McDonald's is one of the most successful fast food chains of all time, but it's also
had its fair share of failures. Some of them were flawed to begin with, while
others were done in by circumstances beyond their control. Keep watching to discover
the biggest flops in McDonald's history. Way back in the 80s, McDonald's decided to up
its cachet by adding some continental swagger to its humble homegrown burgers and fries.
Banking on the idea that everybody loves pasta, the chain launched a spaghetti and meatballs
meal that went by the name of McSpaghetti. But despite the general popularity of spaghetti,
it was difficult to convince customers why they should orderi Italian pasta with
tomato sauce at a burger joint. Anyone can make spaghetti at home, while it's a lot harder
to reproduce Big Macs and McDonald's fries. McDonald's learned this lesson fairly quickly and
McSpaghetti was discontinued when it was still in its al dente phase. If you feel you somehow missed
out on this historic flop, you should know that tomato sauce-doused McSpaghetti still lives on in
the Philippines. Considerably closer to home, the largest McDonald's restaurant in the world, which
is in Orlando, Florida, also offers McSpaghetti and other McPasta dishes such as lasagna
and fettuccine Alfredo to curious customers. In 1989, McDonald's bet on Italy once again
when it rolled out the McPizza. At the time, the chain was trying to bolster its lackluster
dinner-time business. With pizza sales growing at a rate of 10 percent a year, McDonald's
decided to take on reigning champ Pizza Hut. As it prepared for battle, McDonald's invested
heavily in pizza artillery. Efforts ranged from remodeling kitchens with special ovens and
warming bins to expanding drive-through windows to widths compatible with pizza boxes. The
company even created a patented oven that used superheated air to bake a crispy-crusted pizza in
five-and-a-half minutes flat. In response, Pizza Hut promptly started airing prime-time commercials
that mocked McDonald's pizza dough as "McFrozen." Despite its valiant efforts and sophisticated
technology, McDonald's was waging a losing battle. It took 11 minutes to cook the
made-to-order, slow-baking pies. This was a small eternity for a restaurant whose entire
philosophy revolved around speedy service. Even though it scaled down the family-sized pizzas to
more fast-food friendly individual pies, McPizzas struggled to survive and didn't last long in most
locations. In 2017, the last two McPizza-selling outposts removed them from their menus, thereby
surrendering McDonald's stake in the pizza wars. "My guess is corporate just found
out they were still selling them." In 1977, McDonald's Corporation Founder Ray Kroc wrote in his autobiography Grinding
It Out, The Making of McDonald's, "There's no telling what's
inside a hot dog's skin, and our standard of quality just
wouldn't permit that kind of item." Unfortunately not everyone at McDonald's read
Kroc's book. A decade after his death in 1984, some corporate heirs decided to foolishly go
against his wishes. In the summer of 1995, McDonald's introduced its first-ever McHotDog
to little acclaim. Despite lackluster sales, the chain stubbornly persisted, offering McHotDogs
off and on in a number of locations throughout the years, only to finally discontinue them
due to an unwavering lack of enthusiasm. Setting aside Kroc's misgivings, it's a bit
surprising that hot dogs proved to be such a flop at a burger joint. Perhaps it ultimately
came down to aesthetics. A sizzling, char-grilled burger topped by a zesty bright
pop of orange cheese is far more visually appetizing than a pallid, putty-colored
hot dog laying dormant in a doughy bun. In the early 60s, McDonald's restaurants
in certain markets were taking a financial hit due to Catholics abstaining from eating
meat on Fridays. One franchisee, Lou Groen, owned a McDonald's in Cincinnati, whose population
at the time was 87 percent Catholic. His solution was the unsinful burger alternative of a battered
halibut and cheese sandwich. When Groen took his idea to Ray Kroc, the latter hated the
thought of his stores stinking like fish. But part of his reaction may have also
been due to the fact that he had his own non-meat alternative: the Hula
Burger. This vegetarian sandwich featured a slice of grilled pineapple with
two slices of cheese on a toasted bun. In the spirit of competition, Kroc challenged
Groen to a culinary duel. On Good Friday in 1962, both sandwiches would be sold
side-by-side at select locations, with the winner being added to the
McDonald's menu. At the end of the day, the results were irrefutable: Hula Burger:
6, Filet-O-Fish: 350. The Filet-O-Fish went on to become a nationwide best-seller,
while it was "Aloha!" time for the Hula. The Filet-O-Fish was such a winner for McDonald's
that in 2013, when the burger behemoth suffered its first sales decline in over a decade,
it decided to take drastic measures. After axing the president of McDonald's U.S., the
company proceeded to roll out the closest thing imaginable to the original sandwich in the form of
McFish Bites. By then, the Filet-O-Fish's original haddock had been swapped out for cheaper Alaskan
pollock. Shaped into snack-friendly nuggets, McFish Bites were breaded, deep-fried, and
served with a tangy tartar dipping sauce. At the time, McDonald's was getting a
lot of flak from health advocacy groups who accused the chain of encouraging
kids to eat junk food. In response, McDonald's added McFish Bites to its Happy
Meals, while reducing the fries and adding apple slices. The chain also sought to seduce
adults by offering three sizes of packaging, the better with which to share the nuggets or
eat them on the go. Yet, despite all the ongoing love for the Filet-O-Fish, the relative health
benefits of deep fried pollock, and the many conveniences of bite-sized items, customers just
didn't take the bait. After their February 2013 launch, McFish Bites were discontinued
later that same year due to poor sales. McFish Bites isn't the only maritime-inspired
McDonald's meal that ended up sinking. In 2013, a steep decline in the wholesale price of Maine
lobster led the coveted crustacean to become a mass-market staple. It ended up washing onto
McDonald's menus in the form of the McDonald's Lobster Roll. The "McLobster" was actually the
Golden Arches' second stab at a lobster roll, as the first aborted attempt occurred in
1992. This time, the economics seemed more favorable. Lower overall costs coupled with
McDonald's ability to purchase cheaper claw, knuckle, and leg meat in high volumes allowed the
company to charge a relatively affordable $7.99 for the usually high-end delicacy.
