Tag Archives: Fast Food

McDonald’s Is Finally Bringing the Chicken Big Mac to US Menus

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https://www.brandeating.com/2024/10/new-chicken-big-mac-october-10-2024.html#google_vignette

So after offering it in other countries around the world, McDonald’s is finally bringing the chicken Big Mac to the US. On October 10, the wait is finally over if you’ve been wanting to try it.

Personally, I’m intrigued by it and plan on trying it at least once. Even though McDonald’s chicken patties are probably my least favorite in all of the fast-food world, the thought of a new twist on the classic Big Mac is enough to pique my interest.

The classic Big Mac may very well be my favorite fast-food menu item in the land, so even if it turns out I’m not crazy about the chicken version, I can always console myself with the iconic beef version.

The Chicken Big Mac drops on October 10 for a limited time or while supplies last, so if it intrigues you as well, I wouldn’t hesitate in picking one up. It’s going to be a busy fast-food week for me as two days earlier on the 8th, Wendy’s drops it’s Spongebob SquarePants collab meal featuring the Krabby Patty with secret sauce and a new pineapple Frosty that I’m excited to try.

While we’re on the subject, let me share with you a couple of links to check out. The first is to a post I did for Geekster a year or so ago looking at Five Fun Facts About McDonald’s Big Mac.

The other is to a new piece from Retroist where he explores the possibilies of Remaking and Simplifying the McDonald’s Menu. The idea is interesting, and the conversations in the comments section are great too.

Taco Bell Nostalgia

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It’s been all over the news recently that Taco Bell is about to roll out a nostalgia menu for a limited time, where they will be bringing back menu favorites…one “favorite” from each decade. The list includes:

  • The Tostada representing the 1960s
  • The Green Burrito from the 1970s
  • The Meximelt of the 1980s
  • The Beef Gordita Supreme representing the 1990s
  • The Caramel Apple Empanada of the 2000s

While this is a pretty good list and a pretty neat concept, it’s missing a lot of my personal favorites. I really wish they would bring back pricing that is more closely aligned with the old days as well. And even though they are bringing back some old menu items, the part that is extremely hard to recapture is the feeling one used to get from the whole Taco Bell experience. Well, at least for me it is.

In my rural area, we didn’t get our first Taco Bell until the late 1980s. I grew up loving Old El Paso taco nights at home, so when the local Taco Bell opened, my mom and I were very excited and went to try it the first week. We made several trips over the next several weeks and sampled much of their menu. We enjoyed everything and it became a regular stop for us when we were out shopping on Saturday afternoons.

Fast forward a little bit to when I started driving, and Taco Bell became even more of a staple for me. It was the fast food place that was deemed the “coolest” by my everyone at school, and if you were hanging out, odds are you would probably find yourself at Taco Bell at some point during that outing. The other reason, we frequented it so much was the cheap prices. With just a little cash in your pocket, you knew you could go to Taco Bell and fill up easier than you could at other chains.

Taco Bell was also the place I knew I couldn’t go wrong with on date night. If it was a first date, and I wasn’t sure what she did or didn’t like to eat, going to Taco Bell was the safest bet. It was also a great late-night stop after going to the movies, or bowling, cruising town, or a Friday night football game. Hell, even a quick trip out to town almost always resulted in a quick trip to the drive-thru to get a quick snack whether I was hungry or not just because everything tasted so good.

It’s hard to describe the atmosphere of the place though. In the ’90s, it had its vibrant purple, pinkish, and teal color scheme that we loved so much, and the tables outside to sit out while we dined and talked about the important events of the day like the newest albums coming out, the latest turns in the Monday Night War, or the big upcoming game between the San Francisco 49ers and the Dallas Cowboys. It probably wasn’t the atmosphere of the place as much as it was the company of the people I was with and the times we were having that I miss.

But back to the nostalgic menu…I’m certainly ready to have a Meximelt again, as I’ve been craving one since they pulled them from the menu several years ago. And I was almost to the point of riot until they finally brought back the Mexican Pizza recently. It was always my favorite item on the menu, and I no longer take it for granted and pick one up every other week or so just in case it gets pulled again.

I’ll indulge in another Tostado while the nostalgia menu is in place too just for the memories, as well as a Beef Gordita Supreme. But there are several other old Taco Bell favorites I’d like to see make a comeback at some point as well. Let me start off by mentioning The Chilito…or Chili Cheese Burrito.

