McDonald’s killed off their Dollar Menu back in 2015, to the consternation of many. Instead, their value menu became, essentially, some low-cost items mixed in with some higher-priced items. Depending on your opinion of McDonald’s, it was still value, but it was certainly not a Dollar menu.
Now, McDonald’s is once again revamping their menu for 2018, including a shifted focus to a tiered pricing system for the value menu.
Via Bloomberg:
The world’s largest restaurant chain, facing heavy competition in the U.S., will launch a new value-priced menu nationally next year. The lineup will offer items for $1, $2 and $3, the company said on Tuesday.
The rollout will provide a long-awaited replacement to the Dollar Menu, which was popular with customers but less so with McDonald’s franchisees. The company has experimented with various discounts — including McPick 2 for $5, which let customers choose two items — in a bid to find something that wasn’t too hard on the profit margins of restaurant operators.
McDonald’s embracing the value side of their equation is the smart way to go; their ubiquitous footprint and relatively cheap food is what helps them compete against more fast casual chains, including America’s best chain restaurant, Five Guys. (Fight me.)
The exact items on the menu haven’t yet been released, but that’s likely to come shortly. It doesn’t make sense for McDonald’s to scale up on the value or cost side; that’s a battle they’re never going to win. But focusing on the lower end of their scale makes sense, and allowing people to mix and match various low cost items is a solid way to bring people to the door, or at least to the drive through. And that’s realistically their market.
And it might work! If I’m in the mood for fast food, it already means value is what I’m looking for. And unless Burger King wises up and brings back the Rodeo Cheeseburger, or at the very least the Extra Long BBQ Cheeseburger, I’d consider McDonald’s in that scenario.
