There are rumors and whispers in the world that speak of rare food items that might be obtained by those who know their names. The common term for lists of such items is “secret menu,” but how secret are these menus in the Golden Triangle?
The website SecretMenus.com lists a number of restaurants with such tantalizing treats.
McDonald’s offers a “Monster Mac,” a Big Mac constructed with eight beef patties.
Ever wanted a Frito Pie at Sonic? It’s not on the menu, but they can make it for you. In fact, they can even serve it with a purple Sprite.
Many of these secret menu items are limited in availability according to season and locale, for instance, it’s much harder to obtain a chicken quesadilla from Chick-fil-A in Mississippi, than it would be in a south-western state.
And you won’t be ordering a McLeprechaun Shake, a blend of McDonald’s Shamrock Shake and chocolate shake, outside of March.
So I set out to see for myself.
My first stop, early Wednesday morning, was at the Columbus Starbucks on Hwy. 45, where not only were my secret menus debunked, but I found several of the “secret” items on the store’s real menu. After discussing the prospect of a secret menu with an employee, I found that while there is no secret menu, there are also no secret drinks: they’ll make basically whatever you want.
Cinnamon Roll Frappucino and bacon and gouda breakfast sandwich put away, I turned my attention to the most well-known name in fast food, McDonald’s, specifically the Columbus location at 937 Alabama St. The McKinley Mac – a Big Mac with quarter pound patties — caught my eye on SecretMenus.com. While this item wasn’t recognized by name, it was a simple matter to get my hands on “one Big Mac with quarter-pound patties.” Again, the McDonald’s menu seems more to be a matter of customization and individual food engineering, than some deep, dark secret menu.
Further checks into various fast food restaurants in the Golden Triangle revealed generally the same results, with customization often leading to whatever food I could desire, but no one acknowledged the secret menus as an actual list of food options.
So, while some of the items themselves remain unlisted, there’s no big secret behind the hidden menus in the food service world: it’s simply good customer service.
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