What was not to love about The Chilito with its chili sauce they had partnered with shredded cheddar cheese and wrapped securely in a warm flour tortilla? That’s a rhetorical question by the way. My friends and I capped numerous of our evenings off by downing bags of these things, regardless of the consequences we were sure to face the next morning because of it.

The Double Decker Taco is another old favorite that I’d gladly welcome back to the menu. Just look at that image, and gaze upon the beauty that was created by melding two different tacos together with some beans. Other than the Mexican Pizza, the Double Decker Taco may have been Taco Bell’s most perfect creation.

No longer did you have to decide between hard or soft tacos…you could have both. And of all the items they’ve removed from their menu over the last several years, this one confuses me the most. They keep all of the ingredients needed to make this on hand, so why not just keep it on the menu? Curious.

The Bacon Cheeseburger Burrito was a short-term offering from the mid-90s and was my obsession until I completely burned myself out on them.

The thing was loaded with beef, lettuce, tomatoes, bacon, and a cheese sauce. It was wonderful.

I ate so many of those things when they were available, I burned myself out on them by the time they were gone. Even though I got burned out on them way back then, I find myself craving them now, and would probably burn myself out on them again if given the opportunity.

And I’ll stop my list with this one…The Texas Taco Sandwich. The Texas Taco Sandwich hit the market in 1995 with a fun commercial starring Jack Palance. Palance was coming off a resurgence thanks to the movies City Slickers and City Slickers II, so he lent credibility to Taco Bell’s latest offering with a Texas flair. I was driving by the time this came out, so as soon as I saw the first commercials, I was making my run for the border to try one.

The Texas Taco Sandwich was a change from the norm due to its thicker and breadier shell. We know now that this was just the forerunner to the Gordita that was to come in 1998, but at the time it was a unique item that captured my attention, as well as my taste buds while it was on the menu. I do seem to remember it being larger than the later Gordita, but it probably had to be since it was marketed as being associated with Texas. Everything is bigger in Texas I hear.

While all of my favorites aren’t returning as part of this nostalgia menu they are rolling out, I’m sure a lot of other people’s favorites are. But just the announcement of such a menu was enough to get me very nostalgic for Taco Bell, and I’m sure that’s the point of it all. So kudos to you Taco Bell for this, and I hope it does very well, as it could lead to more iterations of it in the future. Who knows, maybe the next time they roll this out I’ll find myself able to binge on Chilitos and Double Decker Tacos once again.

If you’ve enjoyed this particular trip down memory lane, then you might enjoy these as well.

When Pizza Hut Was An Experience | The Things I Miss About Wendys

When Pizza Hut Was An Experience

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I miss the “glory days” of Pizza Hut.  That magical time in the ’80s and early 90’s when it was a destination, and not just somewhere to eat.  I’ve found recently that those days of yore are long gone, and what is left is what seems like a company struggling to hang on.

A while back, we took our daughters to Pizza Hut for lunch, and as I sat there with them enjoying lunch, I looked around the place and just shook my head at how much it has changed through the years.  To me, it no longer feels special.  It just feels like another fast food joint with nothing to make it stand out.

As you’ve learned by now, my Father traveled quite a bit when I was growing up, and to kind of take the sting out of being gone so much, when he would get back in town on the weekends, he would always take the family out to eat on Friday or Saturday night.  This usually meant a trip to Western Steer, Bonanza, or Wendy’s back when they had the Superbar.  But a couple of times a year, we would be treated to my favorite place to go in that time frame, Pizza Hut.  We only got to go a few times a year because, for the time, Pizza Hut was expensive.  But that was part of the appeal.  It was a step above other places to eat back then.  You weren’t just paying for the food, you were buying an experience.

From the moment you walked into the place, you knew it was something special.  You knew this was going to be something you’d remember, and it all started with the decor.  The interior didn’t look like a fast-food place with its huge, sprawling windows, cheap-looking walls, or tiled floors.  When you walked in, you were greeted by brick walls, with smaller windows, that had thick red fabric curtains pulled back, and a carpeted floor.  It just felt higher-class than walking into McDonald’s or Burger King.

