McDonald's Is Testing Out All-Day Breakfast

By Lisa White in Food on Apr 1, 2015 2:25PM

Rejoice hungover masses who are late to rise. The dream of so many bleary-eyed Americans could soon be a reality if all goes well. McDonald's has confirmed that starting in April they will be testing out all-day breakfast in select markets, specifically select locations in San Diego, California. On Monday McDonald's released a statement regarding the test, stating that "We know our customers love McDonald's breakfast and they tell us they'd like to enjoy it beyond the morning hours," while also pointing out that although they look forward to learning more information, it is still too soon to speculate any outcomes from the testing. Don't you tease us with the promise of all-day McMuffins, McDonald's.

The test will include some breakfast sandwiches, those beloved greasy hash browns and other select items throughout the day. Currently restaurants stop selling breakfast items at 10:30 a.m. and in some locations at 11 a.m. We can't count the number of times in college when we'd wake up after a long night, stare at the clock and realize it was 11:15, our fuzzy brain in pain knowing there would be no hash brown or chicken biscuit (RIP) in sight to help us soak up bad decisions and start the day.

The efforts are a move by the Oak Brook-based business to lure in more customers after a long stretch of disappointing sales. An article in the Tribune points out that breakfast accounts for about 25 percent of sales at McDonald's and is the strongest part of the day for the chain.

In the past McDonald's has stated that the reason they do not serve breakfast all day is because the kitchen setup does not allow it due to space issues. Mark Kalinowski, an analyst with Janney Capital Markets, pointed out to the Tribune that "the customer demand is there" and that it is likely that breakfast already accounts for about 40 percent of McDonald's domestic profits. He also suggest that it may help if McDonald's would trim its menu, cutting items that do not sell as well or timely items in order to make serving breakfast all day feasible.

We have to agree, we'd gladly trade any form of a snack wrap for a sausage biscuit and hash brown at noon on a Saturday. That said, if they really want to win our loyalty and heart, they'll bring back the Southern Style Chicken Biscuit. That mess of dense and crumbly sodium-filled biscuit mixed with slightly spicy fried chicken cured many a rough morning until it vanished from the menu a few years ago. It was supremely better than some of the other ideas McDonald's has tested in the past. Our chicken biscuit grudge aside, only time will tell if the all-day breakfast experiment will create a world of 24/7 McMuffins.