McDonald's Has Customers Lovin' It with All Day Breakfast

McDonald's has announced that it will begin serving breakfast all day nationwide starting in October in an effort to reverse declining sales.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the move was approved by a vote of franchise owners and will take effect in all 14,300 McDonald's locations in the United States on October 6. The company has been testing all-day breakfast, which has been a longtime demand of customers, in a number of markets since March. Those markets included locations in San Diego, Nashville, and Mississippi.

Although consumers have long demanded that McDonald's serve breakfast past their 10:30 a.m. cutoff time, the company had demurred because of the different processes required to make both breakfast items like McMuffins and staples like the Quarter Pounder.

For example, the company had to figure out how to make egg dishes without getting raw eggs on hamburgers. McDonald's uses the same grills for both lunch and dinner, and so had to find a workaround.

The company finally decided upon a small, portable grill that has wheels and could be situated wherever a given McDonald's felt was the best place for it. Another obstacle was the preparation of hamburger buns and muffins, which are heated to different temperatures. McDonald's locations have only one toaster for these operations, and new establishments will be outfitted with two. Existing McDonald's will have to invest in new toasters.

The cost of these upgrades will range from $500 to $5,000 per location depending on how much equipment a given franchise has.

The company will also be restructuring its menu in an effort to help streamline operations. Sausage burritos and pancakes will be available at all locations, and in some markets consumers will also be able to get Egg McMuffins or biscuit sandwiches.