The booths were high-backed, with thickly padded vinyl seats and backrests.  The high backs were also different from your usual eating-out experience.  These high backs gave you a sense of privacy, which was great for a date night.  Also great for a date night were the candles on the tables.  Those little red glass candles were on every table and were lit when you got to your seat.  It was a little thing, but when added to everything else, it was quite the contribution.  Your silverware was wrapped in a thick, cloth napkin that beat the heck out of the paper napkins everyone else was using at the time.  And you could always count on the table being covered by a nice, red and white, checkered tablecloth.

The lighting at Pizza Hut back then was lower than what you were used to at other places.  This was due to the lower wattage bulbs they used, along with their gorgeous, Pizza Hut log emblazoned, stained glass light shades they used to have.  Seeing one of those things now instantly takes me back to another place in time!  They still look classy and bring old memories flooding back every time I see or think of one.  The private feeling booth, the low lighting, the candle on the table, and the brick wall beside you gave a unique feel to the table you were dining at.  It greatly enhanced the overall experience.

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Wendy’s SuperBar

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Of all the things Wendy’s tried through the years, the Superbar was the idea that I liked the most, and is very possibly the fast food item/gimmick that I miss more than all the others.  When it first debuted at Wendy’s, my whole family was eager to try it. As you may remember, my dad would be out of town most of the week, and when he would come home on Friday, he would take the family out to eat. Once we tried the SuperBar, we were hooked, and it became our Friday night destination more weeks than not for at least the first year it was available.

The SuperBar was a set of three food bars that expanded Wendy’s dine-in options several times over and was a big hit with a large part of their customer base.  The first of the three bars was a salad bar that featured what you see at most salad bars. There was lettuce, tomato, carrots, cucumbers, and various dressings. The salad bar was also where the dessert options could be found. The dessert options weren’t mind-blowing by any means, but for an eleven-year-old like myself at the time, it served its purpose. At least at our local Wendy’s, there was vanilla pudding and chocolate pudding, and on occasion, there would be Ambrosia. I guess you could count the mixed fruit as a dessert as well, but no self-respecting kid would be caught picking that over the pudding options.

The next bar was the Mexican Fiesta bar, which was my personal favorite section of the whole thing. There were all the things you needed to make tacos and burritos like chili, seasoned beef, salsa, taco sauce, shredded cheese, melted nacho cheese, taco shells, and soft tortillas.  Of all the bars, this was the one I would make the most trips to on every visit.

The third bar was the Pasta Bar which featured spaghetti noodles, fettuccine noodles, spaghetti sauce, and alfredo sauce as the pasta quotient of the bar. But the best part of this bar was the garlic bread which was made by flattening and grilling their hamburger buns with garlic salt and butter.  It was delicious, and on every trip out to Wendy’s to indulge in the SuperBar, I would eat five or six pieces of this bread.

While the SuperBar as it was presented was just fine, there was a little something else that could be done with it. My dad would order a baked potato, and when you ordered a potato, you could take it to the SuperBar to top it. I don’t remember if that was an extra cost or not though. But my dad would go to the Mexican Fiesta bar and load his potato with the chili and melted nacho cheese. I saw him do this a couple of times and decided to try it myself. After I had topped my potato, I sat down and started to devour it just like my old man…and it was delicious! But he stopped me after a couple of bites and told me that I was doing it wrong. I was perplexed at the age of 11 years old and he could see that, so he enlightened me. He explained that to get the most out of the experience, you first consume just the chili and cheese from the potato, and then you go back and refill the potato with more chili and cheese. Then you consume the whole thing as I was previously doing.

The SuperBar was our go-to while they had it in their stores.  A lot of those Friday or Saturday nights that Dad would take us out were spent eating at Wendy’s while we talked and laughed as a family before we would hit the department stores in town where Mom would do her shopping for the week.  

The SuperBar is the first thing that comes to mind when I think of Wendy’s, and it’s a shame they had to get rid of it. As I’ve read in years since, the bar was a loss leader for the stores, and it provided so much extra work for the staff to keep it neat and clean. I understand why it died off as a concept, but that doesn’t mean I miss it any less.

Before I go, here is a video of a news report detailing the Wendy’s SuperBar from around the time of its launch.

More Fast Food Nostalgia…

BK Dinner Baskets of the ’90s

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I want to take a few minutes and talk about one of my all-time favorite fast food promotions…Burger King’s Dinner Service and Dinner Baskets from the ’90s.

