We Must Build An Enormous McWorld In Times Square, A Xanadu Representing A McDonald’s From Every Nation

The first time I wrote a letter to the president of McDonald’s it was about breakfast. I’m not a huge fan of most of the lunch and dinner options at McDonald’s but I love Sausage Egg & Cheese McMuffins and I love hash browns. I have gone into that McDonald’s in Union Square right around when they close down breakfast and put in low-ball bids on the whole remaining hash brown rack. “What do you got left hash browns-wise? Ten? Twelve? I’ll give you five bucks for the lot.” It’s a great hangover remedy. Giant Coke, tons of ice, bag of hash browns. Why can’t they serve hash browns all day? They come out of the freezer, a McDonald’s employee dumps them into a robot, and the robot cooks them, just like the fries, right? So when I suggested they serve breakfast all day, I expected they would do it. What’s the big deal? When I wrote to Starbucks to ask them to serve more savory breakfast foods, they did it. (I sent them a link to John Thorne’s stone classic “In Defense of the Savory Breakfast.”1 It’s worth reading just for the bit where Thorne blithely tosses off a delightfully Safirian “Eggs McMuffin” reference, miraculously published before the famous Onion joke.) When I wrote to every other fast food company, they at least would send back some coupons or something. McDonald’s just said, “We’ll look into it.” Here we are, years later, and you still can’t get hash browns after breakfast ends.

So that’s why I’m taking a different approach with my current McDonald’s dream. I figure if a bunch of nerds on Facebook can get Betty White onto “Saturday Night Live,” together we can make my McDream a McReality. I would like to introduce you to a concept I call “McWorld.”