You know it was coming and now it’s happened to reader Joe. Joe says that his local McDonald’s has cruelly taken away both the Double Cheeseburger and the McChicken sandwiches from the cheap-as-hell glory that is the Dollar Menu.
Here’s Joe’s reaction:
I’m a resident of Chicago’s northwest suburbs and have now ran into atleast 2 McDonald’s where the dollar menu no longer includes the Double Cheeseburger or McChicken Sandwich. Both of the items are now priced at $1.19. I was curious if anyone else has had this occur near them.
Personally, I’m mildly glad of it. My lack of self control in eating fast food was strictly for those two items. Now that they’ve raised the price, no way am I going to mentally justify eating that food.
What do you think? Will an extra few cents make a difference in your consumption of fast food?
(Photo: Ben Popken )
More From Consumerist
-
Fast-Food Workers Reportedly Walked Off The Job Today During NYC Strike Over Wages
-
Burger King Remembers It Has A Value Menu It Should Probably Be Telling You About
-
4 Reasons Why Fast Food Secret Menu Items Are Good For Business
-
There Are More Christmas Decorations For Sale At This Dollar Tree Than Halloween Items
-
McDonald’s Apparently Hitching Its Wagon To A Star Made Of Fish McBites
I really no longer eat out. Not that I do not like it. It cost way to much. I mean really I can make a Pizza for less then $1, I can make a hotdog for less then .25, the list goes on. As for a what was taking off. If I want it, and I feel it worth the money at the time. I will buy it.
That’s still cheap. They are $1.50 here in Bozeman, MT.
It’s straight B.S.
Whats sad is they’re still running that ad for “what can i got for this?” And at the end the guy runs off some script about a double cheese burger.
The Double Cheeseburger was taken off the dollar menu in my town a couple months ago.
Changing from $1 to $1.19?
It’s been £1.19 for years in the UK.
@Anjow: Well, it would be pretty dumb to have a dollar menu in the UK, wouldn’t it?
I live on the IL/WI border, and we too have to suffer with $1.19 double cheeseburgers. They replaced it with double hamburgers. The patties are SO thin! So they take off the best thing -cheese- and replace it w/ a regular hamburger w/ paper thin patties…this is so wrong. I wanted a double cheeseburger and got crap. It didn’t even make me feel better after eating it. I felt dirty and bad.
McChicken so far is $1..but we’ll see just how long that lasts…bastards.
Here in doodah (ie. Wichita, KS) the double cheeseburger has been off the dollar menu for years. The regular cheeseburger is $1.29 and the double is $2-something. Even in L.A. when I was out there in May the double was on the dollar menu and in Dallas where I lived a couple years ago. Typical Kansas. Although I always found it odd that a cheeseburger was $0.99 and the double was $1…. why anyone other than a kid got a regular cheeseburger at that price was beyond me.
Never had the $1 double cheeseburger here, just the regular cheeseburger. You can still get a small fry, small drink, or 2 apple pies for $1.00.
I was once at a highway rest area, and they didn’t have a dollar menu. A man with a thick southern accent ordered several cheeseburgers and small fries and the total came to $20 instead of the $6 or $7 it would have cost if they had a dollar menu. He made a huge stink and demanded to talk to the manager. The manager did a great job explaining that participation in the dollar menu varies by location. He also added that there is a McDonalds about 5 miles down the road off the next exit with a dollar menu. At the rest area you are paying for easy on easy off access, which also explains why their prices are usually higher than the ones further from the highway. In the end the man didn’t purchase his food, but I don’t know if he wound up driving the 10 mile 20 – 30 minute round trip to save 13 bucks.
it will be just like the airports. Dollar menu gone. gone. gone.
Double cheeseburgers here have always been either 1.25 or 1.50
My wife just cheered the cheer of the victorious. She been on my case about kicking my dollar menu freebasing for the last year. A nineteen percent price increase is enough to do it(I only ate double cheese’s and McChicken.)