In late 1992 and early 1993, Burger King attempted something new and radical. They decided to try and get families in the door for dinner by offering “table service”. Between the hours of 4 pm and 8 pm, they had a special menu featuring what they called dinner baskets. You had several options for what you could have in your dinner basket, and those options included:

  • Fried boneless chicken breast
  • Fried shrimp
  • Steak Sandwich
  • Whopper
  • Meatloaf sandwich that was available in select areas

You also had choices for your sides too as you could pick from fries or a baked potato, and choose either a salad or coleslaw.

In addition to the baskets, one of the key features was that you would order your food at the counter like normal, but instead of getting your food then and there, they would give you a number and you would head off to find a table. When your baskets were prepared, they’d bring your food out. Oh, and they gave you a tray of popcorn to enjoy as an appetizer while you waited for your dinner baskets to arrive.

It seems like a stretch to expect a huge influx of customers to come rushing in for this promotion, and it must have been because I don’t remember this promotion lasting very long at all. I do however remember one individual being super hyped for it for some reason…me. As I sit here and type this, I can’t tell you why I was so excited about this concept, but I was all about wanting to experience it. I managed to convince my folks to try it out just one time. I ordered the Whopper basket with fries and cole slaw. I have no memory of what my folks ordered, but they must not have been impressed with it all since we never went back for it a second time. Maybe it was the popcorn that lured me in. I don’t know but regardless, the whole thing obviously left a lasting impression on me since I remember it fondly enough to still recall what my dinner basket consisted of.

I just wanted to throw this memory out there and see who else remembers it.

The Summer of Thunder at Hardee’s

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Days of Thunder hit theaters in 1990, and I was all in on it. All in except for actually going to see the movie itself in the theater. Back then, it was rare to convince my folks to go to a theater to catch a movie, so I usually had to live vicariously through whatever promotional tie-in merchandise was available when new movies came out. That task was made more difficult by the fact that a lot of my friends at school were getting to go to the movies on a regular basis to see whatever the hot new thing was, and I just had to stand around and listen to them talk about how awesome it was, and Days of Thunder sure sounded exciting.

Sure I had seen the trailers for it during television commercial breaks, and I have some faint memories of reading about it in a magazine. Maybe something like an issue of Cinescape, or maybe there was a special one-shot magazine released for it or something. I don’t know, but either way, I knew what the movie was even before my friends were describing all the details to me.

But anyway, Hardee’s rolled out these Thunder Racer cars, and I really wanted them. First, they were tied to a hot new movie that I wanted to see. Second, they were 1/64 scale die-cast cars and I was already a lover of both Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars and had quite the growing collection. And third, it was an additional toy I could snag on the weekend. I say additional because I would spend my weekly allowance on a toy while shopping on the weekend, but this gave me an opportunity to get a freebie.

You could get a Thunder Racer car for just $0.99 with any purchase…not just a kid’s meal. But it might as well have been offered with the kid’s meal as far as I was concerned because that was probably what I was ordering then, and there was no way I was leaving Hardee’s without a Thunder Racer car!

But you couldn’t just get them all on one visit, as a different one was available each week as you can see in the earlier photo. This meant that four separate trips had to be made to Hardee’s to get them all. A feat that I was unfortunately unable to pull off. I managed to get the first three…the City Chevrolet, the Superflow car, and the Hardee’s car but missed out on the Mello Yello one for some reason. Luckily for me, they were quickly released by Racing Champions as well and I was able to get the Mello Yello car that way. I never end up with Rowdy Burns’ Exxon car though.

I’m not sure what, if anything, was actually included in the Funmeal Pack meal promotion that was out at the time. I know the box featured Days of Thunder artwork, but I distinctly remember having to purchase the cars separately.

As I continued to get the various ones I had, they began to dominate play time in my room. At the time I had a few other Racing Champions cars as well, so NASCAR races were taking place on a regular basis that summer. Most of those races were won by the green and yellow City Chevrolet, but every now and then, that beautiful orange Hardee’s with Russ Wheeler at the wheel snuck out a win.

But now let’s talk just a bit about the Days of Thunder cups you could also get from Hardee’s. My brother was a big fan of special cups in general, but Hardee’s cups in particular. He has a full set of those Moose cups at one time, and numerous others as well. At this point in time, he had no trouble attaining whatever special merchandise like this he wanted as he had a job and was driving.

While I never personally cared for most cups like these, the Days of Thunder cups were ones I really wanted. I guess I just wanted to show my support for a movie that I hadn’t seen for some reason. Or I just thought they were really cool looking. Or both.

