US The McRecession hits fast food chains - America is dead.

Article / Archive
22 hours ago - Business
Nathan Bomey, Kelly Tyko

Call it the McRecession.

The big picture: Low- and middle-income consumers are increasingly shying away from fast-food restaurants like McDonald's, a sign that people are pinching pennies amid recession fears.
  • The number of low-income consumers visiting U.S. fast-food restaurants was down "nearly double digits" in the year's first three months compared to 2024, McDonald's CEO Christopher Kempczinski said Thursday.
  • Visits from middle-income consumers across the industry "fell nearly as much," he added.
Zoom out: Concerns about job losses and fears about price hikes from President Trump's tariffs have fueled what Conference Board senior economist Stephanie Guichard recently called "pervasive pessimism about the future."
  • And that's translated into fewer people coming through the door at McDonald's and other fast-food restaurants.
  • "Economic pressure on traffic has broadened," Kempczinski said. "I think we are seeing that people are just being more judicious about cutting back on visits."
  • One way the trend is manifesting: People are skipping breakfast "or they're choosing to eat at home," Kempczinski said.
Threat level: Signs of a fast-food slowdown are spreading.
  • U.S. comparable sales fell 3.6% at McDonald's, the company's worst showing since the pandemic.
  • Starbucks' comparable sales declined 1% in the quarter, the coffee giant announced Wednesday, its fifth consecutive quarterly decline.
  • Domino's Pizza said consumers are gravitating from more expensive delivery options to cheaper carryout.
  • And Wingstop CEO Michael Skipworth flagged "a meaningful pullback in our business" in "specific pockets," including Hispanic customers and "lower middle income" consumers.
Meanwhile, data from Placer.ai, which analyzes customer activity, shows visits fell 1.4% across the overall dining segment in the first quarter, with quick-service and fast-casual chains seeing a 1.4% drop.
  • Chipotle's comparable restaurant sales decreased 0.4% in the first quarter of 2025 — its first decline since COVID lockdowns in 2020.
Yes, but: The slowdown isn't happening everywhere.
  • Taco Bell is on a roll. The Yum Brands chain posted a U.S. comp sales increase of 9% in its most recent quarter.
  • Chris Turner, Yum Brands chief financial and franchise officer, credited Taco Bell's expansion of luxe value boxes as delivering "exceptional value across income levels, with the $5 Luxe box becoming a massive win with low-income consumers."
  • Taco Bell's reputation for value, however, could also be exacerbating the trend for competitors, as consumers look to treat themselves at a lower cost. The chain is "well positioned to navigate this environment... with an opportunity to take share from higher-priced competitors," Turner said Wednesday.
What to watch: Restaurants will continue to focus on value menus, adding new items and limited-time offerings to bring consumers back in.
  • Kempczinski said the launch of new chicken strips and the upcoming return of snack wraps should help McDonald's improve.
  • McDonald's CFO Ian Borden said the company may adjust its current McValue offerings over time but that for the rest of 2025 will "continue to include everyday value meal deals starting at $5."
 
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Squatty Potty said:
John's shorts and puts must've gotten fucked today. Suffer retard.
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I’ve done very well this last week and am only $1 under my buy-in
Squatty Potty said:
It was gone under Biden, moron.
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I could go buy a choco choco chip from Braums for $2 under Joseph.
Jace on ice said:
Defending slop and poison merchants to own Drumpf.
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How dare Americans, synonymous with fat spic mutts, enjoy value items at fast food restaurants instead of spending $300 for half a week’s worth of groceries or $40 for the ingredients to a simple meal.
 
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Fast food got too expensive, low-end takeout now pushes hard for tips, etc. You're better off sticking chicken nuggies in your airfryer if you want shitty food that badly.

I'm also getting increasingly concerned about filth and diseases in the food from all the jeet restaurant workers flooding my area. Why are Indians buying up the cheap food franchises?
 
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Reactions: JoeTehRouge1234, behavioral swamp thang, goat sneed and 38 others
Or maybe people don't wanna give their food order to some pajeet in a call center on the clear-ass other side of the world, who then plays whisper-down-the-lane all the way fucking back, through at least three layers of AI, collecting mistakes along the way, to be put in a bag by people with neck tattoos, collecting more errors, to eventually be served to you lukewarm and made out of the lowest-quality ingredients they can legally serve.

If middle-income people aren't showing up, "economic forces" is just cope. The reality is that your food fucking sucks and people are eating somewhere else.
 
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Cybertonia said:
Or maybe people don't wanna give their food order to some pajeet in a call center on the clear-ass other side of the world, who then plays whisper-down-the-lane all the way fucking back, through at least three layers of AI, collecting mistakes along the way, to be put in a bag by people with neck tattoos, collecting more errors, to eventually be served to you lukewarm and made out of the lowest-quality ingredients they can legally serve.

If middle-income people aren't showing up, "economic forces" is just cope. The reality is that your food fucking sucks and people are eating somewhere else.
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Have you ever been to a McDonald’s? They don’t outsource their ordering to jeets or AI.

Quarter pounders are fresh never frozen. Are you sure you’re American?
Amerimutt Dining.webp
 
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Fun fact, sit down restaurants like applebees and chilis, formerly known as shitty places to eat, are actually thriving as zoomers join the market, because they offer all the things fast food does for $1-2 more and many things fast food places don't. The enshittification (or outright removal) of the sit down portions of fast food restaurants mean they're no longer a popular hangout spot for young people to get cheap meals, so they're going more and more to places where they can sit down and split a $20 meal deal. But no, it's definitely Trump's economy that's killing fast food and not that fast food restaurants are hellish experiences that overcharge and underdeliver.
 
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Dr. Ricearoni said:
Fun fact, sit down restaurants like applebees and chilis, formerly known as shitty places to eat, are actually thriving as zoomers join the market, because they offer all the things fast food does for $1-2 more and many things fast food places don't. The enshittification (or outright removal) of the sit down portions of fast food restaurants mean they're no longer a popular hangout spot for young people to get cheap meals, so they're going more and more to places where they can sit down and split a $20 meal deal. But no, it's definitely Trump's economy that's killing fast food and not that fast food restaurants are hellish experiences that overcharge and underdeliver.
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I went to a Chili’s last Wednesday with friends and ended up paying $57 for a burger and 2 beers. Also their ribs suck.
 
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How much of this is supposed Drumpf economy ruining and how much is it MAHA messaging resonating among Americans?

I never ate a lot of fast food, but I would every week or two. Haven't had McDs or anything since like August when I found out about ultraprocessed foods. I suspect that is the case for many.

Burgers may no longer gon' burger.
 
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John Badman said:
Have you ever been to a McDonald’s? They don’t outsource their ordering to jeets or AI.
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Be fully honest. More specifically - they had to stop their rollout of AI ordering because it was so universally terrible and fucked up orders so often.

John Badman said:
I’ve done very well this last week and am only $1 under my buy-in
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Holy shit dude I've made 40 grand in the last 5 days, if you're still under cost basis in this rally you better close your fucking robinhood account now, before people like me finish eating you alive. Thanks for your money, I guess. As Jordan Belfort once said - I know how to spend it better than you anyway.
 
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