is marinated in garlic, salt and pepper, and is cooked for three hours. It is priced at $5. 
 
 “Given its propensity for generating talkers, the Minnesota State Fair would be an ideal venue for this sandwich,” Rick Nelson, a food blogger for the Minneapolis StarTribune, wrote Friday. He called it a “viral food novelty.” 
 
 But supplies were very limited. Another report from Minneapolis indicated that Arby’s only had 70 sandwiches available at one location. 
 
 DeRouen said that the company thought it had enough supply of the venison in each market to last three days, “but the response was so incredible that we quickly sold out.” 
 
 Update: Nov. 4, 2016 This story has been updated to include additional information. 
 
 Contact Jonathan Maze at [email protected] 
 
 Follow him on Twitter: @jonathanamaze
– America's desire for inexpensive, pre-cooked deer has been wildly underestimated. Arby's made its new Venison Sandwich available at four Minnesota locations last Friday; the sandwich was sold out at all of them by 11:15am, KARE reports. According to the Nation's Restaurant News, it was the same in five other states where the chain was testing out its "thick-cut venison steak with crispy onions and a juniper berry sauce." Some Arby's locations ran out of the Venison Sandwich in just 15 minutes. "It’s safe to say that the response has exceeded our lofty expectations," a company spokesperson says. Some Arby's locations had as few as 70 Venison Sandwiches on hand, and an executive blames "the PR storm" ahead of the sandwich's release for how quickly supplies went, despite a limit of two per customer, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports. It's unclear if more Venison Sandwiches are on the way, as there may not be a venison supply big enough to meet Arby's needs. So did the chain's foray into deer meat warrant the ridiculous demand? Not exactly, according to the Star Tribune's Rick Nelson, who was lucky enough to nab one of the sandwiches. "The predominant flavor ... was the peppery/sweet punch of Arby's Sauce. Ugh," he says. "It took far more Curly Fries than I would normally allow myself to cleanse my palate." (In other fast-food news, McDonald's has a problem in Italy.)