OAK BROOK, ILL. — McDonald’s customers nationwide may soon order a breakfast sandwich at dinnertime. The fast-food chain announced it will offer a limited breakfast menu all day beginning Oct. 6.
The company said all-day breakfast is the top request it receives from customers, and more than 120,000 people have tweeted McDonald’s asking for breakfast throughout the day in the past year.
Local markets will offer either McMuffin sandwiches or biscuit sandwiches, in addition to hotcake platters, sausage burritos, fruit and yogurt parfaits, fruit and maple oatmeal and hash browns all day.
All core lunch and dinner menu items will remain, including the Big Mac, Quarter Pounder with Cheese, McNuggets and fries, said Lisa McComb, director of McDonald’s media relations. However regions may remove other menu items based on local customer preferences.
Ms. McComb said some of the restaurants had to make changes in the kitchen to accommodate the additional menu items.
“Some restaurants needed to purchase additional equipment to cook the eggs at the same time burgers are being cooked, and some restaurants needed different toasters,” she said.
The announcement comes amid intensifying competition in the breakfast category, with such new players as Taco Bell entering the market. McDonald’s said it serves one out of four breakfasts eaten outside the home in the United States, and 44% of consumers in a recent national poll by Instantly picked McDonald’s as their “go-to” in the morning.
McDonald’s began testing all-day breakfast in select markets last year as part of efforts to reverse three years of sales declines in the United States, the company’s largest market.
“I believe we are making the right moves to begin to stabilize the U.S. business, but there is no silver bullet,” said Steve Easterbrook, president and chief executive officer of McDonald’s Corp., during a July 23 earnings call with financial analysts. “No one move will turn a business that has been in decline for nearly three years. And while recovery will be bumpy, I am confident we’re moving in the right direction.”
