McDonald’s new late-night snack made me suffer from working part-time

When I just graduated, every time I came home after watching the livehouse late at night, I could always remember the McDonald's light sign on the street, the place that would flash at the end of the night for 24 hours, just like myself – my body was revelling, but my heart was not. Always thinking about work.

McDonald's sucks. I thought.

McDonald's, which never turns off the lights, began to vigorously make late-night snacks.

It has been in China for 32 years, and it is still working hard to grasp the "Chinese stomach".

Rewind: Four

This time, McDonald's has launched a new night supper platform called "Mai Mai Night Market".

Here are two new products:

Among them, "Mai Mai Ye Xiaobao" is a box containing two small hamburgers, called "Wow lotus root burger" and "Cai Cai Zhen Xiang Burg".

As the name suggests, the front fort is filled with braised lotus root, and the back is filled with dried plum vegetables, and both are served with a piece of grilled chicken thigh. Although it sounds very delicious and delicious, in fact, there is no sense of existence in the supper.

"Focus on Braised Chicken Frame", it looks like a barbecue in the picture, and the name looks like a lo-mei, no matter how you look at it, it's not very good.

I think, McDonald's has a 99% chance of trying to trick me into spending money on new products to buy a lesson.

Photographer Liang, who did not want to reveal his surname, also raised questions: Why do night markets eat luwei? After the new product was on the table, Mr. Liang glanced at the chicken rack: Why is the lo mei still dry?

After all, the supper in our impression is the sizzling barbecue, steaming hot pot, cold and refreshing beer, fresh and exciting crayfish, and spicy soup with big bone soup…

I echoed: Did McDonald's have no intention of doing real Chinese supper at all? Does McDonald's know what Chinese people want at night? Does McDonald's understand Chinese supper?

The way we are at the moment should be either like a customer or like a leader.

I'll admit to being a little picky when it comes to eating them in my mouth.

No matter what kind of supper he has at night, delicious food is king.

In terms of actual experience, McDonald's new products still have 3 highlights:

1. It is not suitable to eat too much in the evening: two pocket burgers only about 8cm are just enough to taste, and the chicken frame with sticky minced meat is not easy to be eaten in one bite. It is suitable for watching dramas while nibbling away the long night.

2. Capturing the variety of supper: supper will never be just one thing. Most of the supper is heavy. A braised lotus root burger is a spicy and spicy food that is preferred for late-night snacks, and a pork burger with dried plums is suitable for people who don't eat spicy food.

3. Further expansion of Chinese flavors: The two new products can taste Chinese seasoning sauces and powders such as chili, Sichuan peppercorns, and bean paste, and have not eaten hot pot barbecue, which is better than eating hot pot barbecue, as well as the smell of fireworks from street stalls .

After I finished eating, I looked at the zizi sauce in my hand with satisfaction, and an impulse reminded me of KFC's "finger-sucking chicken" – the thought of this moment is a bit sinful, like when I was making out with my current one. The former scumbag man was found to regret not at the beginning: McDonald's, you are already very good, I shouldn't think about KFC, I shouldn't wear tinted glasses, and I shouldn't say anything.

Looking back now, the whole process from shop exploration to experience is a bit like a small project from start to review.

McDonald's is not the first "foreign fast food" to make late-night snacks. It just came up with a new plan that everyone was looking forward to under the general trend, and then it was consumed and commented on by customers.

I was lost in thought – who isn't McDonald's?

Most people's work moves like a wheel.

The takeaway riders outside the window galloped away in front of the glass window, and McDonald's "Chinese food" road rewinded, and its past was unobstructed in front of me.

Rewind: Three

In recent years, McDonald's has a bit of a sense of crisis in middle age.

From 2013 to 2020, McDonald's operating income also experienced a significant decline , dropping from $28.106 billion in 8 years to $19.208 billion in 2020, and only slowly recovering from the epidemic in 2021.

From the launch of the astonishing coriander ice cream, the gift of a limited-edition hamburger box cat litter, and the first sponsorship of an e-sports event… It can be seen that McDonald's more or less wants to get closer to traffic and young people.

After all, the KFC next door has been playing well with young people for a long time-the co-branded Bubble Mart pushes the blind box, plays the social stalk of "Crazy Thursday", and rushes into the late-night snack stall.

Focusing on the "night economy", KFC is also much earlier than McDonald's.

In the summer of 2019, KFC launched a series of products of "Sichuan Fragrant Spicy Skewer Bucket + Fragrant Braised", which is only delivered at home at midnight snack stalls, with shredded chicken, chicken wing tips, and chicken hearts, which is quite full of chicken.

Just last month, three new products, "Barbecue-flavored Fragrant Chicken Skewers", "Secret Fragrant Fried Chicken Racks" and "Sauce-flavored Q-Bomb Squid Skewers", were launched.

This is understandable. The nightlife of young people is getting richer and richer, and the potential of the late-night snack market in China is getting bigger and bigger, but if you think about it, you will find that there is not even a big night-night snack brand that can be named.