Nevertheless, a lot of customers weren't biting. As a Maine-based
marine biologist told The New Yorker, "If I want a lobster roll, I could
think of a dozen places between here and the nearest McDonald's where I'd get it." The McLobster flop followed that of the
McCrab sandwich, which McDonald's hoped would tempt crabcake-loving traditionalists in
Maryland, Virginia, and Delaware. McDonald's crab cakes were actually handmade
to ensure lumps of crab meat were visible. McCrab co-inventor Bernie Carr stressed
his belief that customers wanted to see the crab meat. But they evidently didn't want to see the
McCrab, which skulked away, never to return. Although McDonald's is always on the prowl for
the next successful McProduct, some McNovelties are less about substance and more about style.
Case in point: the McDLT. By the time the 80s rolled around, McDonald's was apparently receiving
complaints about the swamp-like ecosystem that emerged after placing soggy vegetables onto an
otherwise crispy burger and toasted bun. Its seemingly brilliant solution was to completely
overhaul the burger biome by creating the McDLT. A pioneering example of user-friendly,
interactive food, the McDLT was a McDonald's burger with the typical lettuce and tomato,
but deconstructed via a specially designed Styrofoam container with two compartments. One
contained the toasted bottom bun and grilled burger while the other held the top bun, cheese,
toppings, and condiments. The idea was that you could assemble your own burger right before
taking a bite out of it. In doing so, you'd preserve the textural integrity of both the hot,
grilled components and the fresh, crispy ones. Alas, the McDLT also featured some notable design
flaws. Lumping the cheese in the cool compartment prevented it from melting deliciously on top
of the burger. And even in the gas-guzzling Reagan years, all that nasty Styrofoam was already
considered environmentally unfriendly. Ultimately, not even Jason Alexander singing the praises
of the McDLT could stave off rapid extinction. "Could be the best tasting
lettuce-and-tomato hamburger ever!" Sometimes it pays to stick to what you know
best, which McDonald's should've realized when it decided to infringe upon KFC's hallowed
territory with the launch of the Mighty Wing. Originally introduced in 1990, Mighty Wings
were discontinued in 2003 before plans were laid for an epic comeback in 2013. Following a
year of testing and tweaking, McDonald's was so sure that its revived poultry product would fly
that it stocked up on 50 million pounds of wings. "Actually I think it tastes a little bit
like KFC, is what I would compare it to." Yet despite all the careful prep work, Mighty
Wings suffered from hewing a little too true to their name. Aside from significantly heavy
breading, the wings were also apparently too mighty spicy for some tastes. Ultimately, though,
the wings' main failure were their mighty prices. At more than $1 per wing for orders under
10 wings, the price wasn't exactly the most competitive on the market. In the end,
sales were so dismal that McDonald's was left literally holding the bag, a bag that
was filled with 10 million frozen bone-in chicken wings. Franchises tried to
mitigate their losses by holding clearance sales. Many reduced the prices of their wings to 60
cents, which turned out to be a mighty good deal. McDonald's has clearly had its share of faulty
products and packaging, but one of its most epic failures was due to a very bad case of PR. On
paper, the McAfrika seemed like an unthreatening, if unoriginal, new product. It consisted
of a standard cheese-topped beef patty accompanied by tomatoes and salad,
sandwiched between two wedges of nutritious pita. There wasn't anything vaguely
African about the sandwich aside from its name, and that's exactly why all hell broke loose.
The McAfrika was launched in 2002 in Norway, one of the wealthiest countries on the
planet, in the midst of a severe famine in southern Africa that had devastated
the lives of about 12 million people. Without having tasted it, outraged
Norwegians, including fundraising and aid agencies, referred to the poorly named
burger's launch as "distasteful." Activists protested outside McDonald's restaurants in
Oslo by distributing to customers "catastrophe crackers," the protein-packed biscuits that were
being donated to starvation victims. In response, McDonald's Norway attempted damage control by
allowing aid agencies to place collection boxes and fundraising posters in restaurants where the
offending burgers were being sold. Eventually, the company got around to actually discontinuing the
McAfrika, only to re-release it as the "McAfrica" during the 2008 Beijing Olympics, along with the
McEurope, McAmerica, McAsia, and McAustralia. But a spelling change wasn't exactly enough to
redeem this politically incorrect sandwich. Another infamous case of a theoretically
appetizing product combined with a disastrous marketing campaign was the Arch Deluxe. Having
already won over young consumers with Happy Meals, McDonald's set its sights on an
increasingly aging American population in search of more sophisticated, adult
offerings. The Arch Deluxe was a basic burger dressed up with fancy fixings such as
peppered bacon and a stone ground mustard sauce. To emphasize its adult credentials,
McDonald's spent some big boy bucks, to the tune of $200 million, on touting
"the burger with the grown-up taste". To entice gourmands, one commercial
featured McDonald's Executive Chef Andrew Selvaggio preparing the burger
from a sleek, gourmet kitchen bereft of any grease. To underscore the sandwich's
supposed maturity, another spot featured 6-year-old rappers reacting to the burger
with a synchronized shout of disgust. "Want an Arch Deluxe?"
"Yuck!" Alas, the adults in the room were ultimately
put off by the combination of the Arch Deluxe's unreasonably high calorie count and price.
By the time the Arch Deluxe was removed from the menu in 2000, it had become one of the
most expensive flops in fast food history. Check out one of our newest
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