McDonald’s burgers rank at or near the bottom of many fast food surveys, but lots of people still speak lovingly of the chain’s Egg McMuffin breakfast sandwich. So why can’t they just make those all day long?

In an interview with BurgerBusiness.com, the president of the Greater Atlanta McDonald’s Operators Association, who has been a Golden Arches franchisee since wide lapels and mustaches were cool in an unironic way, explains:

First there are some capacity issues. We only have so much toaster space and so much grill space. Unlike a lot of breakfast QSRs, we still cook our product on a grill. Many of the pretenders are doing a ton of prep in microwaves. For instance, go into a Dunkin’ Donuts or a Starbucks, who are chasing breakfast, and you don’t find a grill or oven or fryer. We prefer to be a restaurant rather than processing everything through a microwave.

He also addresses the particular issues facing those 24-hour (or open-late) McDonald’s that have started serving “Breakfast After Midnight” menus.

“I think the trick to doing that is how you balance the operations at breakfast and lunch in our kitchens. There’s some equipment that we have to learn to work with,” he explains. “I think what we’re going to see is a reduction in the overnight menu on the regular side as well as on the breakfast side so that during that period we can streamline the menu and serve fewer items and please more people.”

The franchisee, who operates eight restaurants, says that “McDonald’s After Midnight” would probably be a more appropriate name instead of “Breakfast After Midnight.”

“It will be a combination of the best of both worlds,” he tells BurgerBusiness. “There are hungry people at 3 a.m. but not a lot of them want to eat salads. Maybe we don’t have to be selling salads then.”

You can check out the rest of the interview here.

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