The menu is meant to stop a slowdown in breakfast menu item sales. With fewer people going to work — they are understandably buying fewer breakfasts on the way to their non-existent jobs.
From the WSJ:
The fast-food chain's national advertising fund has "overwhelmingly approved" backing the dollar breakfast menu with a nationwide campaign during the first six months of 2010, according to the document. The matter will be put to a vote of regional advertising groups, but it comes with the blessing of the national council and a sense of urgency "to ensure that breakfast continues to be a strong contributor to our overall sales, guest count and profit growth," the document said.
Danya Proud, a McDonald's spokeswoman, said the chain wouldn't comment on information obtained from unauthorized sources. "Matters concerning the future of our business and internal discussions are confidential and proprietary to the McDonald's system," she said.
The items we know have been featured on breakfast dollar menus include wo hot cakes, a fruit 'n yogurt parfait, a sausage biscuit, a sausage McMuffin, two hash browns or medium coffee.
The document also approved the January nationwide roll out of the Big Mac burrito, also known as the "Mac Snack Wrap," for $1.49.
McDonald's Cooking Up Dollar Menu for Breakfast [WSJ]
(Photo:donbuciak)
@catastrophegirl: I usually use fresh shredded potatoes. I've never used the frozen shredded, so I don't know about the difference.
Try this sometime: Peel and slice fresh potatoes in about 1/4 inch thick rounds. Rinse under water and pat dry with a paper towel. Season and fry over medium-high heat until the outside is golden, and the outer edges are slightly crisp. Flip frequently as they start to brown, but lightly to not break them up too much. The insides will stay soft. I bet you'll like them!
]]>It's so... weird... to live in a major test market. They don't really introduce the programs like they're experiments - and it's so disappointing to go out of state and realize that the wonderful program you're used to isn't availible other places. And then, when they're done running the experiment, the modified program that results from it is an unwelcome change instead of being good.
]]>@pecan 3.14159265: I just don't like sausage or ham. No religious or dietary restrictions. I just would prefer something that didn't make me eat them or pick them off.
]]>Btw I had a McRib for dinner last night. Probably the last one I'll ever have!
]]>If the sausage McGriddles gets on this list, stock will go up and extra 25lbs here I come.
]]>I used to love McD's pancakes and the mcmuffins. Can't touch em now, major indigestion! The coffee was great, takes me most of the morning to drink a large coffee, and used to be that it would still be hot 2 hrs later. Guess that idiot who sued them changed that though :(
]]>@Spider Jerusalem: Now everyone in my office is staring at me for laughing at my computer!! Wish Mel Brooks was still well enough to do another movie, pictured that as a part of History of the World part 1. Thanks for the mental image that will have me snickering to myself for the rest of the day.
]]>I never eat fast food anymore since I don't in the States now, but everytime I go back for a visit I drag my ass out of bed early one day just get Mcdonald's breakfast. I have tried recreating an Egg Mcmuffin but the taste just cannot be duplicated!
]]>I eat breakfast there like twice a year but they always have a biscuit, hash browns and some other items for a dollar.
My typical large coffee and hashbrowns is $1.65. Very affordable if not terribly healthy. And now I am hungry.
]]>I go through the drive thru with my wife and order 4 regular Egg McMuffins and nothing else and BAM $13!
More than triple the price to turn sausage into ham is ridiculous.
I can definitely vouch that McDonald's is using real eggs and VERY proud of it... as all 4 sandwiches had pieces of shell in the egg and a lot of them. I am not sure I can eat an Egg McMuffin ever again after that, it makes you paranoid when you start chewing a piece of shell the size of a nickel.
]]>@catastrophegirl: Ah. I do mine in the heavy cast iron pan on the stove. Gets some great crunchy bits that way. Add a touch of minced onion right at the end for flavor. DEFINITELY has fresh grated cheddar on it. Is there any other way? But next time, I think I'll throw in a bacon slice. That sounds yummmmmmmy. Thanks for the tip!
