McDonald’s to open first CosMc’s spinoff restaurant this week
McDonald’s will open up its first CosMc’s coffee-style spin off restaurant this week.
The first outlet of the pilot scheme will open in Bolingbrook, Illinois later this week with a further 10 more to open in Texas next year.
The new restaurant will be set in a retro-style and will sell items for those with a sweet tooth, including “s’mores cold brew”, “churro frappes” and “turmeric latte” sold alongside a reduced food menu offering will include McMuffin sandwiches as well as hash browns, cookies and ice-cream.
The proposed menu will also include a range of specialty lemonades, blended drinks, teas with flavours including “popping pear slush” and “tropical spiceade” which can be flavoured with syrups and vitamin C shots.
The restaurant is styled on CosMc, a part-space, part-robot character that appeared in advertisements in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
McDonald's CEO, Chris Kempczinski said the rebranded restaurant aims to fill a slump in sales in the mid-afternoon, offering drinks too complex for its existing chains.
“This is a $100billion category growing faster than the rest of the informal eating-out segment and with superior margins,” he said.
“The big story isn’t about CosMc’s, per se. The big story is what it says about McDonald’s and our potential.
“To think, a little over a year ago, this was an idea, and this week we’re opening the first test site.”
The announcement came as McDonald’s plans to open nearly 10,000 restaurants over the next four years.
At an investor update on Wednesday, the Chicago burger giant said it aims to have 50,000 restaurants in operation worldwide by the end of 2027. McDonald's had 40,275 restaurants at the start of this year.
It plans to open 900 new stores in the US and 1,900 in international markets with company-operated and franchised restaurants like Canada, Germany, the UK and Australia.
McDonald's plans another 7,000 stores in international markets that are operated by licensees. More than half of those stores would be in China.
McDonald's said the explosive growth of delivery demand makes it critical to get restaurant locations even closer to customers so food can arrive faster and hotter.