Why McDonald's Doesn't Serve Burgers During Its Breakfast Hours

McDonald's has a fairly colorful breakfast menu, with Egg McMuffins, Sausage McGriddles, Hotcakes, and plenty of sides. At one point you could order breakfast all day, because who doesn't love breakfast for dinner, but McDonald's removed the all-day breakfast back in 2020. Though the breakfast menu has seen its share of changes, one thing that has remained a constant throughout the years is that McDonald's only serves breakfast items during breakfast hours. There are no Big Macs, Quarter Pounders, or french fries at 8 a.m. at the Golden Arches.

A McDonald's representative explained to the Wall Street Journal that the chain doesn't make burgers early in the morning because "the demand isn't strong enough." This doesn't seem entirely true, given the outcry of customers on social media who crave a burger at the crack of dawn. The other, more believable explanation is that there simply isn't enough space or equipment. Burgers require higher cooking temperatures than scrambled eggs, meaning the two items can't share a grill. Plus, McDonald's doesn't have an unlimited supply of grills. So, as one grill is taken up cooking eggs and another grill is taken up frying bacon, there's no room to cook burgers, too.

It took over 20 years from when McDonald's opened to the day it began serving a daily breakfast menu. It all started with a franchise owner in Pittsburgh asking to sell donuts and other sweet items during breakfast time. A year later, in 1972, Herb Peterson invented a breakfast sandwich for his franchise that would later be named the Egg McMuffin. The Egg McMuffin revolutionized the way McDonald's thought about breakfast, and even though it took a few years to roll out across the country, it was an undeniable hit. Over the next decade, McDonald's introduced hotcakes, hash browns, and other now-famous breakfast items to its menu.

Even though you can't get a burger until later, McDonald's stops serving breakfast at about 10:30 or 11:00 a.m. So, you technically have more hours in the day to order a Double Quarter Pounder than you do a Bacon, Egg, & Cheese McGriddle. If the need for a hamburger first thing in the morning is truly unavoidable, you'll have to hike it over to Whataburger or Burger King, two fast food restaurants that serve hamburgers at all times of the day — but you'd be missing out on the best fast food breakfast menu on the market.