]]>It drives me crazy as a McEmployee, too, because I spend half my breaktime trying to catch wifi from the GROCERY STORE across the street. Why does a grocery store cafe full of old people give free wifi, and mcdonalds doesn't?
]]>In all seriousness, I used to know a girl who ate a pint of ice cream for breakfast several times a week. She was under doctor's orders to gain weight, though,
]]>I prefer the english muffin, personally, so will probably just buy a muffin, 2 hashbrowns & a coffee from here on out.
Truth be told, I love their coffee. I like Denny's coffee, too.
I *hate* Starbucks coffee though.
]]>OK, and ham.
OK OK, and lobster.
I also like... OK, I like all treyf. Thank G-tt for those liberal LA synagogues I grew up with!
]]>@Fanboy1217:
I get mine without eggs now. Those eggs are weird...
wow...hotcakes and sausage all drenched in syrup on the styrofoam container...amazing how vivid those memories are...
I'm kind of proud our almost 4yr old has never eaten at McDonald's, but now I kind of want to take her there for breakfast this weekend...I ate it every once in a while and turned out ok.
]]>Egg and cheese burrito FTW. With salsa and little peppers, yum!
]]>@theblackdog_FeelingRandom: Same here. We've had these dollar menus in the Baltimore area for a long time now... I treat myself to a $2.42 breakfast at McD's every other Friday : 1 Sausage biscuit w/ cheese & 2 hashbrowns. (The cheese is 30 cents extra)
]]>@pecan 3.14159265: It also helps to add a small touch of bacon fat to your butter when frying hash browns or eggs, for example. It raises the smoke point, and helps keep the butter from browning too quickly.
]]>@StuckinLansing: Shakes and ice creeam aren't breakfast.
]]>$1 doesn't buy much any more, does it?
]]>/This was in 2003.
]]>@Eyebrows McGee (now with more baby!): Nothing beats cooking in bacon fat. I have half a jar of bacon fat just ready for the next time I cook shrimp.
]]>What about the shakes, ice cream? Can anyone tell me if they have changed their formula? Tastes totally like chemicals now. It has been said that they can't say milk shake unless it has milk. Didn't it used to say milk shake and now it only says say so that would mean their ice cream is of even poorer quality then before.
I went for the sundaes until they changed the quality of their ice cream.
]]>When I was in 'diet mode', I would actually enjoy going to McDonalds because they were one of the few places I could get something healthy: their grilled chicken sandwich, with the mayo held and replaced with mustard, was really tasty and actually reasonably high in nutrition-to-junk ratio.
]]>@Spider Jerusalem: Tits and pants. I'm used to a lot of terms that don't seem to have traveled very well across the pond.
I own a pair of twins myself and really don't find "tits" at all offensive. After all, it's used to express high value or fondness!
]]>@pecan 3.14159265: Oooo. Cooking porn. I've never even heard of an ebelskiver pan, but now I must own one. Thanks Pecan Pi!
]]>Bacon and cheeseburgers are my only treyf indulgences! I have never in my life eaten a shrimp.
]]>@Eyebrows McGee (now with more baby!): And omnivores! I'm a meat eater, but I don't eat a ton of meat so it would help me a ton if breakfast places had at least one thing that didn't have meat in it.
]]>I used to sling wrenches in the facility that produced 95% of McDonald's french fries and hash brown patties back in Eastern Oregon. I specialized in the equipment that trimmed off the flawed bits of french fry.
All the bad bits and really tiny slivers fell thru a grate and went off to be hog food. All fries longer than 3 inches went off to be prefried, partially dehydrated and flash frozen for fries. All shorter fries went to be grated for the hash brown patties.
McDonald's went with another, cheaper producer in the late 1990's (probably Chinese) and that factory shut down shortly after. It was Simplot, so it wasn't like they were good-paying jobs or anything.
Anyway, six months after I quit that job I started eating their french fries again. I cluck over the sad little fry slivers that make up the bulk of the carton, though.
]]>@Eyebrows McGee (now with more baby!): Mmmm. I've always wanted an ebelskiver pan. This may be the time.
]]>@Eyebrows McGee (now with more baby!): Thanks for the suggestion! I'm definitely going to have to try this over the weekend.
