Why McDonald's ‘otherworldly' spin-off restaurant failed to launch
In 2023, McDonald's announced the spin-off—billed as the next frontier for the fast-food chain to test its most ' otherworldly ' specialty beverage ideas—to a deluge of marketing fanfare. CosMc's was a drive-through-only concept with a pared-down menu of neon-colored drinks and a few snack items. The first CosMc's restaurants opened with lines around the block before the sun was even up. Now, less than two years later, McDonald's is jettisoning the stores back into the ether.
According to a press release published late last week, McDonald's plans to shut down all five of its CosMc's locations (one in Illinois and four in Texas) in late June, as well as delete the restaurant's associated app. In the coming months, CosMc's-inspired flavors will be landing in hundreds of U.S. McDonald's locations as part of a wider beverage test. The announcement comes in the wake of McDonald's first-quarter 2025 financial report on May 1, which revealed that the chain's sales dropped at the beginning of the year, marking its second consecutive quarter of declines.
Experts say there are a few main reasons why CosMc's didn't work out as a stand-alone concept—but that doesn't necessarily mean the spin-off was a failure for McDonald's.
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