This thread was prompted by a new Domino’s TV ad, in which I was informed that it is no longer “Domino’s Pizza,” it is just “Domino’s,” because they have soooo much more to offer than just pizza now (at which point I was treated to a visual display of their many varied menu options).
When I was a kid, I remember the menu at McDonald’s being pretty simple. You could get a regular hamburger (with or without cheese). Or a Big Mac. Or a Fish sandwich if you were feeling adventurous. And…that was about it for entrees, as I recall.
You look at a McDonald’s menu now, and there are dozens of menu items available for lunch and dinner. And it offers a similarly wide range of breakfast foods now.
This sort of gradual menu expansion seems to happen at all fast food chains over time, which leads me to wonder a couple of things:
How/why does this happen? Is it the result of generations of pencil-pushers at corporate HQ feeling compelled to prove their worth with bold new menu ideas? Are these restaurants taking suggestion boxes or customer whining about limited menus a little too much to heart? Or what? What drives these changes?
How annoying is it to work at one of these places now and have to master so many different menu items?
It seems to me wrong-headed for every fast food restaurant to try to be all things to all people. (Taco Bell now offers a “biscuit taco” for breakfast, for pity’s sake.) I would think a better approach would be to do one thing but do it very well.
When we were kids, McDonalds pretty much owned the market. There were smaller, regional chains, but McDonalds still had “Over X Million Served.”
Fast forward. More chains offer more choices. People get tired of stopping at McDonalds for lunch and decide to try Burger King, or Roy Rogers, or Chicken Delight. So the numbers crunchers at McDonalds figure out that they can grill chicken patties as easily as hamburgers and get the “tired of hamburgers, how about chicken” crowd.
Then Burger King follows suit and McDonalds has to come up with something else, like breakfast. Then Hardees comes up with a breakfast item, so now everyone needs to come up with a salad item. On and on ad infinitum.
I think it is interesting that two of the chains that always are at the top of any burger poll… In 'n Out, and Five Guys have probably two of the simplest menus out there.
eh, I wasn’t saying that it works, only that it’s what I guess is the mentality which drives it.
never been to Five Guys, but IMO In-N-Out is massively, massively overrated. Their burgers are decent (but still a fast-food burger) and their fries are garbage.
Probably not. But if it’s you and three other people, one of them might drop their objection to Olive Garden based on “Well, I can always get a burger” when they didn’t want pasta.
yeah, whatever. you can’t cook fries in a single step. either they’re underdone and mushy, or overcooked and greasy. look, In-n-Out is a fast food joint. It ain’t great food, no matter how much you west coast types want to deify it.
I wasn’t aware that you could get Italian food at Olive Garden, either.
When I lived in the St. Louis region, I went to a Five Guys a couple times, and I think it’s called that because it would take five guys to eat one of those meals.
i think the only interesting relevance of In-n-Out to this thread is that it was founded at almost the exact same time and place as McDonald’s, and yet followed a much different pattern of growth (both economically and menu-wise). They are somewhat famous for their ‘hidden’/off-menu offerings, but they’ve maintained a simplicity in presentation that has allowed them to remain in business and earn them a reputation for quality.
On the other hand, McDonald’s is a massively more popular and well-known brand.
I thought it was a stroke of genius for McDonald’s to break into the higher-end coffee market. They already had a ton of prime locations. The additional space needed at each location for the coffee-related equipment and storage is probably small compared to the extra profits they can earn. Granted, I haven’t tried any of their coffee offerings, but it’s just because I haven’t gotten around to it; I’ve heard that they’re quite good by the standards of what various coffee chains sell.