The artwork on the cups is great, and the colors really pop. I like how the Days of Thunder title logo appears on the cup in the same color as the car featured on each one. You can’t see it in the photo above, but on the backs of the cups were stats on the drivers of the cars. That could be perceived as a little lazy though since Cole Trickle drove three of the cars featured, and the stats could all be the same.

I can’t begin to calculate how much money my mom had to spend at Hardee’s on me that summer. But the food had to be bought to purchase the cars. They were $0.99 each. And you had to buy a 32oz drink to get a cup. Well, now that I think about it, I guess you could purchase a 32oz drink and get the cup, and make that the purchase that qualified you to buy a Thunder Racer car. Maybe she didn’t spend all that much after all.

Regardless of how much was spent, it was all worth it in my eyes because I can remember that summer better than most, and I always refer to it as the “summer of thunder”.

Breakfast at McDonald’s Has Always Been Special

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I took my family on vacation this past week, and on the drive out of town the first morning, my mind started wandering while I was driving. The sun was up in the blue sky on a warm summer day, and I was headed down the highway. So my mind wandered back to many of the trips I took as a kid with my dad.

I’ve probably explained before but my dad traveled a lot when I was young, and in the summer, I would go on trips with him if he was only going to be gone for a couple of days. There was nothing quite like climbing into the front seat of his truck and pulling out on a sunny summer morning and hitting the road for the day.

It was the trips where we headed north that I really enjoyed, and that’s because we’d always stop at McDonald’s for breakfast. Now back in the mid to late 80s, the closest McDonald’s was 40 miles up the highway. While we had a McDonald’s just 12 miles south of us, we never stopped at it when we’d go south. But when going north we’d always stop. Can you imagine in today’s world not having a McDonald’s closer than 40 miles away?

The ad above represents the breakfast I remember from those days. Back then, they didn’t have biscuits on the menu yet, only the English muffins. I remember getting the Big Breakfast and enjoying the toasted English muffin with grape jelly. And I remember sitting there with my dad talking about the things we’d see along the route of the trip and feeling a lot bigger than I was. After breakfast was over I’d grab an extra coffee stirrer to play with in the truck, and we’d climb back in, push the Willie Nelson tape into the 8-track player, and hit the road again, with smiles on our faces.

Breakfast at McDonald’s always feels special to me. Even if I’m just hitting the drive-thru on my way to work in the mornings, there’s still a little magic in it thanks to those special stops years ago. And those are the memories that came back to me as we were rolling down the highway on vacation last week.

I’ll give you one guess as to where we stopped for breakfast.

McDonald’s Christmas Treats from 1988

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For the Christmas season of 1988, McDonald’s was offering up not one, not two, but THREE limited-time offerings for the Christmas season.

There was the 9-piece or 20-piece Holiday McNuggets, which featured a limited-time orange sauce for dipping and came in a festive “gift” box inspired by the season.

There was also the frosty Eggnog Milkshake and the rarely seen Peppermint Sundae.

As much as my mom and I would go to McDonalds, I have zero memory of ever getting to try any of these fantastic-looking treats. Back in those days, the thought of egg nog grossed me out so I wasn’t missing anything there, and I’ve always been a die-hard caramel sundae man so I may not have given the peppermint one a try. But those nuggets with the orange sound amazing, and I’m very disappointed that I never got to try them.

Pumpkin Spice Frosty

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The 2023 Halloween junk food season is a good one so far. I highlighted a variety of our finds last week, but the hunts continue so there is probably another couple of those posts to come. But for this post, I want to focus on a single item…the new Pumpkin Spice Frosty from Wendy’s.

I didn’t have to seek this one out…it came to me. About three weeks ago, our friend Tony from Retro-Daze posed a question to everyone in the TRN Clubhouse. He asked if anyone had heard anything about a Pumpkin Spice Frosty. Until I read his question I had not. But I have an inside source as my youngest daughter works at Wendy’s. I immediately went to her and posed the same question. She gave me a look and said that she really wasn’t supposed to say anything. I kept staring at her until she said she didn’t know, but that a button for a Pumpkin Spice Frosty had appeared on the cash register. That was all the confirmation I needed.

I told her that when they were available I’d like to try one. Then a couple of days later the official news broke that it was indeed a thing. Fast forward to this past Sunday when she came home from work with a sample size of the new fall treat for me to try.

