These 10 Discontinued McDonald's Menu Items Deserve A Revival

With an origin story that began in 1948 with the opening of its first restaurant, McDonald's has a long and storied history. From iconic fast food moments like its (now-defunct) Supersize menu to its heralded burger lineup, the original drive-in venture has boomed over the decades.

With all that time in business, the company has seen plenty of menu items come and go –– some for good reason. (We've previously looked at discontinued McDonald's menu items we definitely don't miss.) Other retired products seem to be more a victim of circumstance – whether it be rising food costs, rushed rollouts, or a global pandemic. When it comes to those items, they seem to have gone out more with a whimper than a bang.

That being said, these 10 discontinued McDonald's items are still beloved –– and yearned for –– by many consumers. From tasty snacks to indulgent desserts, fans have taken to social media or the internet at large to write about how they wish these products would make a return to McDonald's menus. While nine of the 10 don't seem to be reappearing any time soon, one outlier is poised to make a return –– for a little while, at least.

McDonald's answer to KFC's popular popcorn chicken came in the form of its Chicken McBites. At 10 bites for a mere two dollars, they were also a fast food steal. These tiny, poppable chicken nuggets launched in 2012 but were unfortunately discontinued a short time later in 2013.

According to McDonald's, the Chicken McBites were only meant to be a short time thing. Considering the chain is burger-centric, it's not all that surprising that these snackable morsels didn't make it to a permanent slot on the menu. The bites have made the occasional appearance in Australia and New Zealand over the intervening years, but there seem to be no plans for them to make a comeback on this side of the globe. (Just recently, it appears that the United Kingdom is lucky enough to earn the privilege of tasty these poppable nuggets again, too.) Perhaps McDonald's and Chicken McBites fans should take a page out of one Redditor's book, who suggested hungry customers "bully McD's into bringing these back."

If you visit McDonald's now with a hankering for something sweet, chances are your location will only have McFlurries, milkshakes, and sundaes available (assuming you don't follow the advice of employees and avoid the milkshakes, that is). However, once upon a time there was a warm, homey dessert that McDonald's customers could enjoy when an icy treat wasn't what they craved: the Cinnamon Melts.

Launched in 2007, the Cinnamon Melts (or Cinnamelts) were like cinnamon monkey bread, with nuggets of cinnamon roll baked together and smothered in a sweet icing and served to customers with a fork. This beloved treat lasted until 2017, giving McDonald's customers 10 years of sweet, cinnamon-scented bliss. (There's currently a petition on Change.org attempting to get the burger chain to reintroduce it to the menu.) Unfortunately, it was a matter of dollars and cents for the company –– the Cinnamon Melts were phased out of store locations due to the high production costs.

Another chicken item to get the axe from McDonald's was the Buttermilk Crispy Chicken Tenders. However, the history of this particular product is a bit unique, as it underwent a sort of rebranding before being eliminated entirely.

McDonalds' Buttermilk Crispy Chicken Tenders were originally known as Chicken Selects. First released in 2004, these were longer pieces of chicken breast that had been breaded and fried. They were later pulled from stores in 2013 before reemerging in 2017 under a new name: the afore-mentioned Buttermilk Crispy Chicken Tenders –– which, to be fair, does a better job of explaining what the item is versus the more vague-sounding "Chicken Selects."

Fans loved the new tenders, but, like so many other good things in the world, the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 saw them removed from store locations. The high cost of production and overwhelming demand for the crispy strips of comfort food, plus the pandemic, meant that these tenders were no more. However, chicken tenders fans need not be entirely bereft: McDonald's added new McCrispy Chicken Strips to the menu in 2025, although customers say they're not the same as the Buttermilk Crispy Chicken Tenders.

When you launch a product called "Big n' Tasty," expectations will be high. After all, you've got nothing to hide behind with that name: it had better be big and it had better be tasty. For fans of McDonald's burgers, this was happily the case –– for at least the time the sandwich was available, anyway.

Introduced nationwide at the dawn of the new millennium, the Big n' Tasty burger was conceived to rival Burger King's Whopper (one of the burgers we recently sampled in a ranking of burgers from Burger King, as it so happens). It included a quarter-pound beef patty, ketchup, mayo, onions, lettuce, tomato, and pickles on that iconic sesame seed bun. It sounds like a pretty standard burger, but one of the major selling features is that the Big n' Tasty was cheap, too –– it appeared on McDonald's dollar menu.

As you may have guessed, part of what made the Big n' Tasty so endearing to customers was also the reason for its downfall. While an easy choice for a quick and cheap (or quick n' cheap) lunch, it was too cheap for McDonald's to continue offering it. By 2010, the company had removed it from its menus altogether.

When you visit McDonald's, you probably know that you're there for the healthiest meal available (another likely reason to why McDonald's ditched its salads). That may be one of the factors involved in the discontinuation of the chain's Artisan Grilled Chicken Sandwich, too.

Launched in 2015, the Artisan Grilled Chicken Sandwich was designed to respond to customers' desire for simple, quality food, even from fast food joints. The sandwich consisted of a seasoned grilled chicken breast, leaf lettuce, tomato, and garlicky vinaigrette on a toasted artisan Ciabatta-style bun. For those who wanted to pretend that mass-produced fast food could actually be health-conscious from time to time, this sandwich seemed poised to be a hit.

