Will McDonalds get rid of the $1 McDouble?

[monkeyrotica]

Or will they just raise the price because it's a loss leader? Besides the Egg McMuffin, it's one of the few things I order at McDs. Didn't really care for that McOnion thing they added to the $1 menu. And a "McGangbang" isn't quite the same without that McDouble.

http://www.nbcnews.com/business/risin...

[grampart]

I go through the drive-up and order 2 McDubs; no fries, no, drink and pay $2.14 for lunch. Loss leader? Not for me.

[charles_sills]

i hope they dont get rid of it. i remember when the double cheeseburger was a dollar, and we would have to much too drink, i would get two doubles and a mcchicken.

if they get rid of it, then i would really like to see a great new burger for 3 bucks. one that is substantial enough to not need to eat 3 sandwhiches when you are drunk!! and one that is tasty enough to eat when you are sober.

[madeliner]

they better not

[treb]

Not anytime soon, it's a successful lost leader and the only burger I get there.

[L2k]

Yes they will. In our lifetime, too.

[bagelman01]

My dog will be devastated. He loves a drive at 10PM and at the McD drive thru he gets a McDouble (plain) and on alternate nights a $1 vanilla cone.
The employees at our local McD are so used to him, that they hand the food directly to the dog thru the rear driver's side window.

[pinehurst]

Ben wants to know if you have room in your back seat for another chowhound.

In all seriousness, I too think it will go. When times have been very lean for me and I'm traveling and without a coffee pot/fridge, I've been grateful for the large $1.00 diet coke in the summer and the $1.00 any size coffee in the winter, too.

[Veggo]

Be patient, it gets even better! when you are as old as bagelman and me, senior coffee is fifty cents.

[Chemicalkinetics]

Exaxctly. I wonder if there was a big cry when the price went from 50 cents to a dollar. "oh my god, the price doubled"

[Veggo]

50 years ago when I was 10, fifty cents at McDonalds bought 2 hamburgers, fries, and a Coke.

[pinehurst]

Now that's what I'm talking about!
Every once in a while, my local McD's will have a "throw-back" day where cheeseburgers are 2/$1.00. It's fine, but the burger is the size of a poker chip.

[Chemicalkinetics]

Well, I certainly heard about quality going down too. McDonald was used to be sold as "Quality Meals". I doubt anyone think of McDonald as quality meals in the last 20 years.

[monkeyrotica]

"Ooh, don't poo-poo a nickel, Lisa. A nickel will buy you a steak and kidney pie, a cup of coffee, a slice of cheesecake and a newsreel... with enough change left over to ride the trolley from Battery Park to the polo grounds." - Mr. Burns

[bagelman01]

or in my youth, the McD ad was a hamburger, french fries and a coke and CHANGE from a buck.....................

[jeanmarieok]

I remember the 'change from a buck' commercials! That was a long time ago!

[monkeyrotica]

What's the word? Thunderbird
How's it sold? Good and cold
What's the jive? Bird's alive
What's the price? Thirty twice.

[bagelman01]

If you are really old (and i learned this from my parents, at almost 60 I'm too young to remember)

Pepsi-Cola hits the spot,
12 full ounces, that's a lot,
Twice as much for a nickel too,
Pepsi-Cola is the Drink for you!
Nickel, nickel, nickel, nickle, Trickle, trickle, trickle, trickle...

Coke was only a 6 ounce bottle for 5 cents. This was the original SUPRSIZING

[4X4]

The important thing was that I had an onion tied to my belt, which was the style at the time. You couldn't get white onions, because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones...

[monkeyrotica]

You're ignorant! That's the Wright Brothers plane. In Kittyhawk in 1903, Charles Lindbergh flew it
15 miles on a thimble full of corn oil. Single-handedly won us the Civil War, it did.

[Violatp]

HAHAHAHA

[bagelman01]

Veggo, maybe down southin retirement land, but here in CT a senior coffee is 65 cents and is a smal. I het the any size LARGE for $1.

[bagelman01]

Diesel says company is welcome for a McD nightime snack run........................

I have at least 10 $1 large coffees per week. In Fairfield County the large soda never makes it onto the $1 menu.

Twice in the past 3 years local McD removed the McDouble from the $1 menu ($1.29-1.39) put had to put it back due to competition from BK and Wendy's.

If McD pulls it again and the competition doesn't, it will return.

The 4 pc Chix nuggets left the $1 menu about 6 months ago, but are back again...........................(Diesel likes these occasionally

[virtualguthrie]

I hope not. It's one of the few things I ever get there. What the heck is "McGangbang?"

[KaimukiMan]

a mc double with a mc chicken crammed in between the burger patties.

[Jase]

If you get a vanilla shake with it, does that make it a bukkake McGangbang?

[charles_sills]

hahahaha, oh my goodness Jase!!

yes, yes it does.

[Chemicalkinetics]

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-mJ2VykVUkcc...

[causeimhungry]

I always preferred the cheeseburger instead. Price is the same for both in Montreal, 1.39$.

[Big Bad Voodoo Lou]

The McDouble is my go-to McDonald's meal... or I should say two or three of them are. To me, it tastes better than the Big Mac or Quarter Pounder with Cheese or any of the premium burgers (that are really starting to get up there in price).

It's the ideal ratio of meat to cheese to bun to ketchup to those dehydrated onions that complete it. It's a perfect little umami bomb when I'm hungry and in a hurry, and the value can't be beat.

