This is terrible!

The Oak Brook, Ill.-based chain had said earlier this year that it was evaluating whether to continue selling the Angus Third Pounders, which were introduced in 2009. The company also said at the time that it was it was cutting Chicken Selects and Fruit & Walnut Salad.

The changes come as McDonald’s looks to keep up with shifting tastes, even as it underscores the affordability of its food. Notably, the Angus burgers were among the chain’s priciest items.

At a time when the restaurant industry is barely growing, McDonald’s has been playing up its Dollar Menu in ads to boost sales and steal customers away from competitors. Even if that hurts profit margins, executives say the strategy is critical to gaining market share and ensuring the long-term health of the company.

But Richard Adams, who consults McDonald’s franchisees, noted that Dollar Menu has also made the Angus burger a less attractive option at around $4 to $5.

“When you can get four or five burgers off the Dollar Menu, nobody’s going to buy the Angus burger,” he said. “The Dollar Menu has become a real problem for these chains.”
But… but… but I was buying that burger!

If you never had an Angus burger from McD’s, it was actually surprisingly good. It isn’t just about the meat. The other ingredients were better, too. It really tasted like something other than a McDonald’s burger.

So why, you might ask, would one Will Truman go to McDonald’s for a burger that expressly doesn’t taste like a McDonald’s burger and cost significantly more than a McDonald’s burger? Well, because I live in Callie Arapaho. There are two fast food burger places. As it happens, the other is Dairy Queen, which serves good burgers also, but (a) it keeps shorter hours when it’s open and (b) it’s only open when the owner feels like it. I mean seriously, sometimes it’s closed for months at a time. It also lacks a drive-through.

We don’t have In-and-Out Burger here, or White Castle, or Happy Burger. To get a good burger, you have to go to a real restaurant or make it yourself.

Despite the initially shocking cost, I thought that there was a good market rationale for having that burger on the menu. Basically, because sometimes you have mixed families. By which I mean, you have people like my wife married to the guy who I was ten years ago. She could get the Angus burger, and I could get the cheapo burger. The range made McDonald’s a good compromise location so that she wouldn’t have to get a lackluster fast food burger, and I wouldn’t have to spend $5 on my burger.

Apparently, that isn’t enough anymore.

I blame assortive mating. Now fast food people marry fast food people, and gourmet fast food people marry gourmet fast food people.


Category: Kitchen, Market

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15 Responses to Did Assortive Mating Kill The Angus Burger?

  1. David Alexander says:

    If you never had an Angus burger from McD’s, it was actually surprisingly good. It isn’t just about the meat. The other ingredients were better, too. It really tasted like something other than a McDonald’s burger.

    In contrast, I wasn’t fond of it. For nearly the same price, you could go to Wendy’s to get something a little better, or for a few dollars more, you could go to Five Guys or Smashburger. Or you could spend a little bit less and get a Quarter Pounder which isn’t that much worse compared to the Angus burger.

    I’m still going to miss the Chicken selects and the Snack Wraps. That and the $1 Nuggets were the only reasons I kept going to McDonalds on any real basis. They were cheap and decent for when I wanted some food rather quickly, especially if I wasn’t in the mood for beef.

    • trumwill says:

      I think it’s a solid burger. I never had one, I don’t think, until I moved to Callie. But I do like them.

      You can still get a Snack Wrap of the Big Mac variety, or so I was told when I was informed that Angus burgers were going away.

      • David Alexander says:

        I think it’s a solid burger.

        It’s been a while since I had one, but it came across as a bigger QPC, but with diluted taste…

  2. I liked the angus burger, even though I live in Chicago, and there are a lot of good burger options here. I think I liked the Chicken selects, too, if they’re what I was thinking of (the grilled or breaded chicken sandwiches on a wheat-esque bun, with option of swiss cheese and/or bacon?).

  3. David Alexander,

    I think Wendy’s does a better job, too. Unfortunately, there’s not one in my neighborhood.

    I live in a “Wendy’s desert.”

  4. Mike Hunt Rice says:

    I agree with DA. I think the Angus burger was caught in the middle between the fast-food burgers and the fast-casual burgers.

    It was a solid burger, but the new Quarter Pounders should fit the bill nicely.

    As a disclaimer, I live in a place with a plethora of fast food choices.

    • trumwill says:

      Yeah, due to the fact that there should be alternatives available when we get to Stonebridge, I’m less worried about the lack of Angus burgers than I otherwise would be.

      I ended up having a quarter pounder last night. It was good, but not the same.

  5. Sheila Tone says:

    I was wondering where the hell those went. My husband is like your wife. Last night I got him a quarter-pounder bacon-habanero or something like that. The Angus burgers are kind of squashy and rewarmed tasting, but the closes thing to gourmet McDonald’s has. I’ve always preferred the littlest burgers they have — but have you noticed lately they’ve been adding bigger onion bits to them, instead of those tiny diced ones? Maybe it’s just a local thing.

    • trumwill says:

      About a month ago, I had my heart set on their mushroom variant and I saw that it was “Out of stock.”

      Then a couple nights ago I stopped by and was going to get a wrap, and that was when they said that Angus was out. At first I thought they meant Angus wraps. I asked when I was at the window, and that was when I got the news.

      He actually said it was just a regional thing, but then I did some surfing and saw that it was not.

      So I won’t be able to get the Angus in Queenland, either. At least I should be able to get the McBagel out there, though.

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