Archie is a small arch-shaped piece that essentially bridges the two sticks on your controller. It's not a Bluetooth gadget loaded with firmware updates or a subscription service. It's just a clever piece of physical design that does exactly what it needs to do and nothing more.
For many years, Wendy's baked potato was a cornerstone of the 99-cent menu. These aren't skimpy potatoes, either, and each Russet weighs about 11.5 ounces. Toppings included butter, sour cream and chives, bacon, or even cheese and broccoli back in the day. It was a great deal. One Redditor claimed that the $1 baked potatoes with sour cream and chives got them through college.
In stark contrast to the much larger McDonald's menu of today, there were only nine items back then - no combo meals or anything, just Ć la carte options. The only food was a hamburger, cheeseburger, and fries, while for drinks you could get a Coke, root beer, "orangeade," coffee, milkshake, or just plain milk. The most expensive item on the menu was the milkshake, at 20 cents, while all the other drinks cost 10 cents, as did the fries.
McDonald's ( NYSE: MCD) and Yum! Brands ( NYSE: YUM) face a punishing domestic landscape. QSR traffic from lower-income consumers declined by nearly double digits in the third quarter, a trend persisting for nearly two years. Rising labor costs, consumer pushback on pricing, market saturation, and value menu wars are eroding margins. India offers explosive growth: 1.4 billion people, median age of 29, a rapidly expanding middle class expected to reach 600 million by 2030, and massive underpenetration of Western QSR brands.