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The premium lineup is helping the chain's sales numbers, according to an April earnings call.
When compared against two other major "better burger" chains, Shake Shack and Five Guys, we found them to hold their own in terms of quality.
McDonald's attempt to latch on to the meteoric rise of the better burger trend is yielding decent results.
In the company's last earnings call in April, McDonald's CFO Kevin Ozan said that sales are being buoyed, in part, by sales of the chain's Signature Crafted line of premium burgers, which run about $1-2 more than the rest of McDonald's burger menu.
After the experiment with a customizable burger program a few years ago proved unsuccessful, McDonald's tweaked it and retained several premium burger options - a garlic white cheddar burger, a pico guacamole burger, and a sweet BBQ bacon burger.
These burgers also have the distinction of using fresh beef patties, a very recent change to McDonald's longstanding and often-maligned tradition of using frozen patties.
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This could reasonably put them in the same league as other fresh-grilled, premium, national burger chains - namely, Shake Shack and Five Guys. So we decided to compare McDonald's better-burger lineup to its competition to see if it has staying power in the industry - and we were surprised by what we found:
McDonald's fancy burgers come in fancy branded boxes to distinguish them from your de rigueur quarter pounders.
First is the pico guacamole burger.
It's slathered with pico de gallo and guacamole, hence the name. The brioche bun is a regular on the premium lineup, and frankly, it is much better than the typical McDonald's sesame bun.
The burger is decent. The veggie-heavy ingredients are surprisingly fresh and vibrant.
The pico de gallo has firm, fleshy diced tomato and sharp onions, and the guacamole is better than one expects from McDonald's guacamole. This burger comes with a lime wedge in the box — it seems incongruous at first, but the acidic sharpness of the lime juice goes a long way to cut through the rich mellowness of this burger.
The garlic cheddar burger is very, very pungent — you can smell the garlic from miles away.
It's a rather strange experience to smell garlic in the restaurant, wafting up from a McDonald's burger. It's just not an ingredient you expect to encounter beneath the Golden Arches.
It makes for an extremely rich, savory burger, as well as an extremely garlicky one. The aioli doesn't do as much heavy lifting in the garlic department as the fried slices do.
I'm on the fence about the fresh beef. I can't tell if it's any different or not, honestly. But the ingredients are still surprising with the level of quality. Again, the tomato is vibrant, and the fried garlic chips are crispy and numerous. The white cheddar adds a nice sharpness to each bite.
Lastly in McDonald's premium stable, we have the sweet BBQ bacon burger.
Topped with bacon, barbecue sauce, fried onions, grilled onions, and white cheddar cheese, this burger sounds like a pretty hefty chew.
And it is — it's a heavy meal. But it's also the best of the McDonald's bunch.
The barbecue sauce runs on the sweet side, which the burger's name told us, in fairness. But the sugar is cut by the savory beef and onions, as well as the rich cheese. They don't skimp on toppings, either; there's a good amount of bacon and onions. It's shockingly good.
So, how does Shake Shack compare? Let's start with the classic Shack Burger.
Shake Shack offers single patties or double burgers. We chose single for the sake of this comparison. The Shack Burger is the chain's simple, classic, run-of-the-mill burger: just a patty, cheese, tomato, lettuce, and Shake Sauce.
And, surprise, it's delicious.
Shake Shack is really good. But there's one thing that may be worse than McDonald's: its burgers are greasy. While that's part of their luscious charm, it simply must be said that they're very heavy, greasy burgers. The potato bun is delicious, but it can get lost and soggy.
Shake Shack's Smoke Shack burger has similar triumphs and suffers from similar issues.
I'll start with the same disclaimer: it's delicious.
Bacon, hot cherry peppers, cheese, and Shack Sauce — with the omission of lettuce and tomato, this burger becomes infinitely heavier. It will weigh you down, which is the cost of such a guilty pleasure.
So when contrasted with McDonald's burgers, there lies a conundrum.
McDonald's burgers are perhaps less approachable with their off flavor combinations: a vaguely southwestern burger, a garlic burger ... yet, they are much lighter and don't weigh you down after eating. It's a tough choice between delicious grease or decent comfort.
Then there's Five Guys.
Five Guys is a tad tougher to compare, given that the chain's burger model is one of customization. You can choose from single or double burgers with combinations of cheese, bacon, or none of the aforementioned. Then you choose from an extensive list of normal burger toppings, ranging from pickles and onions to mustard and mayo.
That's the beauty of Five Guys — the choice is limitless. You get the burger you truly want, nothing more and nothing less.
But Five Guys' ethos is different: the ingredients are good and responsibly sourced, but they're not "premium." The chain revels in its simplicity and no-fuss attitude, from the sans-frills dining area to the ho-hum iceberg lettuce. And the burgers are enormously greasy, with huge patties — if Shake Shack wears you down, don't even think about Five Guys. So McDonald's has the edge here, with fewer ingredients but higher quality.
Personal preference dictates which burger chain you may like best — there are enough differences to let them all coexist relatively peacefully. But McDonald's is the winner here because it beat any expectations we had of it.
The premium burgers were better than anticipated. Shake Shack just had to be roughly adequate in order to stay in the competition. Five Guys, while hugely satisfying, does lack the premium glitz of the other two's ingredients.
Plus, the different price points do factor into the equation: McDonald's burgers are all around $6, while Shake Shack's range from $6 to $8, and Five Guys' varies greatly.