[Veggo]

As a consequence of last year's draught and this year's higher beef prices, the cost to a franchisee to deliver a McDouble is $1.16. So it will disappear from the $ menu.

[MonMauler]

Gotta say I'd be disappointed if McD's ditched the McDouble. I genuinely enjoy it, and it is a great value. It is one of the best $1 menu deals out there, IMHO. I get one every few weeks...good way to use up the change that accumulates in my office.

I'm not too much of a fan of value menus and their like, where prices can push higher than $2. That's just a regular price, not a deal or anything special. FF restaurants should either offer $1 menus or not.

[ricepad]

I'd say that a McGangbang is IMPOSSIBLE without the McDouble.

[kmcarr]

Technically the McGangbang uses the Double Cheeseburger, not the McDouble.

[monkeyrotica]

Since they took the Double Cheeseburger off the $1 Menu, I've been getting by using McDoubles. I can't say that I really miss those two extra slices of cheese.

Perhaps they should start calling it the McGangbang Lean?

[KaimukiMan]

double cheeseburger was never on the dollar menu here, just the value menu. Fries went off the dollar menu about 4 months ago. Any size soft drink still on, but they eliminated the extra large altogether.

Honolulu

[monkeyrotica]

They created the McDouble so they wouldn't have to put that extra slice of cheese on a Double Cheeseburger. If it gets pulled, the only burger on the $1 menu will be that Onion Burger.

[Chemicalkinetics]

It will get pull. There is no point of crying over spilled milk. The cost of the burger is getting closer and closer to the sale price. It is just unprofitable. $1 in 20 years ago worth a lot more than $1 now -- inflation.

Just take the Dollar Stores, for example. I would say, in my experience, most of the goods in the today Dollar Stores are not less than or equal to $1 anymore.

[monkeyrotica]

The thing is I don't think they ever made a profit off the $1 menu items. It's there as a loss leader to get people to buy something else, like fries or a drink or another menu item. The question is how will the loss of those items affect overall revenues? Will people who bought a McDouble and large fries and a shake skip the place entirely, thereby losing them the sale of the fries and shake?

[Chemicalkinetics]

<The thing is I don't think they ever made a profit off the $1 menu items.>

I cannot disagree or agree. I would be surprised that it was a big lose. What is for certain is that the lose is greater and greater as the time goes on.

A $1 in 2001 is worth $1.27 in 2011.

In other words, the lose is getting greater and greater every year.

Let's just say that it was losing money 10 years ago (going with your argument) at 30 cent per McDouble. Now, it would be losing at close to 65 cent per McDouble.

http://www.westegg.com/inflation/

My point is that if it is not discontinued this year, then it will be next year, if not next year, then it will be the year after. We all know at some point this is unsustainable, right? (Given that the dollar is worth less and worth)

[monkeyrotica]

Well, the alternative would be to do like Taco Bell and keep using cheaper and cheaper ingredients on those 99 cent items. Kinda like how a cup of coffee was a nickle for decades, even though costs kept going up and up. All the restaurants did was water the coffee down. Eventually, Chock Full O Nuts started charging a dime because they didnt' want to water their product down, and all hell broke loose. Same thing happened to Coke when it went up to the astronomical sum of a quarter.

I'm sure they'll kill this item off eventually.

[Chemicalkinetics]

<keep using cheaper and cheaper ingredients on those 99 cent items>

Maybe, but I think McDonald has already been using cheaper ingredients. And I can see a logistic problem say using a different and cheaper beef patty for the McDonald than the rest of the other burgers.

<I'm sure they'll kill this item off eventually.>

I don't know if they will kill it entirely off, or just move it out of the $1 menu. We shall see.

[monkeyrotica]

They might just phase out the Double Cheeseburger and replace it with the McDouble at the same price. Save them that extra slice of cheese food product.

They keep touting the fact that their burgers are 100% beef with no fillers, unlike, say, Taco Bell's "ground meat" that's at least 40% inorganic matter and plankton.

[Violatp]

"Taco Bell's "ground meat" that's at least 40% inorganic matter and plankton."

plus 15% sadness, 10% tears, 5% regret, and finally, 30% beef

[monkeyrotica]

That's what I never understood about that whole Taco Bell fake meat debacle. Why don't they just offer a vegan taco with NO meat and 100% soy? You're spending far less per item because there's no animal protein, you can charge the same (or more), and you're tapping a demographic that almost no chain is reaching out to. For that matter, why doesn't McDonalds do a Vegan McDouble, with no meat and soy cheese? I think they test marketed veggie burgers at one point, but I guess not enough people bought them. I'd rather buy a good pure veggie burger than a 100% "real beef" burger made mostly from cow lips and bleached rectums.

[Violatp]

I was living in LA (about 10 years ago) when they test marketed the veggie burger and I remember it looking very unappetizing. Kind of grayish beige.

But, you're right. I mean, after all, don't they offer vegan and vegetarian options in, for example, India?

[kmcarr]

@monkeyrotica: Taco Bell's "ground meat" that's at least 40% inorganic matter and plankton.
~~~~~~
That was a claim spread by some lawyers looking to make a name (and some money) for themselves. It's completely false. By weight the Taco Bell seasoned meat mixture is 88% beef, 9% spices, preservatives & fillers, 3% added water.

[melpy]

Except the dollar tree which didn't mark prices so I walked around for 20 minutes before I saw the little sign on the wall saying Everything's a dollar.