The 1991 Filet-O-Fish Meal Deal You'd Never Find On Menus Today

McDonald's has long been the dominant name in the world of fast food, and many of its menu items have been around for quite a while. The famous Filet-O-Fish sandwich, for example, was introduced back in 1962, and marked a major addition to the original McDonald's menu. Given that this first non-hamburger sandwich option at the Golden Arches has been on the menu for over 60 years, it should come as no surprise that it has gone through a number of promotional cycles for deals that could no longer exist. Seeing those old advertisements today, however, can still be quite jarring. Was it really just 1991 when you could get a Filet-O-Fish sandwich for $0.99 with the purchase of any size fries and drink? So the old TV spots tell us, as startlingly inexpensive as that price might seem for customers today.

At the time of this promotion, the regular price of a Filet-O-Fish would've fallen somewhere around $1.29, with the cost of medium fries around $0.99, and a medium drink about $0.89. That brings the total for this meal deal to just $2.87, which is well below the current cost of the sandwich alone, which comes in somewhere around $5.50, depending on location. This promo was, of course, quite a while ago, and inflation has changed the prices of everything. If you look at the original cost of the Filet-O-Fish when it first hit menus in the '60s — a measly $0.29 — that price jump over the past 35 years doesn't seem quite as extreme.

Prices have always risen over time, right alongside the buying power of the currency itself. Without something to compare these new, higher prices to, we are all prone to the curmudgeonly behavior of griping about how inexpensive everything used to be compared to the present. But let's have a look at what these figures would come out to in modern terms.

Unfortunately for McDonald's customers, as soon as you start calculating the inflation-adjusted costs of menu items, it becomes clear that the chain has gotten greedy. $1.29 in 1991, the regular price of a Filet-O-Fish sandwich, would be worth about $3.17 today. That puts the current cost at about a 74% upcharge, adjusted for inflation. Unsurprisingly, looking at the meal deal on the whole, things only get worse. $2.87 in 1991 would be worth about $7.06 today. For comparison, a Filet-O-Fish combo meal, which comes with the same three items — the sandwich, fries, and a drink — costs about $14.19, or more than twice as much.

Looking further back into the history of the Golden Arches, it is clear that things have really come off the rails in the past few decades. That $0.29 Filet-O-Fish in 1962 would cost about $3.22 today, a nickel more than the 1991 price. Add customer grievances over comically high prices to complaints about McDonald's shrinking fish sandwiches, and it really doesn't make sense. Clearly, this burger behemoth has traded value for profit, and certainly won't be finding a spot on the list of the most affordable fast food chains anytime soon.