Ordering Off McDonald's Secret Menu and 8 Other Behind-the-Scenes Tips From an Employee

Stay away from the chicken sandwich, and be careful about that "healthy" menu

By Jenna Mullins Jul 20, 2015 7:45 PMTags
McDonalds, McDonald?sMcDonald?s

McDonald's would lead you to believe there isn't really a secret menu, but according to an anonymous manager who spilled a lot of secrets during a reddit Ask Me Anything (AMA) session, that's not entirely true.

While McDonald's position is that there isn't an official secret menu, it is true that customers can have special orders and alterations. Whether or not those special meals actually get made depends on the employees.

The manager who answered questions during the AMA confirmed that you can "add, remove or change ingredients by special request." Those are called "grill orders," they added. Like when you order no lettuce or no pickles on a Big Mac.

"The items on the 'secret menu' weren't invented by anyone officially at McDonald's, it's just a random persons guide to burgers you could potentially 'hack' at McDonald's. Order one and the workers might not know it by name," they detailed. "But if you explain what it is, and are willing to pay for all the ingredients, it's just another ‘grill order' that we can make up."

So try your luck and try and order a Land, Air and Sea Burger from McDonald's, which is apparently this monstrosity pictured below:

That makes our arteries hurt. Want to know what not to order and other secrets from the bowels of McDonald's? Check out what else the manager said during the tell-all:

1. Apparently the items marked as "healthy options" are anything but.

"Deep fried chicken goes into the wraps, the veggie patties are deep fried, and the salad dressings are filled with rubbish," they revealed. "The meat however, is good and is freshly grilled. It's 100% local beef flank and doesn't even use any binders like egg or rusk that you'd find even in the 'good brands' from the supermarket. The milk is from 'organic' farms. The breakfast menu uses real free range eggs. The chicken however, is pre-cooked and breaded before arriving to us frozen from Thailand."

2. Stay away from the grilled chicken.

"DON'T order the grilled chicken," they plead. "It's horrible frozen chicken that we defrost and steam and it's a bit gelatinous."

3. If you want to make things easiest for the employees, don't order a filet-o-fish.

"We don't sell a lot so we have to cook them fresh and wait for them. We also need to steam the buns maximum 2 at a time."

4. No actual knives are used in the making of your lunch.

"We don't even have real knives. It's a bit insulting," they said in response to a question about equipment. "We have these big plastic knives to cut veggie patties, and everything else comes pre-chopped or shredded

5. Say what you will about McDonald's lack of nutritional value, but their safety standards are on point.

"We take the temperature of every freezer and chiller, three times a day and verify with calibrated air and product probes. Every 4 hours, every single tong, tray, tool is cleaned out and thoroughly disinfected. Every night, every single sauce bottle, ketchup dispenser, food holder, is totally emptied, sauce discarded and sanitised (that's pretty hardcore)," they revealed. "Every single day, the first time we cook on each grill, we check the programming time, the temperature, we cook full runs of each type of meat (the maximum number of meat we could potentially cook on that grill) and once they're cooked we take the temperature of the patties, and destructive test them to verify that the meat will definitely cook well that day."

6. The shake machine is out of commission so often for good reason.

"They go on heat treat for a few hours everyday to pastueurise the milk, then they're taken apart for a few hours once a week and completely sanitised from inside out and the pastuerised milk is thrown out," the manager wrote. "When it's hot out and they pull too many ice creams or shakes they get air trapped in their barrels and become really slow and can stop freezing or overfreeze the product."

7. There is a beeper for everything.

Besides food timers (obviously) there is a beeper noise for employees to wash their hands every 30 minutes and to remind managers to walk around to check on everything. And they "won't stop beeping until you press it" and shut it up.

8. Cashiers will be replaced by robots...and soon.

"By 2016 every McDonald's store worldwide will have automated ordering machines," they predicted. 

Do you ever crave terrible food like McDonald's? You're not alone, because Chris Pratt had some cravings while filming Guardians of the Galaxy.

Watch: Which Foods Did Chris Pratt Crave Post "Guardians?"