The more I read about fast food and experience it, the more I realize that your Mom was so right. So much of what was great about that experience when I was young...is now gone. Everything worth going there for has been eliminated by some franchisee complaint to HQ about kitchen complexity.
Wendy's amazing Works salad bar...gone. McDonaldland play areas...gone. Hot mustard sauce, fried apple pies and McRib...gone. Burger Chef's massive condiment bar and everything else...gone. KFC potato wedges and unbelievable buffet..gone. Taco Bell Quesarito...gone. Burger King cinnamon rolls...gone...but at least they kept those magical paper crowns.
None has been replaced by something better...just eliminated. Reduced. Simplified. Mechanized. All at the altar of efficiency.
My father has long said that we've actually forgotten what food tasted like then too. Fried in beef tallow he would say is remarkably better tasting. Vegetable oil is a poor substitute. He said that if we could go back to 1975, we would be shocked at how bland fast food is now...and how great everything tasted then.
A YouTuber confirmed it a few years back, finding a single outlet of a 70s fast food restaurant (can't remember which one) in Latin America that was still operating somehow... never changed...stuck in time...never heard they should wrap it up. Like those WWII soldiers from my youth you read about who never heard the War ended and just kept fighting. They just kept dropping that fry basket.
His first reaction? How much better it tasted...mind blowing. It served dozens, not billions and you could just taste the commitment.
It's funny, that as a kid in the 70s everyone looked to the future, confident that everything would be even better than the present. All futures would necessarily keep getting brighter. They had to...right? Science said so.
A false promise it turns out. Today, we constantly look to the past and realize what has been lost for little in exchange. My grandparents never did that...their past was decidedly not great. They preferred the present and future instead too.
Fast food is sadly no exception. It's now a vast wasteland of expensive sameness in identical rectangular taupe buildings. Like stumbling upon a familiar logo in the backrooms.
Thanks as always for the terrific history and perspectives here. Great work.
I think about this a lot too. So much of what made those places memorable was in the little things, the food, the buildings, the play areas, the weird menu items, even the things that probably drove franchisees crazy. Once those pieces were gone, the whole experience started to feel a lot more generic (and now VERY generic).
Your dad makes a good point about the taste too. Ingredients changed, cooking methods changed, and a lot of the character went with them. My mom was very much on that side of things. She never saw those changes as progress. She saw them as companies removing the parts people actually had good memories of.
I miss McDonald’s fried pies, with their nuclear temperature filling! Those things were so good, and the current version just isn’t worth bothering with.
Have mercy…when a McDs burger could actually look like a rival to a Whopper in size. Even the Big Mac frowns and quivers in the presence of the Feast. [I think some woman named the Big Mac and got a raise for that, according to The Foods That Made America. But, the Feast actually looks like a Big Mac instead of a thin duplex.]
Right, that is what is so interesting about it. The McFeast feels like McDonald’s actually trying to answer the Whopper, instead of just assuming the Big Mac could cover everything. It looks and sounds like it was meant to be a real contender.
Ingredients-wise similar with some minor differences. I do think the differed flavor-wise re: sauce and ingredients.
One of the odd things about the McFeast is in some of the advertising they have the bun pictured above, but in reality they seemed to have settled on a sesame seed bun for the wider release.
That’s McD’s excuse every time. One more slice of lettuce or tomato. A different flavor mixed into the mayo they call the special sauce. It’s all minor changes, occasionally disguised by a different bun. The bun is always the biggest deception. Not as advertised.
McD’s holds a special place in my heart for being one that offered colorful boxes of “happy.” But, looking back, it’s been quite the deceiver. Robble Robble’d.
As a Marylander born in the mid-80’s, the McFeast was a bit before my time. But I definitely remember the Arch Deluxe in 1996! Seeing a burger marketed as something kids would hate and only adults would like made me want to try it even more.
I proudly requested that Arch Deluxe meal as a pre-teen. I remember really enjoying the burger, especially the dijonnaise sauce 😋. I sure showed them!
It is funny how the things we order become a rite of passage for us. I went through the same thing when I got my first Whopper or Big Mac. I remember my mom even telling me it was time to graduate to a larger burger.
