Americans Should Feel Humiliated by How Good Canadian McDonald’s Is
It’s Fast-Food Week! Zhuzh it up with bacon.
In those dark, sunless winter months when the temperature hits minus 20 degrees Celsius on the moose-lined banks of Lake Louise, I imagine that each Canadian is warming themself with the knowledge that they’ve beaten us at our own game. Canada has something America doesn’t and perhaps never will: McDonald’s supremacy.
Sit with this information for as long as you need, but also accept it. McDonald’s may have been born in the abundant order of sunny, postwar California and earned its status as an emblem of American soft power. But its stateside flagships have been tragically and thoroughly surpassed in bread and breadth by their counterparts in the north.
It’s not supposed to be this way—not in a capitalistic sense or a civic sense or a spiritual sense. Canada has its full year of paid parental leave and excessive apologizing and bagged milk. McDonald’s, obviously, was meant to be America’s thing, our birthright of processed riches and our lodestar toward joy and cardiovascular decay. Instead, American McDonald’s fade like ersatz pyrite against the shine of Canada’s golden arches.
The proof, sadly, is in the poutine. A permanent offering in Canadian McDonald’s, this sloppy mire of french fries topped with gravy and cheese curds curiously has no decadent parallel on McMenus across the so-called Peace Bridge. I wish this culinary trade deficit began and ended with Canada’s national sloppy drunk dish, but it doesn’t. For three square meals (plus Snack Wraps, Skor and caramel-popcorn McFlurrys, and late-night offerings for the properly hosed), the Canucks have us surrounded with superior firepower in a fight that we’ve seemingly lost without firing a single shot in our own defense. It’s the battle of Fort Detroit all over again.
Take breakfast, for example, where there are more than twice as many options to devour by the dawn’s early light in Canada. That includes fried chicken sandwiches, which, despite having been invented in American kitchens, apparently have no place on the breakfast menu of our biggest national chain. For my 3 loonies or whatever, Canada’s most infuriating breakfast offering is the Egg BLT McMuffin, which takes an American Egg McMuffin and zhuzhes it up with bacon, green-leaf lettuce, tomato, and a tangy mayo sauce. If the original Egg McMuffin is famously a portable homage to eggs Benedict, then the Egg BLT McMuffin is Canada’s portable homage to eggs Benedict Arnold, a symbol of rebellion against American austerity. (Adding further insult is the presence of “processed cheddar,” an ingredient that Canadian outposts won’t even deign to acknowledge is very clearly American cheese.)
To be outclassed is one thing. Again, Canada is Canada, a place where the sitting leader of the country can casually announce a divorce in the middle of a term without any major blowback. But Americans have long abided being the boor of their peer nations; it’s practically a point of pride. And so there is no analgesic for the moral injury that comes with realizing that Canadian McDonald’s have decided American Big Macs are simply too small for their liking. In addition to the Big Mac, Canadian menu boards flaunt not only a Double Big Mac, but a Grand Big Mac, which is a beastly, fully yoked, 850-calorie version of the double-decker sandwich that you can’t get in an American store—at least not without a full minute of explanation.
And this is where things get interesting, folks. The truth is, every single McDonald’s in the U.S. has both the capacity and the ingredients to build and sell a Grand Mac. What they lack, however, is the will. We could also have the huge bounty of breakfast items available in Canada, but we’ve traded creativity and variety for time and efficiency. Following a big menu reduction during the early days of the pandemic, McDonald’s in the U.S. also cut a number of healthier items last year in the name of faster service. “Our simplified menu enables for speed,” reported Bloomberg, quoting a large association of McDonald’s franchisees.
This strategy could be chalked up to a number of factors, including a pathological fury at slow transactions among time-strapped American consumers as well as chronic understaffing and poor employee recruitment by American corporate giants. The result is that the menus at our McDonald’s will always look meek in comparison to others, even ones in relatively similar markets.
When I consulted Bill Oakley, a former showrunner of The Simpsons and author of its classic “steamed hams” scene, as well as one of America’s foremost fast-food enthusiasts, he shared my umbrage. “We get nothing but new bags,” Oakley said, referencing the long lists of recent McDonald’s promotions and influencer meals that feature little but fresh packaging. “You know, I’ve been complaining about this for years. McDonald’s in America has calcified in terms of new offerings.” Speaking with Oakley, who is currently on strike with the Writers Guild of America, it was hard not to think that McDonald’s has become a bit like Hollywood—interminably rehashing old intellectual property. Even when something is new, like the recent Grimace shake, which got memed into oblivion this summer, it still had to come packaged with a familiar face. The menu didn’t notch a victory; branding did.
Ultimately, I found few satisfying answers as I sought out reasonable explanations for why such a huge gap between American and Canadian McDonald’s exists and why it stings so much. I don’t really begrudge Europeans their Old World Mickey D’s stocked with lagers and crepes. I’ll happily concede that Japan’s studied command of kitsch and embrace of shokunin make for an impressive operation. But to be humbled by our northern neighbor—a market so similar to our own and on terms so native to our core—is frankly humiliating.
“It has always just been that way,” one McDonald’s franchisee on the American side of the border told me. “There’s no animosity or bad blood. It has always just been two completely separate markets in leadership, marketing agencies, as well as franchisees. I’m not aware of anyone who owns McDonald’s in both markets.” In classic fashion, several Canadian franchisees that I reached out to refused to gloat about their strawberry pies and Spicy Habanero McChickens. What a bunch of polite jerks.
