Customers flock to McDonald's new retro drinks brand

By Natalie Sherman & Mike WendlingBBC News in New York and Bolingbrook, Illinois

Long queues have formed outside the first branch of new McDonald's concept brand CosMc's - but will the new retro-themed, drinks-focused brand have staying power?

Fast-food companies are dreaming of more customers like 21-year-old Corinn McKenna.

"I'm here because of the intrigue, and I think the McDonald's empire is something that's pretty impressive," she said. "I first heard about this launch on TikTok."

Ms McKenna, who ordered a tart, mildly sweet blackberry mint green tea, was among the initial rush of customers at the first CosMc's, a new brand launched by the burger giant with the hopes of cracking the market for specialty coffees and drinks.

CosMc's yellow-and-purple design is meant to evoke nostalgia for the brand's past and is named after a strange and obscure company mascot - a cheeseburger-obsessed orange alien with six arms that featured in McDonald's advertising starting in the 1980s.

The menu is slightly more up to date. It includes breakfast sandwiches with slight uplifts - one comes with avocado and tomatillo along with egg and sausage - desserts such as filled donut-like pastries called McPops, and snacks including pretzel bites.

The real focus, however, is a long list of drinks that involve various permutations of caffeine, sugar and colours designed to pop on Instagram. They have names like Churro Frappe, S'Mores Cold Brew, Tumeric Spiced Latte and Tropical Spiceaide - a sweet lemonade with a slight kick and red fruits bobbing along the top.

The drinks can be customised with various syrups, flavours, vitamin shots and boba - those chewy, trendy tapioca pearls.

CosMc's is drive-though only, and on Friday - the second day of a rather well-publicised "soft" launch - it was not exactly serving fast food. Customers waited in their cars for an hour or more in an orderly queue that snaked through a shopping centre along a busy road in suburban Chicago.

The new brand is an effort by the chain to boost its beverage business and take on the likes of Starbucks. Experts say that drinks have been something of an afterthought, at least in the US market, for the world's largest fast-food company.

"McDonald's has done a terrible job with coffee overall, despite selling a lot of it," said Jeffrey Young, founder of Allegra World Coffee Portal, a research firm and consultancy. "I don't think it's ever really committed to it."

Dorothy Calba, senior research analyst at Euromonitor International, noted that its McCafe brand, "never really took off" in the US despite selling eight million cups a day worldwide.

McDonald's also had to reckon with its own reputation.

"Their brand recognition tied to burgers and fries was almost too strong in the US for consumers to overcome that identity," she said.

Waiting in the long queue on Friday were Crystal Rodriguez and her friend Maria Hinojosa. They had written down a long list of items they wanted to try: the breakfast sandwiches, a pear-flavoured slushy drink, some of those McPops and more.

"I'm a fan of McDonald's and the whole retro space theme is cool," Ms Rodriguez said. "I like the 1980s, too."

The pair first heard about the new restaurant from a co-worker of Ms Hinojosa, and had already driven about an hour from their Chicago neighbourhood to get a first taste - before enduring a long wait.

Asked if they were old enough to remember the 1980s, Ms Hinojosa clarified: "We're really children of 90s. But we've seen a lot of stuff about CosMc, it's all online."

The retro branding also helped lure in Steve Raquel, a 54-year-old who formerly worked for McDonald's marketing department.

"There's some interesting things going on here," he said, though he admitted he had no idea what he would order when he eventually made it to the front of the queue.

Five cars ahead - and just about at the head of the line - Ashley Pete from nearby Joliet said she encountered the brand while searching online for somewhere nearby serving smoothies or some sort of refreshing fruit drink.

"I hope this is good, because I've been in the line for about an hour," she said, picking up her phone to look at the CosMc menu. "I guess I should be making up my mind on what I'm going to order while we talk."

The chain plans to open up more outlets in Texas next year, but the company's boss has tried to temper expectations.

"We're talking about 10 stores, OK?" McDonald's chief executive Chris Kempczinski said during a briefing earlier this week. "Let's not get too excited."

Some of the marketing experts the BBC spoke to questioned the logic of inventing a whole new brand in order to sell coffee beverages and other sweet customised drinks.

But for the company's bottom line the appeal of this particular market is clear.

"The profit margins are much higher," said Ms Calba, the research analyst.

The spicy lemonade and blackberry tea drinks cost $4.89 (£3.90), plus sales tax, while a Churro Frappe is on the menu for $5.79 (£4.61).

A new brand with standalone locations - and no eat-in or counter service - is one way of separating out the tricky work of customising individual drinks.

"Everything in fast food, especially with drive-through, is turnaround time," Ms Calba said. "There just wouldn't be the capacity in a lot of those [existing McDonald's] restaurants to still serve people" at the rate the business model demands.

"It just makes it easier on them," she said.

Whether or not the brand has any staying power, it's clear the first few days have been wildly popular among the chain's dedicated fans.

One couple put off by the long queue in Bolingbrook started to pull away before the driver leaned out the window and hollered to a traffic-directing McDonald's employee.

"What time are you open tomorrow?" she asked.

"Six am," came the reply. "But it gets busy pretty early."

"In that case," the driver said, "do you think it's worth getting here maybe an hour early?"

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