Yes, You Can Order Affogatos At McDonald's — But There's A Notorious Catch

McDonald's ice cream machines have a reputation, and not a good one. Walk into pretty much any McDonald's hoping for a McFlurry, and odds are you'll hear it: "It's broken." The meme's so big now that nobody's even surprised anymore. But if you somehow land at a location with a working machine, forget the ranked McD's dessert menu — celebrate the occasion by ordering an affogato instead.

Ask the server for two things: a single shot of espresso and a cup of vanilla soft serve. Once you've got them, simply pour the hot espresso over the ice cream, and boom — you've got yourself a dessert that would make an amazing, energizing treat no matter the time of day. When the ice cream melts into the espresso, you get something way more indulgent than a latte, and for a fraction of what you'd pay at an actual Italian café. Honestly, it might be the best use of McDonald's ice cream machine when it's actually available — and one of the easiest ways to elevate your McDonald's coffee order at the drive-thru, since you can just mix it in the parking lot.

And, fun fact: While it's not officially available in the U.S., "McAffogato" is a real thing in McDonald's Singapore. Will it ever be in America? No one knows. Lucky for you, the recipe's simple enough that you don't need to wait for the official menu item.

This phenomenon is so well-known and well-memed that some entrepreneurial spirits on the Internet have made an entire website, aptly named McBroken.com, dedicated to tracking the status of McD's ice cream machines across America. Even McD's has jumped onto the bandwagon riffing on its own machines. But why exactly are these machines down more often than they're working?

The main culprit is the machine itself. McDonald's uses soft serve machines made by Taylor Company, specifically the Taylor C602, which happens to be notoriously finicky despite costing up to $18,000. The machine requires a four-hour cleaning cycle to work properly, and if something goes wrong, it locks itself out with no reset button for employees. For years, McDonald's wouldn't let franchisees repair their own machines — only Taylor-certified technicians could touch them. This created a nightmare scenario where broken machines stayed down for weeks while waiting for a repair person. Worse still, it'd be the franchisees who'd be left footing the expensive repair bills ($350 for every 15 minutes of servicing, according to MorningBrew) while ice cream sales tanked.

Thankfully, McDonald's finally granted franchises the right to fix their own machines a few years back (via NPR). If you've been seeing your McFlurry orders going through more often lately, that's probably the reason. So if your local McDonald's ice cream machine is miraculously working, do yourself a favor and order that affogato before it goes down again.