I want to say something before I go any further. I’m a guy who feels like there is only one kind of Frosty, and that’s the original chocolate version that we all grew up with. A few years ago they started rolling out vanilla and strawberry options, but to me, those aren’t Frostys. The only thing I have to say to defend this position is that I’m old, stubborn, and set in my ways.

Anyway, I gave this new Pumpkin Spice Frosty a try and it’s not bad. It’s certainly good enough to have another before the season is over. Mine was a little melted by the time it reached my hands so that may have something to do with my feelings on it. As in, it’s good, but not over-the-moon good. I still prefer the chocolate.

But at the same time, it’s good enough that it’s worth going to get one if you like pumpkin spice things in general. I just wish they would call their non-chocolate creations something besides a Frosty. That name should be reserved for the original. And if you want to know more about what I think about Wendy’s and its offerings through the years, you can check out my post The Things I Miss About Wendy’s. Everyone else on the internet has, and you should too.

Hardee’s Fried Chicken of the 90s

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Hardees Fried Chicken

Like most other American households in the 1980s, when my family wanted fried chicken, we got it from Kentucky Fried Chicken. Not KFC, but Kentucky Fried Chicken. We weren’t all metro back in those days using just the initials to identify the fast food chain. Other than the price, not much has changed from then to now. You can still get an 8-piece bucket of chicken, along with two family sides, and four biscuits. It’s an American staple at this point.

But then in the early ’90s comes Hardees with their fried chicken offerings. The chain had purchased the Roy Rogers chain and started using their recipe to sell fried chicken in a good deal of their locations. Not having a Roy Rogers anywhere close to here, we were totally unfamiliar with their brand of chicken.

Coupon for Hardee’s Fried Chicken Family Meal, Johnson City Press 1995

My family was a little skeptical in the beginning for a couple of reasons. One was the fact that here is this burger chain selling fried chicken all of a sudden. It was as foreign of a concept as Kentucky Fried Chicken starting to sell Big Macs would have been. And two, how is anyone going to compete with the Colonel’s secret blend of herbs and spices? Well, the answer to that part is they couldn’t, but Hardee’s could certainly compete with the Colonel’s extra crispy recipe. The chicken at Hardee’s was of the extra crispy variety, which I loved, but the bigger draw was the biscuits.

The biscuits at Hardee’s have always been at the top of the fast food biscuit world, and because they were now selling fried chicken, you could get their signature biscuits at any time during the day. It was almost like a little slice of heaven had fallen to earth. But the chicken and biscuits combo proved to be a good one, and for a while there, my family switched to Hardees when the craving for fried chicken hit, and we didn’t really go away from it until Hardee’s pulled it from their menus around these parts. But I still think back on it and remember fondly all of the weekends at the lake, busy evenings after school, and Sunday afternoons eating Hardee’s fried chicken and biscuits while watching my NASCAR with my old man.

McDonald’s Patty McMelt of 1995

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McDonalds Patty McMelt

I have a deep nostalgic connection to the McDonald’s Taste of the Month promotion from 1995. Maybe it’s because I was driving and able to go get things for myself, or maybe because I worked across the street from a Mcdonald’s. But whatever the reason, I loved a lot of the special items they rolled out that year as part of the promotion, and this Patty McMelt is near the top of my list of promotional menu items.

I’m still trying to track down info on the releases for each month that year, and I’ve not found suitable info on this one yet. But I do know that it came out early in the year, as in January, February, or March. I know this because I remember it being cold and snowy when I was enjoying them. I’m a sucker for a patty melt, and this version was pretty good. I’m not sure what the slice of Canadian bacon had to do with a patty melt, but they threw a piece on this sandwich, and somehow it fits. Their grilled onions could have been a little more grilled for my tastes, but that minor squabble aside, McDonald’s version of a Patty Melt is worth remembering.

Most people have little or no memory of it existing, and the commercial below is about the only reference I’ve ever been able to find about it online. I’ve made the plea before, but I’m going to make it again…if you know anything about any of the taste of the month promotions from 1995, please get in touch with me. Any info at all, no matter how big or how little the detail would be appreciated. The Arch Deluxe made its debut as part of the promotion in my area, and my favorite of the lot, the Super Hero Burger, was part of it, but I still have a lot of gaps in my knowledge.