Jesus I’m cheap. Live long and frugal.
I don’t know if ours has gone up yet, but I know for a while the ones here in Yuma, AZ have been charging a fee if you ask for any additional condiments beyond what they give you. Big signs everywhere warning you too.
They must be running some test market studies to see what they can get away with to alter their menu. They want to see if it annoys their core market. I bet if people avoid the stores with the new menu and the traffic drops, they will not drop the double cheesburger from the dollar menu at other stores. Only a thought.
I will still eat it because of the value. The McD’s here in Canada have the $1.39 menu. When comparing it to a normal say Big Mac sandwich priced at around $4.19 I think, the only difference here is another bun, some Big Mac sauce and lettuce. You are paying about $3 extra just for another half of a bun, lettuce and sauce! The patties are the same in both the double cheese burgers and the big macs.
If everyone rationalizes that the price move from $1 to ~$1.20 is trivial (a 20% price increase!) and goes along with it, then that’ll be the beginning of the end for $1 fast food chain menus.
We notice the $1 Jr Whopper/no cheese at BK is a great burger and is still $1, at least around here.
Sure, they all want to discreetly get away from the $1 menus, but I say shop from the $1 menu where it’s still available. Keep the $1 option on the menu!!
Here in Brooklyn the dollar menu is basically non-existent. Last summer the one nearest me still had the McChicken and Double Cheeseburger for .99 but now there is basically nothing on the dollar menu’s save a mini parfait and apple pie, which both suck
Wendys, here in MA, just released a double-cheeseburger-supreme (or something like that) for $1. Comes to, I think, $1.09 or $1.13 after tax.
Wendys has better burgers anyway, IMO. Plus, they don’t look like they’ve been dropped and stepped on.
The double cheeseburger has been at 1.39 here in Canada for quite some time now, so feel lu…no, feel sorry for us.
These have been $1.69 around me for over a year! Something smells fishy when I’m paying that much and others are just seeing $1.19. It’s not like I’m in Manhattan or anything =(
I am a manager at a McDonald’s near Cincinnati. I will explain 100% the reason behind this going chainwide. While the double cheeseburger was a relatively efficient way to make some money in between orders of big macs and happy meals, it is killllllling the business now that every order is nothing but doubles and other $1 menu items. The profit margins aren’t high enough, people order more items, which require more labor to make, but are basically useless (3 double cheeseburgers cost less than a big mac).
and i have seen like $2.50 doubles in st. louis on tour in my old band. everything varies (in new mexico they have green chili double cheeseburgers!)
the reason for not allowing the dollar menu in late shifts is because if you are some drunk asshat coming through and ordering 15 doubles at 2am, when 2-3 people are working in the whole store, it backs the drivethru out to the street.
/insight
//anon because, while my job sucks, i still need it
it’s kinda laughible. You can still get the 4 piece chicken nuggets for a buck at my mcd’s. by the 10 piece one cost you 4 bucks.
As for the double cheese.. It’s kind of a loss. It means my former tradition of 4.20 on 4.20 4 doublecheese burgers is alas… dead
I attend Purdue University, I can verify that all the McDonalds around campus have pulled the doublecheeseburger from the dollar menu. I went to one two days ago to grab something quick before an exam, and was disappointed that it was gone. I assumed that they had pulled the item off the menu all together, apparently I wasn’t looking hard enough.
I haven’t been in a McDonald’s for over 25 years. Seriously.
But, compared to the $7 burger I had last night at a restaurant, $1.19 seems like a pretty good deal to me….
I worked at a McDonalds while I was in high school. The double Cheeseburgers where sold at a loss then, even 3 years ago. About $0.17 loss per burger. The main reason they kept it up for so long was that when someone got it, they’d usually get a drink and maybe fries. Fries and fountain drinks at a McDonalds are a cash cow. (heh, cow. beef. made myself smile). Whereas they lost money on the sandwich, it was a draw to get people in the place to buy other things that where highly profitable. And it worked at the time. Right now, with things as shot as they are, they’re just trying to make the same kind of profit they where before.
