This Discontinued McDonald's Burger Was An Expensive Flop (But Some Still Miss It)

For every three or four discontinued McDonald's items we're glad disappeared, there's the rare McD's flop that we would love to have back for a few more bites. Nobody's crying many tears over McDonald's pizza, the rollout of which was a disaster, but many Golden Arches fans are still a bit woebegone over the loss of salads, grilled chicken, and yogurt parfaits, all of which got 86'd in 2020. Over on Reddit, some drive-thru denizens of a certain age are still thinking of the Arch Deluxe, which debuted in 1996.

"I'm one of the few who loved the Arch Deluxe, and miss it. There are dozens of us!" one Redditor claimed, making light of this burger's divisive legacy. "I'm glad I'm not the only one. I'm pretty much fed up with McDonald's at this point and have stopped going. The Arch Deluxe just might bring me back," another commenter remarked. Never heard of an Arch Deluxe? You definitely aren't alone.

In the mid-'90s, McDonald's temporarily abandoned its low-cost fast food sensibilities and aimed upscale with a menu offering made of premium ingredients. The Arch Deluxe boasted a luxe potato bun, a bespoke mustard-mayo sauce, and juicy produce. It also touted a higher price tag: as much as $2.49, which was quite the ask at the time. McDonald's dropped a cool $200 million into promoting the burger and projected that it would bring in over $1 billion in profits. The project was a misfire, however, as the public wasn't interested in eating a fancy burger at McDonald's.

In a bid to market a burger that was "sophisticated" and aimed at adults instead of McNugget-guzzling ankle-biters, McDonald's vastly missed the mark. Its ad campaign for the Arch Deluxe was widely panned as strange, with Ronald McDonald shining his clown shoes in a corporate restroom or playing a few rounds of golf with well-heeled businessmen. The imagery wasn't ambiguous: McDonald's was trying to sell a departure from cheap fare and a step up in quality. The problem, however, was that the Arch Deluxe was elevated fast food that nobody had asked for. Customers seemed resistant to the cost and marketing of the special burger, and McDonald's soon realized that it had a failure on its hands ... a failure that might just constitute the biggest McDonald's blunder of all time in terms of relative cost.

It's notable that, currently, Lebanon is home to the most expensive McDonald's menu item, not the U.S. In the states, more and more consumers are laser-focused on value as the number one criterion for the food they choose to order. It's pretty safe to say that, if McDonald's released the Arch Deluxe today complete with its elevated price tag, it would likely flop just as hard. However, Reddit shows that this doesn't mean some folks didn't appreciate it. Still, the Arch Deluxe's limited fanbase simply didn't justify the big bucks that McDonald's spent trying to force a hit.