McDonald’s McPasta

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McDonald’s has tried a lot of off-the-wall menu items in their time. Some are fondly remembered like the McD.L.T., and others are still scorned to this day (I’m looking at you here Arch Deluxe). But a few products have come along that most of the population totally missed out on, and McPasta was one of them.

In 1990, McDonald’s decided they would try to add some entrees to their menu that weren’t hamburgers or Chicken McNuggets in hopes of bringing in more dinner time business. They dreamed up this concept of McPasta dishes and roasted chicken and felt sure it would be a big hit. Before they released it to the masses though, they went the test market route.

A small area in New York was selected, some stores in Ohio, and a chain of franchise stores in Northeast Tennessee for this new line of McPasta products. Fortunately, I lived in a part of southern Virginia where that Tennessee-based franchisee had two locations, and they put the product in those two stores as well.

What they offered was a selection of Spaghetti, Spaghetti with Meatballs, Lasagna, and Fettuccine Alfredo. Each dish came with a garlic breadstick as well. They also decided to offer tender roasted chicken as a side item, as well as mashed potatoes. How those last two items fit into the McPasta lineup I’ve yet to figure out. I guess it didn’t have to fit the “pasta” side of things, as it fell into the overall “dinner” category they were going for.

To be honest, the only one I ever tried was the Fettuccine…..and I thought it was awesome! For the six-month period they were testing the line in my area, it’s what I ordered on every trip to the golden arches. My Mom loved it too, and since my Dad was out-of-town a lot, she felt it was easier to just run to McDonald’s and pick up a couple of Fettuccine platters for the two of us instead of cooking, so I got to have the pasta goodness a lot.

Imagine my sadness one day when I went to order my favorite McPasta dish only to be told it was no longer available. I listened in horror as the lady at the counter relayed the info to my Mom and me that it had been a test product, and she had no way of knowing if it would be added back to the menu or not.

As the weeks and months passed by, I would continue to inquire about it on every trip to Happy Meal land. And every time I was disappointed. After a while, I came to the sad conclusion that McPasta wasn’t coming back at all.

For years I reminisced about it, only to find it strange when other people had no idea what the heck I was talking about. For the longest time, I couldn’t figure out why no one had even heard of McDonald’s McPasta. Then one day it popped into my brain and I searched it out on the internet. It was there that I discovered that it had been a test product with just a very limited release, and that’s why everyone thought I was crazy when I would bring it up.

Here is a transcript of an article from the Aug. 04, 1992 edition of the Chicago Tribune detailing the end of the test. And if you read it all the way through, you’ll see mention of their pizza being tested at the time as well:

McDonald`s has decided to give test-marketing of pasta and tender-basted chicken a breather.

Those dinner-menu items have been yanked from test markets in New York and Tennessee, where 70 of the fast-service firm`s 8,700 domestic stores were involved in gauging consumer response.

McDonald`s stock on the New York Stock Exchange took it on the chin Monday, dropping $1.12 to close at $42.75 on news of the pullout.

Wall Street analysts were unimpressed with McDonald`s decision to return the pasta, including lasagna, spaghetti and meatballs, and fettucine alfredo; and chicken, including chicken breast, to test kitchens at its Oak Brook headquarters. However, McDonald`s didn`t think this pullback was any big deal, considering the small scope of the test.

Still in an expanded ”test market” program is McDonald`s pizza, now available in 500 units around the country.

A McDonald`s spokesman Monday said that there was ”good consumer acceptance” for the chicken and pasta, but that other considerations were involved, such as source of supply and equipment, which the firm still is evaluating.

There may be some substance to this rationale because the pizza was taken out of test markets several times before the current test.

McDonald`s does have a presence in chicken, including a McChicken sandwich, chicken McNuggets and a chunky chicken salad, but all are priced substantially less than the chicken that was tested.

Like other fast-service firms, McDonald`s has been scrambling to expand the menu, especially at dinner time, which is a longer period than lunch, to build traffic.

Though hamburger champ McDonald`s didn`t say so, the pasta and tender-basted chicken might have been too pricey for consumers. In any event, chicken and pasta have been put on the back burner for ”tinkering” for possible re-entry no earlier than next year.

To this day I miss that McPasta Fettuccine. But now I look back and realize that the stars were aligned perfectly for me to even have gotten to experience it in the first place. Some say it’s better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all. But for those people who say that to them, I say they never loved McDonald’s Fettuccine Alfredo.