CosMc’s is dead. Long live CosMc’s.
McDonald’s on Friday said that it plans to close stand-alone locations of its beverage test concept starting in late June. It will also discontinue the CosMc’s app.
Instead, the fast-food giant plans to introduce beverages “inspired” by the drive-thru drink concept into “hundreds” of McDonald’s locations in an upcoming test. The effort will be overseen by a category team focused on beverages.
The move comes just 18 months after McDonald’s opened the first CosMc’s test location in suburban Chicago to long lines, and after the chain opened several other test locations in Texas.
But McDonald’s in January closed three of the Texas locations, all of them larger-format shops, and initially indicated that it would move forward with smaller locations. In May, however, CEO Chris Kempczinski revealed the upcoming test of beverages inside McDonald’s restaurants.
“We have discovered some interesting learnings through our CosMc’s test, which has better informed our understanding of consumers’ customization preferences and interest in new, emerging beverage categories,” he told analysts.
Five CosMc's locations are currently open, four in Texas and one in Illinois.
McDonald’s opened CosMc’s, named after one of the chain’s old marketing characters, in a bid to learn about the growing business of drive-thru beverages. Several of the fastest-growing restaurant chains in the country, including 7 Brew, Scooters, Dutch Bros and Swig, sell beverages from drive-thru-only units, and a growing number of traditional concepts like Caribou are following suit.
Yet it’s long been a question of how fast McDonald’s could move by opening a second brand, given the expense of opening new drive-thru restaurants.
Meanwhile, rival Taco Bell appears to be going ahead with a beverage concept of its own. But Live Mas Café is an in-restaurant brand, and that chain plans to expand it quickly this year. That could put some pressure on McDonald’s to speed its own effort, particularly given the intensifying competition in the beverage space.
McDonald’s said Friday that the CosMc’s locations operated like a “learning lab,” enabling the team to test new technologies and flavors in “real customer-facing environments” without impacting existing McDonald’s experiences.
The company was also able to make quick additions and edits to the menu based on feedback.
“We learned so much, so quickly, from the CosMc’s test,” the company said.
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