McDonald's McPizza: the 11-minute meal no drive-thru could sell

McDonald's began testing pizza in the late 1980s, betting that adding a hot made-to-order pizza would stretch the brand past burgers. To make it work it spent heavily on R&D for a specialized oven that could cook a pie quickly enough to keep up with the drive-thru's speed promise.

The promise was five minutes; the reality was about eleven. A pizza was a larger, slower, more perishable ticket than a burger, and at $5.80 for a 14-inch pie it was more than five times the price of a value burger. The prep and the cook time clashed with the system that made McDonald's fast.

Pizza Hut ran a campaign mocking the attempt ('McFrozen'), and by around 2000 the pizza had been quietly dropped from the menu. The oven R&D and the slow ticket were the decision that cost it — the brand had staked its speed on a product that could not be fast.