Fast Food What's New - Hits and Misses

BooksOrangePlanet

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getting my mcmuffin on this morning - usually go with the sausage and cheese but id like to know if anyone's tried the spicy yet - i got about an hour to decide
 

Mainstreet

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I rarely go to McDonald's anymore. IMO, their prices are too high for the quality of food in return. It's become a luxury.

I'd rather spend the money elsewhere, like at a grocery store.

However, for old time's sake, I recently stopped there for their $1 ice cream cone and apple pie. They were excellent.
 

Brian in Mesa

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getting my mcmuffin on this morning - usually go with the sausage and cheese but id like to know if anyone's tried the spicy yet - i got about an hour to decide
The real McAnswer: Sometimes you have just got to try it yourself.
 

Brian in Mesa

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National Whataburger Day (aka the chain’s anniversary) falls on Friday, Aug. 8 this year. To mark the occasion, rewards members have the opportunity to order a Whataburger for 75 cents between 11 a.m. — 8 p.m. local time.

The digital-only offer is available to redeem in the Whataburger app or website, and there’s a limit of one 75-cent burger per rewards member. Add-ons are available for an extra charge.
 

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Interesting article, a case study in Fast Food's modern day pricing problem. Customers have started asking the one question McDonald’s never wanted them to ask......
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

McDonald’s is facing intense pushback after it did what no company should ever do

The company’s McValue menu doesn’t mean what it used to.

McDonald’s spent decades training customers that if you had a dollar, you could get a burger. Now it’s trying to redefine what “value” means, and it turns out customers have a very different idea. More important, those customers aren’t about to pay $2.50 for something they think should cost a lot less without complaining about it.

It’s less a story about burgers and more a story about trust. Specifically, it’s a story about the promise McDonald’s has made its customers for decades. It’s also about the trust problem the company created entirely on its own when its customers decided it was no longer keeping that promise.

The actual story here is that McDonald’s rolled out its new McValue menu, featuring items that are all “under $3 each.” It’s built around what the company calls “predictable everyday low prices.” There are no more complicated app-only promotions, no more buy-one-get-one deals, no more dollar menu nostalgia. Instead, you get prices that are, depending on how you do the math, roughly two and a half times what customers remember paying not that long ago.

The backlash has been immediate and, honestly, a little brutal. There are Reddit threads full of people reminiscing about 99¢ McDoubles. Customers are publicly mourning the death of the “buy one, get one for $1” deals that used to anchor their lunch routine. The general sense is that McDonald’s has lost touch with what its customers actually perceive as a value.

Here’s the thing: None of this is actually about the $2.50 cost of a McDouble.

McDonald’s built its entire competitive position on one very specific idea—that value and convenience are more important than anything else. If you were hungry, McDonald’s was fast, and the price was low enough that evaluating your options felt like a waste of time.

Which is why a $2.50 McDouble isn’t being evaluated against inflation-adjusted commodity prices or franchisee labor costs. It’s being evaluated against what McDonald’s itself promised for 30 years. The company ran dollar menus and two-for-one campaigns long enough to wire a specific expectation into an entire generation of customers. Unwiring that expectation requires a lot more than a press release about a “value platform.”

There’s also a threshold problem the company may be underestimating. Once fast-food prices climb close enough to fast-casual prices, customers start asking the one question McDonald’s has never wanted them to ask: Is this actually good? For most of the restaurant’s history, that question never came up because the price made it irrelevant. But when you’re spending closer to $10 once you add fries and a drink, you start comparing the experience against options that might be slightly more expensive but noticeably better.

McDonald’s never needed to win that comparison in the past. It just depended on customers not thinking about it at all.


To be clear: The economics here aren’t crazy. Wages are up. Ingredients cost more. Franchises are businesses, not charities. Selling burgers for a dollar wasn’t going to last forever.

But what companies can’t control is how customers emotionally process the moment the change arrives. McDonald’s didn’t just raise prices—it disrupted the unconscious habit that made it indispensable. And once people start treating a fast-food run as a calculated purchase instead of an automatic one, McDonald’s puts itself in a completely different business than the one it built its brand on. That’s something no company should ever do.

 

oaken1

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Interesting article, a case study in Fast Food's modern day pricing problem. Customers have started asking the one question McDonald’s never wanted them to ask......
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

McDonald’s is facing intense pushback after it did what no company should ever do

The company’s McValue menu doesn’t mean what it used to.