Funny that it did make a comeback in Canada as the Big Xtra...sometimes stuff from Canada will find its way into Michigan via Metro Detroit, and I remember the Big Xtra being on the menu here. Little did I know that this was the McFeast of old making its way into my life, albeit very temporarily (I think it was on the menu for a year or less). Now we have the Daily Double, which from the sound of it is the little brother of both sandwiches.
I think the worst part of all these kinds of experiments, though, is when you hear they were a flop and were pulled...and you think, "Hey, I liked that!" and you are never to hear from it again. The cajun-flavored Indy Whopper, Holiday Spice Pepsi...heck, even the Arch Deluxe just showed up at the wrong time, in my opinion, but it was held in such contempt that they wouldn't dare bring it back again.
Grant is right, though...everything has become so streamlined that it sucked the humanity out of the fast-food world. It's all forgotten how to be fun and try new things. We want fast food places to have an eight-year-old's sense of wonder and a 40-year-old's sense of financial management, not vice versa.
Would it have done better if they'd just called it the "Whopper Stopper", or the "McWhopper"? Or would that have made the competition with BK more obvious?
I don't know if it would have done better, but burger and the campaign around it would have been so much more memorable. Even if they had folded Whopper Stopper into advertising more, it would have been much more fun.
I miss the Burger Wars. Maybe more than the Cola Wars.
I'm always surprised at how much information you are able to gather about really esoteric topics. How are you able to find out that it was popular in Australia or South Africa? It's just amazing the things you're able to learn.
Your article reminded me of eating at Burger Chef with my aunt and uncle in the 70s. My parents had always taken us to McDonald's or Burger King, but my aunt and uncle swore that Burger Chef was better. I was a kid; so I was just happy to get fast food.
I never heard of the McFeast, but I do remember McDonald’s trying the concept again with the McDLT, which used a two part styrofoam container that kept the cool lettuce and tomato separate from the warm burger. I never got one because I don’t care for tomatoes on burgers, but a lot of people I know did order them until it was discontinued.
The more I read about fast food and experience it, the more I realize that your Mom was so right. So much of what was great about that experience when I was young...is now gone. Everything worth going there for has been eliminated by some franchisee complaint to HQ about kitchen complexity.
Wendy's amazing Works salad bar...gone. McDonaldland play areas...gone. Hot mustard sauce, fried apple pies and McRib...gone. Burger Chef's massive condiment bar and everything else...gone. KFC potato wedges and unbelievable buffet..gone. Taco Bell Quesarito...gone. Burger King cinnamon rolls...gone...but at least they kept those magical paper crowns.
None has been replaced by something better...just eliminated. Reduced. Simplified. Mechanized. All at the altar of efficiency.
My father has long said that we've actually forgotten what food tasted like then too. Fried in beef tallow he would say is remarkably better tasting. Vegetable oil is a poor substitute. He said that if we could go back to 1975, we would be shocked at how bland fast food is now...and how great everything tasted then.
A YouTuber confirmed it a few years back, finding a single outlet of a 70s fast food restaurant (can't remember which one) in Latin America that was still operating somehow... never changed...stuck in time...never heard they should wrap it up. Like those WWII soldiers from my youth you read about who never heard the War ended and just kept fighting. They just kept dropping that fry basket.
His first reaction? How much better it tasted...mind blowing. It served dozens, not billions and you could just taste the commitment.
It's funny, that as a kid in the 70s everyone looked to the future, confident that everything would be even better than the present. All futures would necessarily keep getting brighter. They had to...right? Science said so.
A false promise it turns out. Today, we constantly look to the past and realize what has been lost for little in exchange. My grandparents never did that...their past was decidedly not great. They preferred the present and future instead too.
Fast food is sadly no exception. It's now a vast wasteland of expensive sameness in identical rectangular taupe buildings. Like stumbling upon a familiar logo in the backrooms.
Thanks as always for the terrific history and perspectives here. Great work.
I think about this a lot too. So much of what made those places memorable was in the little things, the food, the buildings, the play areas, the weird menu items, even the things that probably drove franchisees crazy. Once those pieces were gone, the whole experience started to feel a lot more generic (and now VERY generic).
Your dad makes a good point about the taste too. Ingredients changed, cooking methods changed, and a lot of the character went with them. My mom was very much on that side of things. She never saw those changes as progress. She saw them as companies removing the parts people actually had good memories of.
I miss McDonald’s fried pies, with their nuclear temperature filling! Those things were so good, and the current version just isn’t worth bothering with.
