OAK BROOK, Ill. -- With little fanfare, much media interest and no apologies to Eric Clapton, McDonald's is debuting its "After Midnight" limited menu at an undetermined number of its more than 14,000 quick-serve restaurants nationwide. The rollout builds on a "Breakfast After Midnight" menu the company has been testing in several markets, said the Associated Press.
Combining dayparts, the menu--available from 12:00 a.m. to 4:00 a.m.--offers Big Macs, Quarter Pounders, Chicken McNuggets, Egg McMuffins, Hot Cakes, Sausage Burritos and more. Customers will be able to mix and match from the menus, ordering, for example, hash browns with a Quarter Pounder or French fries with a Sausage McMuffin, said USA Today. It will also offer all McCafe beverages and dessert items.
"Our customers want convenience around the clock, and we're making it easier to eat at McDonald's with more 24-hour restaurants open than ever before," the Oak Brook, Ill.-based company said in a statement.
The "After Midnight" menu is already available in North Delaware, Delaware and College Station, Texas, McDonald's told AP. The BurgerBusiness website--which posted an image of the menu--also said that it is being offered in Rockford, Ill., northwest of Chicago.
"It's indicative of how competitive things are," Scott Hume, founder of BurgerBusiness.com, told USA Today. "All the chains are struggling to get their numbers up."
But the late-night menu isn't about McDonald's making a move into all-day breakfast anytime soon, he said. That would require major equipment upgrades and massive retraining, because grills at McDonald's don't have enough space to handle full breakfasts and dinners at the same time. By limiting the After Midnight menu to a few "best of" products, "McDonald's may have found a way to keep everyone happy--at least from midnight to 4:00 a.m.," Hume told the newspaper.
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