McUpgrade? McDonald’s revives famous character and revamps its classic burgers with softer buns, gooier cheese, fried onions and more sauce in response to challenges from fast-casual Shake Shack and Five Guys
- McDonald’s classic Cheeseburger, Big Mac, Hamburger, and its Double Cheeseburger will be revamped at all US locations by the end of 2023
- The changes will include a grill design for more melted cheese and better seared patties, along with softer buns and onions added while the burger is on the grill
- It comes as McDonald’s has begun cutting costs by streamlining its corporate structure with layoffs and automating its ordering and drive-thru systems
McDonald’s announced it is revamping core items on its menu weeks after a massive corporate restructuring in the face of challenges from increasingly popular fast-casual chains like Five Guys and Shake Shack.
The fast-food giant said it will be tweaking the recipes on its classic Cheeseburger, Big Mac, Hamburger, and its Double Cheeseburger, to make the items ‘even better’ than they ever were.
Changes will include softer buns, a new grill design to for better-melted cheese and seared patties, along with onions being added while the burgers are still on the grill for a caramelized flavor. The Big Macs will also have more sauce on them.
The new recipes have already been rolled out in certain global markets, and in the US are available in parts of the west coast. McDonald’s said they would be standard nationwide by 2024.
It comes on the heels of major shakeups at McDonald’s, which have included corporate streamlining to consolidate its menu internationally, major ad campaigns featuring celebrity spokespeople, and even automating drive-thrus at some locations.
To help sell the new burgers McDonald’s is re-introducing the Hamburglar, who hasn’t been seen in his classical form for about twenty years.
The new Big Mac will include more of its signature sauce, as well as a softer bun
McDonald’s new classic Cheeseburger and Double Cheeseburger. The items will be available nationally by the end of 2023
A McDonald’s location outside of Fort Worth that has automated its drive-thru window
The Hamburglar is returning to McDonald’s to sell its newly revamped burger recipes
McDonald’s announced the arrival of the menu changes in the US in a press release this week.
‘We found that small changes, like tweaking our process to get hotter, meltier cheese and adjusting our grill settings for a better sear, added up to a big difference in making our burgers more flavorful than ever,’ McDonald’s Senior Director of Culinary Innovation, Chef Chad Schafer, said in a statement.
Those change will include ‘Softer, pillowy buns that are freshly toasted to a golden brown,’ along with ‘perfectly melted cheese that will make you want to savor every last bit off the wrapper.’
They will also feature ‘Juicier, caramelized flavor from adding white onions to the patties while they’re still on the grill,’ and ‘even more of everyone’s favorite Big Mac sauce, bringing more tangy sweetness in every Big Mac bite,’ according to McDonald’s.
Previously the new burgers were made available in Australia, Belgium, and Canada, and in the US are available in and around Los Angeles, Seattle, Denver, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, Tuscon, Portland, and Sacramento.
A critic from PEOPLE magazine sampled the new recipes tweaks made a ‘huge’ in the sandwiches.
‘The difference between the OG double cheeseburger and the new and improved version are actually huge,’ wrote PEOPLE Director of Digital Specials and Features, Kate Hogan. ‘The shiny bun is so inviting and the burger itself has a great grilled taste like it came off of your own barbecue.’
Of the Big Mac, she said ‘the addition of the extra Mac Sauce and the fragrant new bun make it eat like a real, messy pub burger instead of your run-of-the-mill drive-through.’
McDonald’s said they would be utilizing the Hamburglar – who was hasn’t been seen since a branding overhaul in the early 2000s – to inform customers that the new burgers were available in their cities.
‘When you spot his notorious cape and striped outfit in your city, you’ll know that’s when you can head to your local McDonald’s to get your hands on our best-ever burgers,’ the chain said in its statement.
The Hamburgler spies his prey in a new add for McDonald’s revamped cheeseburgers
CEO Chris Kempczinski said in a January email there would be ‘difficult discussions and decisions ahead,’ two months before hundreds of corporate staffers were laid off
A fully automated ordering kiosk at a McDonald’s outside of Forth Worth, Texas
@McDonald’s has a new test concept
How McDonald’s new fully-automated restaurant works
- Customers place their orders on touch-screen kiosks
- Humans prepare the food in the kitchen, but don’t interact with customers
- You pick your food up at a counter near the front
- There is no seating inside the restaurant, since it’s designed for people ‘on the go’
- At the drive-thru, a mechanical conveyer belt delivers meals to customers
In early April, McDonald’s closed its corporate offices while it meted out hundreds of layoffs as part of a corporate restructuring intended to save costs as part of a move to consolidate operations internationally.
In a January letter to staff, CEO Chris Kempczinski said the corporate job cuts would be made help the business grow, warning that the company had begun unfocused and innovation had been stunted.
‘We had across the globe 70 different, distinct versions of what a crispy chicken sandwich would look like,’ he wrote. ‘I don’t need 70 different permutations of a chicken sandwich.’
Among the lay-offs were senior employees who had worked for the company for decades – some going as far as to write emotional goodbye messaged to colleagues after receiving the news.
Before the cuts, McDonald’s employed more than 150,000 people globally in corporate roles and its company-owned restaurants – 70 percent outside the US, the chain said in February.
In addition to cutting corporate jobs, some McDonald’s have begun replacing their drive-thru staff with automated systems that deliver food directly from the kitchen to customers’ cars by conveyer belt.
In other locations, counter staff have been replaced altogether by kiosks where customers order.
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