What McDonald's wasn't counting on, however, was the COVID-19 pandemic. Like the Buttermilk Crispy Chicken Tenders, the Artisan Grilled Chicken Sandwich was another poultry casualty of a massive restructuring of the menu in 2020. With a pared-down kitchen staff, it made sense to have a menu to match, and so the grilled chicken sammie got cut. Fewer items meant fewer stations that needed to be manned and thus fewer employees during the nationwide stay-at-home orders. Unfortunately for grilled chicken fans, it doesn't seem that this item will be making a comeback any time soon.

We've seen that chicken doesn't usually fare well at the international burger chain, but beef should be a safe bet, right? Not if you're the Angus burger. Launched in 2009 as McDonald's tried to up its game while competing with more quality fast-casual and fast food chains, the burger giant decided that providing customers with a higher calibre of meat was the route to take.

The Angus burger line –– or Angus Third-Pounders –– were the first new burger since the previously mentioned Big n' Tasty. Plus, they were the only burgers on the menu to come adorned with full slices of bacon and red onion rings, adding to their premium appearance. The Angus burger line came in three varieties (although some regions offered different styles as well): Bacon & Cheese, Deluxe, and Mushroom & Swiss.

However, whether it was a matter of cost or demand (it's usually one of the two or both), the Angus burgers only enjoyed a brief three year stint before they were cut from the roster in 2013. Despite plenty of fans wishing these burgers would make a comeback, it doesn't seem to be in the cards as fast food prices continue to rise (although McDonald's is still one of the cheaper chains compared to other burger franchises like In-N-Out).

Sometimes, the idea of a product is better than the actual execution. While McDonald's has long since done away with its pizzas, it didn't totally reject all Italian –– or Italian-American –– culinary gems. Enter: McDonald's mozzarella sticks.

Launched in 2015, the burger chain offered customers the chance to enjoy three mozzarella sticks with a side of marinara sauce for dipping for under $1.50. (There are still die-hard fans who semi-seriously joke about boycotting the chain until the sticks are reinstated on the menu.) They were released nationwide in 2016, and that's when the issues began. Multiple customers complained that the cheese essentially evaporated by the time they went to take a bite. One of the caveats of a good mozzarella stick is that all-important cheese pull and, if the sticks have been sitting too long, the cheese fails at its melty, gooey obligation. In fact, the mozzarella within the mozzarella sticks was the issue as a whole –– cheese pull or no cheese pull.

In California, one irate customer sued McDonald's, alleging that the mozzarella sticks had been adulterated and mis-marketed with the claim of being "100% mozzarella." In fact, the customer alleged that starch had been used in the sticks to pad out the product as well as the profits. The case was dismissed in October 2016, but the damage was already done and the mozzarella sticks were discontinued in American stores.

Ask any fan of the original McDonald's apple pie if the current version matches up to its predecessor and they're likely to tell you no. That's why the discontinued fried apple pie from the burger chain deserves a revival –– because its (literally) pale imitation simply cannot compare.

Indeed, the apple pie currently offered at McDonald's in that handy cardboard sleeve is baked, not fried. Launched for the first time way back in 1968, the Fried Apple Pie was a crispy, bubbly wonder with a scorching hot apple filling. Then, in 1992, the recipe was changed for more health-conscious consumers, and the apple pie was no longer fried and instead became baked. This baked version is not nearly so crisp or crunchy, with a more flaccid, pale doughiness that sort of sucks the enjoyment out of a handheld pie. In 2018, McDonald's revamped the recipe yet again, this time doing away with artificial colors, preservatives, and high fructose corn syrup.

However, in a shocking, welcome move by the burger chain, there is in fact reason to hope for a revival. This July, in honor of America's 250th birthday, McDonald's will be bringing back its Fried Apple Pie! For the month of July only at participating locations, nostalgic diners can enjoy this little bit of indulgence –– and maybe cause enough demand for a permanent menu restoration.

Sure, fresh ingredients like lettuce and tomato have their place when it comes to burger toppings. However, if you prefer your burger veggie-free, you might have been a fan of McDonald's BBQ Ranch Burger. This option came with the iconic beef patty that was then topped with mild BBQ ranch sauce, chili lime tortilla chip strips, and white cheddar.

Only on the menu for a short period of time –– from 2013 to 2014 –– the BBQ Ranch Burger was a value staple. Like the previously mentioned (and missed) Big n' Tasty, the BBQ Ranch Burger was a highlight on the McDonald's dollar menu. As part of the reduction of the value menu as a whole, the BBQ Ranch Burger seems to have simply been too niche to remain in restaurants for long.

"I miss the hell out of the BBQ Ranch Burger," wrote one Redditor. Another user agreed, writing, "I used to eat these so much as a kid,I still wake up in a cold sweat over them, WHY MCDONALDS! #justiceforbbqranchburger." If McDonald's ever feels like doing a 50 states retrospective, we bet a revival of this burger would be a huge hit.

The last item we would love to see McDonald's bring back is the chocolatey cousin of the Cinnamon Melts. The Brownie Melts seem like a sort of sugar-laden fever dream, in that few people can point to its birth and its eventual demise, although it seems to have disappeared sometime around 2009 or 2010.

The Brownie Melts were packaged in a box like the Cinnamon Melts and were made of chunks of fudgy brownies that were drizzled in chocolate sauce and sweet icing. Incredibly rich and decadent, the sugar bomb doesn't seem to get as much nostalgic love as the cinnamon version, but its sugary, chocolatey flavor is still beloved by those who remember it. We could see McDonald's giving Dairy Queen a run for its money if it brought back the Brownie Melts and ramped things up a bit by pairing it with the soft serve ice cream for a seriously indulgent sundae. McDonald's, if you want any more ideas, let me know.