McDonald’s spent decades training customers that if you had a dollar, you could get a burger. Now it’s trying to redefine what “value” means, and it turns out customers have a very different idea. More important, those customers aren’t about to pay $2.50 for something they think should cost a lot less without complaining about it.

It’s less a story about burgers and more a story about trust. Specifically, it’s a story about the promise McDonald’s has made its customers for decades. It’s also about the trust problem the company created entirely on its own when its customers decided it was no longer keeping that promise.

The actual story here is that McDonald’s rolled out its new McValue menu, featuring items that are all “under $3 each.” It’s built around what the company calls “predictable everyday low prices.” There are no more complicated app-only promotions, no more buy-one-get-one deals, no more dollar menu nostalgia. Instead, you get prices that are, depending on how you do the math, roughly two and a half times what customers remember paying not that long ago.

The backlash has been immediate and, honestly, a little brutal. There are Reddit threads full of people reminiscing about 99¢ McDoubles. Customers are publicly mourning the death of the “buy one, get one for $1” deals that used to anchor their lunch routine. The general sense is that McDonald’s has lost touch with what its customers actually perceive as a value.

Here’s the thing: None of this is actually about the $2.50 cost of a McDouble.

McDonald’s built its entire competitive position on one very specific idea—that value and convenience are more important than anything else. If you were hungry, McDonald’s was fast, and the price was low enough that evaluating your options felt like a waste of time.

Which is why a $2.50 McDouble isn’t being evaluated against inflation-adjusted commodity prices or franchisee labor costs. It’s being evaluated against what McDonald’s itself promised for 30 years. The company ran dollar menus and two-for-one campaigns long enough to wire a specific expectation into an entire generation of customers. Unwiring that expectation requires a lot more than a press release about a “value platform.”

There’s also a threshold problem the company may be underestimating. Once fast-food prices climb close enough to fast-casual prices, customers start asking the one question McDonald’s has never wanted them to ask: Is this actually good? For most of the restaurant’s history, that question never came up because the price made it irrelevant. But when you’re spending closer to $10 once you add fries and a drink, you start comparing the experience against options that might be slightly more expensive but noticeably better.

McDonald’s never needed to win that comparison in the past. It just depended on customers not thinking about it at all.


To be clear: The economics here aren’t crazy. Wages are up. Ingredients cost more. Franchises are businesses, not charities. Selling burgers for a dollar wasn’t going to last forever.

But what companies can’t control is how customers emotionally process the moment the change arrives. McDonald’s didn’t just raise prices—it disrupted the unconscious habit that made it indispensable. And once people start treating a fast-food run as a calculated purchase instead of an automatic one, McDonald’s puts itself in a completely different business than the one it built its brand on. That’s something no company should ever do.

Thats nothing...I still lament the loss of the real bargains.

Back in the day McDonalds and Burger King would both run specials a couple times a year in which a hamburger was a dime and a cheese burger was 15 cents...

My dad would call in an order...100 hamburgers and 100 cheeseburgers...we could feed the entire damn family for 25 bucks ...everyone got to eat their fill and we even had a burger or two for company if someone was over.

99 cent mcdoubles??? Hell, used to get a whole bag of burgers for a dollar...

and to top it off mcdonalds played a major role in numbing Americans to the idea of getting beef from brazil...said thats how they keep it cheap...
but now they buy foreign beef and it still aint cheap
 

Brian in Mesa

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We went to the grand opening of Brooker's Founding Flavors ice cream shop in Chandler yesterday. A ton of fun with the decor and flavors all focused on the time of the Revolutionary War. We were 8th and 9th in line and the first 25 got free t-shirts and the first 100 got trifold hats and free ice cream. Great event. Met a lot of cool people in line. Spoke to the Brooker's themselves who were there to support the opening for their franchisee. Going back this afternoon with our friends - one of which is a descendant of Abigail Adams.

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Rivercard

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My dad would call in an order...100 hamburgers and 100 cheeseburgers...we could feed the entire damn family for 25 bucks ...everyone got to eat their fill and we even had a burger or two for company if someone was over.

200 burgers, holy cow, you must have a large family!
 

