McDonald’s Is Discontinuing the CosMc’s Concept Following the Brand’s Failure To Catch On
McDonald's has announced that CosMc's will soon be no more.
McDonald’s has announced that CosMc’s will soon be no more.
According to UPI, the beverage-focused concept store will shutter its five pilot locations in the coming weeks, 18 months after it was first launched. However, all is not lost, as some of the beverages will be added to the menus of more than 13,000 U.S. McDonald’s locations after the final CosMc’s are shuttered.
The fast-food juggernaut announced in a news release that it will cease the CosMc’s app and close all standalone pilot CosMc’s sites on a phased basis beginning in late June.
Though the concept never quite caught on, the fast-food giant claims that the point of the locations was to test out new beverages for the chain.
“The main goal of the CosMc’s test was to create a launchpad for learning for the McDonald’s System — and the insights we’ve gathered have given us a whole new way to get closer to our fans,” McDonald’s said in a statement in the press release.
The statement continued: “Building on the insights gained from the pilot standalone locations, CosMc’s-inspired flavors will be landing at McDonald’s as part of the upcoming U.S. beverage test, seamlessly blending out-of-this-world tastes into the McDonald’s experience.”
McDonald’s Was Already Shuttering CosMc’s Locations
The fast-food chain first began shutting down CosMc’s locations in January 2025, when three locations were closed for underperformance.
The business claimed, at the time, that it had also modified the plan for the development of the beverage-focused concept. The company also claimed that it intended to open two smaller CosMc’s eateries in Texas. The CosMc website stated, at the time, that a new location was coming to Allen, Texas, but it did not specify which existing locations would close or the locations of the new ones.
When the CosMc’s concept was first introduced in December 2023, CEO Chris Kempczinski urged caution. According to him, earlier attempts at diversification — such as holding stock in Boston Market, Donatos Pizza, and Chipotle Mexican Grill — had turned into distractions and led to divestitures within a decade. Therefore, CosMc’s future growth would be determined by the lessons acquired from its test phase; nonetheless, “if the test works out, CosMc’s could open across the globe.”
“Let me emphasize again, we’re talking about 10 stores,” he said at the time. “The big story isn’t about CosMc’s, per se. The big story is what it says about McDonald’s and our potential. To think, a little over a year ago, this was an idea, and this week we’re opening the first test site. It’s not worth our time to develop an idea that will only work in one market.”