They didn’t lose on it. The double cheese, from bun, to meat, to cheese, condiments, et al. costs about 60 cents to make. Labor adds 10-15 cents depending on how brain-dead the crew people involved are. There is a profit, but the margin isn’t as high.
This is why McD is going to the coffee thing and other high-end strategies like angus burgers and bottled drinks. Same or less labor, but higher prices.
$$$
When I saw that headline, for a second there I thought I was reading The Onion.
This isn’t a decision that McD corporate made to raise the price. It’s the discretion of the individual franchise owner to raise the price for various reasons. The local McD’s where I live in the rural SE are still offering the .99 option, however, in the nearest major city, I’ve seen the menu change to $1.19.
Fact is, they can do what they want and you can either buy it or not. If they all of the sudden see their sales drop, you’ll see them bring back the old prices. However, you also have a choice to simply buy some ground beef, make it into patties and cook them. you can then do what McD’s does anyway which is to freeze them and reheat them, slap a cheap piece of cheese along with mustard, ketchup and pickles on a bun and you’re good to go for about $.40 per sammich.
Game Over. The terrorists have won.
I live in the North Chicago ‘burbs as well. This seems to be a local test to see what the response is. They’ve taken new stickers and slapped them over the $1.00 Double Cheese burger signs that are by the entrance.
If you order a double hamburger, with cheese, it is on the $1 menu. It comes in a silver foil wrapper. For the life of me, I cannot figure out what the $.19 difference is between the two.
I sent the editors this same tip a couple weeks ago – it happened in the McDonalds at 30th Street Station, Philadelphia. This is a HUGE transit hub, one of the biggest in the Northeast, and they’ve had both the McChicken and Double Cheeseburger on their dollar menu for quite some time. When I visited a couple weeks ago they had raised the price to about $1.34 each.
It’s so sad that in this horrible economy, with people losing jobs left and right, that you’re comfortable looking down your nose at “minimum wage” employees and put “understanding” past their abilities. I’m lucky to be in an industry that’s still doing well, but many former high earners are willing to take any position to be able to continue to pay bills. 3,000 lost jobs just yesterday here in GA when a dealership closed. I hope your position is safe – if not you might be a minimum wage earner yourself.
One by my house in Jacksonville, FL. Still had them on there as of 7:15pm on 9/23.
I live outside the Atlanta area, and just last night I stopped at McSucks for a quick bite before going grocery shopping (never do on an empty stomach!). They no longer had either, just a “double burger” and some other items I barely glanced at. The caveat to this was then I talked myself into buying over price value meals because I was starving. Maybe they have research that shows suckers like me are worth the price hike…
In NYC the double cheese burger is like 3 dollars
Just heard a McDs ad on the radio specifically pointing out the double cheeseburger on the dollar menu – at least here in Alabama where cows are cheaper.
@stanner: I know our local Burger King in Monroeville is now offering a $1 double cheeser…the McDonald’s version has been $1.29 for some time now.
I defect!
The McDonalds I went to the other week didn’t have double cheeseburgers or the McChicken on the Dollar Menu but I asked and they were still $1. Sneaky little move.
Well, at least Taco bell still has an awesome sub dollar menu.
Maybe now the regular cheesburger will get some love. Two regulars aren’t much more damaging together than ONE double burger, while being more filling. And if many folks are like me, you’re not just going to settle for one double cheeser at the [dying] $1 price point.
Thing is, for the longest time a double cheeseburger was $1, and a regular cheesburger could be $1.09 or higher. I fully expect the regular hamburger and regular cheeseburger to represent future Dollar Menunaires.
Here in Northern NJ they have been $1.59 at our 2 local McD’s for at least the past 6 months. In fact, neither place will let you order a Double Cheeseburger meal (used to be a number 9, I think). While I understand the profit margin argument, it doens’t seem right that they would do this now, especially now when people rely on cheap food to stretch their budgets.