McDonald’s pivoted to value and won. Now it's taking a big, beefy gamble on the Big Arch

Thirty years ago, McDonald’s released its most infamous and expensive flop, the Arch Deluxe. Marketed as a burger with a “grown-up” taste, it promised culinary transcendence through premium ingredients, years of research and testing, and the then exotic siren scent of dijonnaise sauce. To the shock of the company brass, American consumers didn’t fall over themselves to pay for something at McDonald’s that was more expensive than a Big Mac. (A $150 million advertising campaign that involved children being grossed out by the adult-themed burger probably didn’t help.) Within a few years, the sandwich unceremoniously disappeared from menu boards. 

Decades later, former McDonald’s Head Chef Andrew Selvaggio also shared that the Arch Deluxe was an operational nightmare for an industry built on thrift, speed, and uniformity. “It was a new burger that required a new sauce, new buns, new lettuce, seasoning.” 

The specter of the Arch Deluxe disaster, which has since become legendary material for MBA case studies and corporate cautionary tales, will no doubt serve as nightmare fuel for McDonald’s executives when the company releases the Big Arch on March 3. 

In addition to bearing an eerily similar name to Mickey D’s biggest commercial calamity, the Big Arch shares a lot of the Arch Deluxe’s positioning: it’s a more expensive burger (well over $9 for the burger alone in many markets) and features a new sauce (tangy mustard), a fancy new bun (toasted and topped with poppy and sesame seeds), a new topping (crispy onions), and three slices of a new cheese (white cheddar). Following the Quarter Pounder, it will also be the second burger on the McDonald’s menu to be made to order with fresh beef. 

Still, more surprising than its spiritual resemblance to the ill-fated Arch Deluxe is the timing of the Big Arch’s debut. After alienating its core consumer base with the continuation of higher prices from the pandemic, McDonald’s and several other fast-food chains have just begun to see diners returning. On February 11, McDonald’s reported that it had smashed analysts’ expectations at the end of 2025, with same-store sales rising 5.7%, beating the projected 3.7%. Anchoring the surges in sales and traffic were discounts, including value-enhanced combo meals priced 15% lower than their individual items. In a rare and controversial move, McDonald’s even helped subsidize the discounts by splitting the costs with franchisees. “By listening to customers and taking action, we have improved traffic and strengthened our value & affordability scores,” McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski said in a company statement unpacking the good numbers.

So then why would McDonald’s introduce a fast-food burger with a fast-casual price tag at the very moment that fancy burger chains and slop bowl purveyors are seeing demand drastically shrink? Well, to start, the Big Arch tested well in select US markets as well as across Canada and Europe; the burger has already become a permanent menu fixture in the United Kingdom and Ireland. (Out of journalistic duty, I tried the burger in Canada, where the shock and awe of a half-pound burger carries a bit less metric meaning, and thought it was great.)

As culinary trends go, a burger with more meat and less bread than a Big Mac also fits naturally within an American consumer culture that is in a sustained fit of protein-maxxing. “Customers are responding to this more satisfying burger that meets demand for something heartier while still feeling distinctly McDonald’s,” Global Chief Restaurant Experience Officer Jill McDonald (of no relation to the chain’s founding brothers) said of the Big Arch’s performance abroad.

McDonald’s isn’t the only burger chain hulking up its burgers. In October, Shake Shack introduced its own half-pounder — the Big Shack — and in November, Carl’s Jr. released the Cali XL, a $5.99 burger that explicitly boasted having more than twice the beef of a Big Mac for about the same price. In a particularly hostile gambit, Carl’s Jr. even offered customers the burger for free if they showed the receipt from a previous Big Mac purchase. 

Of course, there’s almost always an economic case to be made for anything that a goliath like McDonald’s does. The ongoing narrative of how lower-income diners have been avoiding fast food or rediscovering casual restaurants like Chili’s as their respective prices have become comparable has a McNugget hiding in the data to digest: quick-service chains like McDonald’s have also enjoyed a boost from higher-income diners who are either unfazed by the high cost of fast food or might be trading down from pricier options.

Even as McDonald’s introduced discounts and brought its lower-priced Snack Wrap out of retirement last summer, it acknowledged how the winners in the bifurcated US economy have helped keep its losses from becoming supersized. In a call with analysts in November, Kempczinski observed a double-digit drop in traffic from less affluent diners across all of fast food in the third quarter of 2025. “In contrast,” he added, “traffic growth among higher-income consumers remains strong, increasing nearly double digits in the quarter.” For those not feeling the jitters of economic anxiety, a $9 burger may not arch their eyebrows.

In many ways, Mickey D’s investment in the Big Arch speaks to its outsized fixture in the world of food. The American monoculture may be on its last legs, but McDonald’s is still McDonald’s. Part of the company’s late-year rally was fueled by its ability to persistently train its marketing firehose on consumers through value menus. Through sheer force of will, it also found success by reviving its “Monopoly” promotion and, in December, briefly held the title of the world’s largest seller of socks through a hugely successful holiday meal promotion featuring the Grinch. Even as the Big Arch sounds a lot like the same corporate hubris that gave us the Arch Deluxe, anyone witnessing the re-proliferation of cargo pants and digital cameras knows that even the most disastrous elements of the 1990s have the potential to break through in 2026.

Adam Chandler is a journalist based in New York and the author of “Drive-Thru Dreams” and “99% Perspiration.”