]]>If we're talking about value meals, I don't want to be financially or protein-ally taxed for the fact that I (and the majority of the city I live in) don't dig on a portion of the animal kingdom.
]]>FTR, I am a Jew. My husband is Muslim. My sister and father are both vegetarians. That is 3/4 of my household that they do not cater to for breakfast, and all for different reasons. It would NOT KILL them to do an egg and cheese. It's more on my way to work to go to McDonald's than Del Taco, but I still go to Del Taco more often because they understand that not everyone needs swine for breakfast.
Also, as I said, its a more financially viable option. Meat costs money. Egg and cheese they could do comfortably for a dollar.
]]>I talked to a kid working there and now everything except the cheese in a burrito comes in one big bag and is oozed onto the tortilla.
]]>@lmarconi: "tits" has been an adjective for a while. not just recently.
]]>So. Just because you have strict dietary rules doesn't mean the rest of world must follow your lead.
PS: I have similar dietary rules with my religion. I don't impose my rules on others, neither should you.
]]>I've never noticed a slowdown at breakfast time for McDonalds. I always avoid fast food restaurants during peak hours due to me not wanting to stand in line for 30 minutes.
]]>/ exchange rate'd
]]>Sausage biscuits have been .99 for years- they probably raised the price in the last 2 years I haven't gone to McD, and are lowering it again.
]]>Ugh. No breakfast burritos (as Beavis once said "cool! Stewart gets burritos for breakfast!")
And the Big Mac Wrap? That will NOT taste good.
]]>All I'm saying is, if they HAVE to start pretending they're making breakfast burritos, they could at least throw an egg-and-cheese in there. It's gotta be cheaper than their meat-bearing counterparts.
]]>I'm glad those never made it east - they would have been the death of me.
]]>Anywho, yeah I think the key is that this would be awesome if it actually happened everywhere.
Unfortunately, I live in a city and the Mickey Ds near me has no dollar menu whatsoever - they're just pushing those expensive new burgers they have. It's a stupid choice in my opinion - there's a huge market of low income people in cities who'd go for the dollar menu, and there are so many cheap fast food/cafe style places nearby that there's absolutely no reason why someone needs to pay $7 for some crappy Angus 3rd Pounder meal.
But I'm also biased because I really love Mickey Ds dollar menu double cheeseburgers, small fries and ice cream on occasional drunken evenings.
I've had a few items on the $1 breakfast menu in the past year or so. Typically, I see the Sausage McMuffin, some small-ass breakfast burrito, two hash browns, fruit parfait, and small coffee on the menu. Had seen them at so many restaurants that I didn't know it wasn't national.
]]>Now they're a lot nastier. I dunno what they changed, but it makes me sad D:... I had fond memories of those things.
Maybe it's just the fog of childhood.
]]>@Oranges w/ Cheese wants it to be winter already: My family always uses brekkie, and we are born and raised Californians : )
]]>Oh, they were so delicious. I never want to eat them again, but extremely pregnant past-me had never tasted anything so good.
]]>Hmm...I never knew this wasn't national.
]]>The "value pick" muffin in Canada is just sausage, cheese, and english muffin. No egg.
I betcha the US $1 version will be the same thing.
]]>Big Mac burrito though, doesn't sound great, the one time I tried a snack wrap it was pretty awful.
]]>This is awesome if it's true and will happen everywhere. The place across from my work has a dollar menu for breakfast, but it has no sausage mcmuffin and it's one hashbrown for a dollar.
Since I HATE golden arches coffee and refuse to pay almost 2 dollars for orange juice additionall to a breaky meal, getting 2 hashbrowns and a Sausage McMuffin for 2 bucks would be TITS.
McDonalds Breaky is a once a week treat and pretty much the only fast food I eat anymore.
]]>I can't stand eating any of the other breakfast items, but I have so many fond childhood memories of eating their hot cakes on the yellow styrofoam plate they came in, the little packets of butter, and the syrup all over the pancakes, and it would mix with the sausage or ham patty.
I want pancakes now.
]]>