McDonald's Unveiled Their New Dollar Menu And It Kinda Sucks
Reuters- McDonald’s Corp said on Monday it would introduce new menus with $1, $2 and $3 items in early January as restaurants battle to win U.S. customers who have come to expect deals on fast food.
McDonald’s dropped its popular “Dollar Menu” in 2013 after franchisees groused that selling items like a double cheeseburger for $1 cut into profits. The replacement “Dollar Menu & More” had higher prices, but failed to draw more customers despite heavy marketing. The new dollar menus, set to debut on Jan. 4, include any size soft drinks and cheeseburgers for $1, small McCafe drinks and bacon McDoubles for $2 and Happy Meals and triple cheeseburgers for $3, McDonald’s said.
They will supplement McDonald’s current value offers such as McPick 2 where customers can pick two items from a list for $5 – including Big Macs, fish filets and 10-piece chicken nuggets.
Hey Fat Ronald…
Almost two years ago I blogged about how McDonald’s killing the Dollar Menu was a fuck up of epic proportions and as unAmerican as it gets. Fast forward to today and here we have McDonald’s continuing to figure out something they had right a decade ago.
Here’s a little secret to the Powers That Be at McDonald’s. Nobody wants to do math when ordering fast food. Get this $1, $2, $3 shit out my face. Everything should be $1. If I am ordering food at Mickey D’s, there is a good chance I am fucked up. I don’t want to break my already fragile brain trying to add up different dollar amounts for each item. Every time I add a Dollar Menu item to my order, I should be able to stick a finger up. By the time I am done ordering, that’s how many items I will have and how much it will cost (plus tax). That’s the reason the Dollar Menu worked. Hell, it’s the reason McDonald’s works. Sure the speed and unhealthy tastiness of it all helps. But being able to mindlessly order food without breaking the bank is the underlying appeal. No need to calculate tips for delivery or at a sit down restaurant or figure out how things work if you want 3 items on the McPick 2. K.I.S.S. method works in all walks of life.
And if you are going to unveil a new menu, it has to be better than this. $1 for any size soft drinks does absolutely NOTHING for me. You know why? Because as long as a small soft drink is $1, then all sizes are $1 because the unwritten rules of fast food restaurants say that every fast food soda machine is free refills (those unwritten rules supercede any actual written rules at fast food restaurants).
Next up, no McNuggets on the Dollar Menu is as fowl as it gets (little bit of poultry pun humor to get you guys going today). You can’t have a true Dollar Menu at McDonald’s without the 4-piece McNuggets. It is the perfect add-on to any value meal as well as the foundation for any “Build Your Own Dollar Menu Value Meal Because You Are Poor” value meal. The cheeseburger is the 1B to the McNuggets 1A and the McChicken is a must because it is tasty and cheap, even though all I can think of when I see a McChicken is that dude who filmed himself fucking it.
The other problem is there is wayyyyy too much sausage on these menus. No offense to Feitelberg, but bacon is the king of breakfast meats. I won’t deny that the “OMG bacon is the best I can eat it all day everyday” people have hurt its street cred by being so fucking annoying. But the king stay the motherfucking king. Bacon is the best sidekick of all-time. Better than sausage, muchhhhh better than ham, and much better than hash browns which have become more and more prevelant on breakfast sandwiches lately. I see right through McDonald’s trying to throw their cheap ass sausage down our throat Wait, what? Anyway, the lack of BEC options lets you know how much McDonald’s really wants this menu to succeed.
And as a parent, let me tell you how little I care about a Happy Meal being $3. If I can get my kid to actually eat all her food and not have to worry about cooking, I would pay $30 for a Happy Meal. Especially if I can shove some apples and milk down her throat by holding a Happy Meal toy above her head. You don’t need to make Happy Meals cheap to entice me. In fact, you should be absolutely gouging hopeless parents like myself and passing along the savings to poor high school and college kids that just want $1 nuggets.
If McDonald’s really wants their Dollar Menu to succeed, this is what it should look like:
1. 4 piece McNuggets
2. Cheeseburger
3. Small fountain soda (AKA unlimited fountain soda)
4. Bag fries, which pretty much just means a scoop of fries into the bottom of the bag. No need to waste a wrapper. Bag fries >>>>>> Regular fries. And since you are only paying $1, what’s the point in spending even a penny on a fry holder?
Throw a few desserts and breakfast foods in there as well (preferably one with bacon). But those 4 are the bread and butter.
P.S. As much as I hate this new menu, I have to admit that the $2 buttermilk chicken tenders could be a home run. The amount of hate chicken tenders gets for being a “kids food” has blinded so many people to just how good they are. And everything sounds better when you add buttermilk in front. So hat tip to Ronald and co. for including chicken tenders in this value menu bullshit. Game recognize game.