FILE - Wendy’s Frosty desserts on Feb. 7, 2016 in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Eugene Gologursky/Getty Images for Wendys)
DUBLIN, Ohio - Wendy’s is going after McDonald’s and its broken McFlurry machines by offering $1 Frostys through the end of the month.
McDonald's soft-serve machines are notorious for being down – even spawning a website called McBroken allowing fans to see if their local machine is working or not.
Wendy’s, for its part, has decided to partner with McBroken and is selling small-sized, $1 Frosty frozen dairy desserts until Sept. 30.
"For nearly 55 years, Wendy's iconic Frosty has been the go-to sweet treat fix when fans' cravings strike, while the ice cream machines at the other guys are offline – often for two to three hours at a time," the fast food chain said in a press release, without directly naming McDonald’s.
Just under 15% of McDonald’s ice cream machines are currently down, according to McBroken, which said Chicago, Houston, Las Vegas, New York and Los Angeles are the most impacted cities.
McBroken was created by software engineer Rashiq Zahid in 2020 after feeling frustrated about a broken ice cream machine.
"I was like, there must be something that can be done about this," Zahid told The Verge in 2020 about first coming up with the idea.
Zahid started testing the McDonald’s app to see if the app itself would alert customers as to whether ice cream was unavailable at certain locations – which it did, according to the outlet. He then set out to visit McDonald’s locations across Berlin, in-person, to confirm what he learned through the app and everything seemed to check out.
Soon after, he managed to "reverse engineer" the McDonald’s app to automatically feed him the information, before turning it loose on every McDonald's location in the U.S.
McDonald's $5 value meal extended in US
Meanwhile, McDonald’s is extending its popular $5 value meal into December at most locations in the U.S. in an effort to lure in cost-conscious customers.
The fast-food titan first rolled out the deal at participating restaurants nationwide on June 25, offering consumers a McDouble or McChicken sandwich, small fries, four-piece chicken nuggets and a small soda for $5.
After McDonald’s launched its meal deal, competitors like Burger King also announced its own meal deal.
The Source
This story was written using information published by Wendy’s and McBroken on Sept. 25, 2024. FOX News contributed, and it was reported from Cincinnati.