This has also led to brands such as Haidilao, Pizza Hut, Ajisen Ramen, and Hefu Lao Noodles competing to start a night market business of roasting, frying, and stewing.

In fact, McDonald's also launched a half-chicken with green peppercorns last year to test the water during supper time.

But for more people, this is a roast chicken, colorful or chicken, and it has nothing to do with supper.

What's more, there are also a group of burger brands that symbolize cool, healthy, nutritious and warm, Shake Shack, Five Guys, CHARLIE'S, Popeyes, etc., are trying to leverage the low price, mechanization and high calories of traditional burgers.

McDonald's, a fast-food restaurant that is all-powerful in the world, comes to China, and it has to compete with the waves before and after, and try to stick its head out in the waves.

Everyone is rolling, and the "older" McDonald's is even more anxious.

Rewind: Two

Go back to 2013, the year McDonald's came to China at "23 years old".

It has already established a very solid position in "foreign fast food", and it has also launched a "Chinese meal" for the first time – fried dough sticks .

This localization measure is nearly 10 years later than KFC.

In 2004, after KFC put forward the slogan "Based on China, Incorporated into Life", from the first old Beijing chicken roll to the later tea eggs, snail noodles, hot dry noodles, chicken soup, soy milk, whether it is breakfast or supper, there are all kinds of tricks. .

Why didn't McDonald's do it sooner?

McDonald's China CEO Zeng Qishan once said , "There are too many localized products in China, and there are many similar products on the street. They may be better and cheaper than yours, so I'm not sure if this is the best sustainable model. ".

Today, for the sake of new profit points, enriching product lines and ensuring performance growth, McDonald's is a little late, but it is better than not doing well.

In 2002, McDonald's sold its landmark 100 billionth burger domestically.

McDonald's is everywhere in major cities. It is no longer a symbol of Western culture. It is like a brightly lit convenience store, like the hot tea that grandpa likes to drink, and it is like express packages on an assembly line.

It has become the restaurant of our daily life.

Of course, some people say that it is the largest free public toilet in China, which solves the biggest pain point in every tourist's journey; they say that it is a paradise for homeless people, because it is not closed 24 hours a day, and it has taken in countless "McDonald's refugees".

At this time, McDonald's was somewhat of a general, providing free comfort to the common people.

At this stage, McDonald's seems to have taken root in the workplace, has its own country, is ready to reconcile with the hard work, and plans to lie down a little.

Just lying flat is always phased.

McDonald's still doesn't know how it will be involved in the battle of "Chinese food" in 10 years, and probably has forgotten how high-spirited it was when it was younger in China.

Rewind: 1

I don't actually have a memory of the earlier McDonald's in my head.

After all, I was only born at the time. In my childhood, I only ate replica shops such as "Rye Farm Chicken", "Dekeji", and "Hua Luo Shi" that I can't even remember the names.

After studying in a bigger city, the children who held birthday parties at McDonald's in my memory always received envious eyes from a group of children, leaving behind the trendy and cheerful shadow of McDonald's at the beginning.

The beginning of the story has to go back to October 8, 1990.

On this day, McDonald's China's first restaurant opened in Shenzhen Dongmen Commercial Pedestrian Street .

With the name of "foreign fast food", it entered the Chinese public at the forefront of reform and opening up. At this time, Western-style fast food was also blank in the Chinese market. Everyone was curious. Long dragon.

The arrival of McDonald's has brought a fresh breath to the domestic environment eager for "newcomers".

In the past, fast food was only a boxed lunch, but finally fast food began to have hamburgers, fried chicken, and French fries… Although their prices were much higher than a boxed lunch at the time, McDonald's in everyone's eyes represented a trendy imported culture, cutting-edge lifestyle, and a newly opened social space.

When McDonald's opened its store in Beijing in 1992, nearly 1,000 store employees received more than 40,000 customers in one day. A 20-year-old college student said in an interview with The New York Times :

Eating at McDonald's is a bit pricey, but I guess the price is reasonable for such a high-end restaurant.

Just a few years after coming to China, it has been unprecedented. Although McDonald's is a "newcomer", it is definitely a top student who "rolls" a pool of water.

Its brilliance was noticed by the leaders above and gave an order: vigorously cultivate Chinese McDonald's!

Inspired by McDonald's, it became more diligent and diligent. In 1994, McDonald's sales outside the United States had surpassed that of the mainland, and China had become one of the largest potential markets.

At the same time, another top student, KFC, entered the group. It was earlier than McDonald's and opened on Qianmen Street in Beijing in 1987. Together, the two have driven a new lifestyle of eating "foreign fast food".

At this time, they didn't know that they would become each other's biggest opponents in their careers in China.

McDonald's is like a newly graduated international student who came to a new city and just wanted to get acquainted with the environment and gain a firm foothold.

Who knows what will happen in the future?

The crumbs of the McDonald's chicken frame fell from my fingernails, reminding me that it was time to go home and write.

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