Russ Smith

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Haven't read the whole thread what do people think of Jollibee? I'm in the Philippines now in Siquijor, only fast food on the island is one Jollibee, there are literally no McDonalds or KFC's or any of them. It gets crazy crowded. The burger is ok, not great but it's good enough. The "chicken joy" is popular it's just fried chicken. The spaghetti is good, it's sweet which is how they like it here.

I have to say we got it on day 2 and had to go to the drive thru because there was no parking we got food for 8 people, including icecream for all 8. I think I paid 34 dollars, would be more than twice that in the US. When it's as hot as here that ice cream was great.
 

Yuma

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Interesting article, a case study in Fast Food's modern day pricing problem. Customers have started asking the one question McDonald’s never wanted them to ask......
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

McDonald’s is facing intense pushback after it did what no company should ever do

The company’s McValue menu doesn’t mean what it used to.

McDonald’s spent decades training customers that if you had a dollar, you could get a burger. Now it’s trying to redefine what “value” means, and it turns out customers have a very different idea. More important, those customers aren’t about to pay $2.50 for something they think should cost a lot less without complaining about it.

It’s less a story about burgers and more a story about trust. Specifically, it’s a story about the promise McDonald’s has made its customers for decades. It’s also about the trust problem the company created entirely on its own when its customers decided it was no longer keeping that promise.

The actual story here is that McDonald’s rolled out its new McValue menu, featuring items that are all “under $3 each.” It’s built around what the company calls “predictable everyday low prices.” There are no more complicated app-only promotions, no more buy-one-get-one deals, no more dollar menu nostalgia. Instead, you get prices that are, depending on how you do the math, roughly two and a half times what customers remember paying not that long ago.

The backlash has been immediate and, honestly, a little brutal. There are Reddit threads full of people reminiscing about 99¢ McDoubles. Customers are publicly mourning the death of the “buy one, get one for $1” deals that used to anchor their lunch routine. The general sense is that McDonald’s has lost touch with what its customers actually perceive as a value.

Here’s the thing: None of this is actually about the $2.50 cost of a McDouble.

McDonald’s built its entire competitive position on one very specific idea—that value and convenience are more important than anything else. If you were hungry, McDonald’s was fast, and the price was low enough that evaluating your options felt like a waste of time.

Which is why a $2.50 McDouble isn’t being evaluated against inflation-adjusted commodity prices or franchisee labor costs. It’s being evaluated against what McDonald’s itself promised for 30 years. The company ran dollar menus and two-for-one campaigns long enough to wire a specific expectation into an entire generation of customers. Unwiring that expectation requires a lot more than a press release about a “value platform.”

There’s also a threshold problem the company may be underestimating. Once fast-food prices climb close enough to fast-casual prices, customers start asking the one question McDonald’s has never wanted them to ask: Is this actually good? For most of the restaurant’s history, that question never came up because the price made it irrelevant. But when you’re spending closer to $10 once you add fries and a drink, you start comparing the experience against options that might be slightly more expensive but noticeably better.

McDonald’s never needed to win that comparison in the past. It just depended on customers not thinking about it at all.


To be clear: The economics here aren’t crazy. Wages are up. Ingredients cost more. Franchises are businesses, not charities. Selling burgers for a dollar wasn’t going to last forever.

But what companies can’t control is how customers emotionally process the moment the change arrives. McDonald’s didn’t just raise prices—it disrupted the unconscious habit that made it indispensable. And once people start treating a fast-food run as a calculated purchase instead of an automatic one, McDonald’s puts itself in a completely different business than the one it built its brand on. That’s something no company should ever do.

I agree with the premise. Once I see cost become similar to something else, let's say a good taco chain, I'd rather get the tacos. I went to McDonald's recently. To get two bags of ice, since our ice machine is on the fritz. LOL. I'd rather eat at Backyard Tacos than McDonald's.
 

Brian in Mesa

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Haven't read the whole thread what do people think of Jollibee? I'm in the Philippines now in Siquijor, only fast food on the island is one Jollibee, there are literally no McDonalds or KFC's or any of them. It gets crazy crowded. The burger is ok, not great but it's good enough. The "chicken joy" is popular it's just fried chicken. The spaghetti is good, it's sweet which is how they like it here.

I have to say we got it on day 2 and had to go to the drive thru because there was no parking we got food for 8 people, including icecream for all 8. I think I paid 34 dollars, would be more than twice that in the US. When it's as hot as here that ice cream was great.
This location?

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