Have mercy…when a McDs burger could actually look like a rival to a Whopper in size. Even the Big Mac frowns and quivers in the presence of the Feast. [I think some woman named the Big Mac and got a raise for that, according to The Foods That Made America. But, the Feast actually looks like a Big Mac instead of a thin duplex.]
Right, that is what is so interesting about it. The McFeast feels like McDonald’s actually trying to answer the Whopper, instead of just assuming the Big Mac could cover everything. It looks and sounds like it was meant to be a real contender.
A contender that swapped names for years with things like the Arch Deluxe and the rest. Meh. Now, I’m just hungry when I should be still asleep!
I was going to ask did this have any significant difference from the later Arch Deluxe?
Ingredients-wise similar with some minor differences. I do think the differed flavor-wise re: sauce and ingredients.
One of the odd things about the McFeast is in some of the advertising they have the bun pictured above, but in reality they seemed to have settled on a sesame seed bun for the wider release.
That’s McD’s excuse every time. One more slice of lettuce or tomato. A different flavor mixed into the mayo they call the special sauce. It’s all minor changes, occasionally disguised by a different bun. The bun is always the biggest deception. Not as advertised.
McD’s holds a special place in my heart for being one that offered colorful boxes of “happy.” But, looking back, it’s been quite the deceiver. Robble Robble’d.
Yes. One came years later. :P hehe They look alike, right?
As a Marylander born in the mid-80’s, the McFeast was a bit before my time. But I definitely remember the Arch Deluxe in 1996! Seeing a burger marketed as something kids would hate and only adults would like made me want to try it even more.
I proudly requested that Arch Deluxe meal as a pre-teen. I remember really enjoying the burger, especially the dijonnaise sauce 😋. I sure showed them!
It is funny how the things we order become a rite of passage for us. I went through the same thing when I got my first Whopper or Big Mac. I remember my mom even telling me it was time to graduate to a larger burger.
Funny that it did make a comeback in Canada as the Big Xtra...sometimes stuff from Canada will find its way into Michigan via Metro Detroit, and I remember the Big Xtra being on the menu here. Little did I know that this was the McFeast of old making its way into my life, albeit very temporarily (I think it was on the menu for a year or less). Now we have the Daily Double, which from the sound of it is the little brother of both sandwiches.
I think the worst part of all these kinds of experiments, though, is when you hear they were a flop and were pulled...and you think, "Hey, I liked that!" and you are never to hear from it again. The cajun-flavored Indy Whopper, Holiday Spice Pepsi...heck, even the Arch Deluxe just showed up at the wrong time, in my opinion, but it was held in such contempt that they wouldn't dare bring it back again.
Grant is right, though...everything has become so streamlined that it sucked the humanity out of the fast-food world. It's all forgotten how to be fun and try new things. We want fast food places to have an eight-year-old's sense of wonder and a 40-year-old's sense of financial management, not vice versa.
Would it have done better if they'd just called it the "Whopper Stopper", or the "McWhopper"? Or would that have made the competition with BK more obvious?
I don't know if it would have done better, but burger and the campaign around it would have been so much more memorable. Even if they had folded Whopper Stopper into advertising more, it would have been much more fun.
I miss the Burger Wars. Maybe more than the Cola Wars.
"hamburger sandwich" sounds so funny to me
That would have made more sense if they had sold other kinds of sandwiches...
The story was actually about a different failed product, a breakfast product called the McCrescent (coming soon)
I would love to see another article explaining what the McCrescent is.
The Angus was both bigger and better imo. 🍔
In Frisco it was called the McFist...
Thanks for the like, David. One of the few times I made myself laugh.😄
I'm always surprised at how much information you are able to gather about really esoteric topics. How are you able to find out that it was popular in Australia or South Africa? It's just amazing the things you're able to learn.
Your article reminded me of eating at Burger Chef with my aunt and uncle in the 70s. My parents had always taken us to McDonald's or Burger King, but my aunt and uncle swore that Burger Chef was better. I was a kid; so I was just happy to get fast food.
I never heard of the McFeast, but I do remember McDonald’s trying the concept again with the McDLT, which used a two part styrofoam container that kept the cool lettuce and tomato separate from the warm burger. I never got one because I don’t care for tomatoes on burgers, but a lot of people I know did order them until it was discontinued.