Dive Brief:
- Starting April 30, McDonald's will offer a new late-night menu, which will include Big Macs, Quarter Pounders, Chicken McNuggets, fries, Happy Meals and All Day Breakfast, Business Insider reports. The menu won't contain any of its premium items, such as signature crafted recipes, artisan grilled chicken sandwiches, Filet-O-Fish and buttermilk crispy tenders.
- The new menu will be offered from midnight to 5 a.m. Premium items will still be offered during the daytime.
- A company representative told Business Insider that it wants to simplify the menu and get popular items to customers faster.
Dive Insight:
McDonald's move to simplify its late-night menu comes during a time when labor costs and shortages are eating into margins industrywide. McDonald's CFO Kevin Ozan previously said during a conference that labor is the company's biggest challenge and many of its restaurants are not properly staffed, which can impact sales.
"What we've got to do is find efficiencies in the restaurant, that's in front of the restaurant and that’s also in the kitchen behind the counter, of how we can be more efficient to reduce our reliability on so much labor," he said.
Removing premium items that require more prep from the menu would increase speed of service and help reduce a reliance on late-night workers, which can be a particularly difficult shift to fill. Late-night fast food workers often experience more violence, are less healthy and are at a higher risk of death compared to their daytime colleagues.
Having faster items will also help improve drive-thru times. McDonald's has the worst times compared to its closest competitors, and this change could get customers in and out of the restaurant faster, reducing any risk of violent confrontations. Considering labor will be an ongoing issue across the industry, other chains could very well make similar moves to try and increase efficiencies across the restaurant, especially during extremely slow periods.
