McDonald's has moved to a model where you get the app and it has valuable coupons that take like 30% off the price that renew every day. Which is part of why the menu costs have gone up.
Menu cost, I downloaded the app to look up the price, I was not offered a coupon.
But the exact same thing applies to the grocery prices I quoted. I gave the non-sale prices from my area's more expensive grocery store, that's what I consider the starting point, you can definitely do better.
The McDonald’s coupons are always available under a menu in the app. You have to know to look for them though. Might be regional but in my area there’s always a 20% off your whole order coupon plus some others that can do even better.
Not to dispute your point that grocery stores also have a lot of coupons and promotions and it’s definitely cheaper than fast food (also grocery store food has even cheaper options like beans, rice, canned goods etc that may not be equivalent to a fast food meal but are vastly cheaper and may not take any real time or effort to prepare).
I see the 20% in my app, but it is for orders above $10 so may not work for a single sandwich order being discussed above. But for 2 people or more, it could be quite useful. Never used this and not a McD regular, but will remember this next time.
Are those menu costs or paid costs?
McDonald's has moved to a model where you get the app and it has valuable coupons that take like 30% off the price that renew every day. Which is part of why the menu costs have gone up.