The McDonald's Breakfast Favorite That You Can Only Get In 3 US Cities

As popular as Big Macs, Chicken McNuggets, and McFlurries are, many customers also turn to McDonald's for its breakfast items. It started with the Egg McMuffin in 1971, which was eventually joined by the hotcakes, danish, toasted English muffins, scrambled eggs, sausage, and hash browns in 1977. Through the years, McDonald's has steadily introduced more options, including biscuits, breakfast burritos, the McGriddle, and even oatmeal. In 2015, the fast food chain rolled out all-day breakfast, allowing people to order their favorite breakfast foods at any hour of the day.

To this day, the McDonald's breakfast menu continues to expand, and as of 2023, customers now have another option: bagel sandwiches. Though bagel sandwiches were originally introduced in 2000, they were phased out around 2019 in the U.S. and 2022 in the U.K., much to the disappointment of loyal fans. McDonald's, however, has decided to bring the breakfast favorite back, though it is currently only available in three cities.

In 2022, McDonald's briefly brought back its bagel sandwiches to its breakfast menu, but they were only available at select locations in the New England region, Michigan, Indiana, and Pennsylvania. At the time, McDonald's stated that the bagel sandwiches would only be available in July of that year. For a while, it seemed that summer 2022 marked the end of the limited-time comeback, but in March 2023, McDonald's announced that bagel sandwiches would be making another return to select locations in West Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Ohio.

Since then, McDonald's has continued temporarily releasing bagel sandwiches in different regions. In May 2023, they became available in Miami, Orlando, and Tampa, and as of June, they're available in Baltimore, Washington D.C., and Chicago. McDonald's confirmed to The Takeout in late June that bagel sandwiches are currently only available in the latter three cities. Still, given their track record, it wouldn't be surprising if other cities come next.

When items get pulled from the menu, it's usually due to dwindling sales. It makes sense, then, that McDonald's bagel sandwiches haven't made a full-fledged comeback. Temporarily putting them on the menu in different test markets over two years has been a strategic part of McDonald's plan to avoid a flop. Additionally, McDonald's has also tweaked the recipe for its bagels.

When they were first released, McDonald's bagel sandwiches were available in three varieties: Spanish omelet and sausage; ham, egg, and cheese; and steak, egg, and cheese. Shortly after, a bacon version of the bagel sandwich was added to the lineup, followed by the Ranchero bagel sandwich, made with sausage and pepper jack cheese. Today only the steak, bacon, and sausage egg and cheese bagel sandwiches are available, but now they also contain Breakfast Sauce. This McDonald's condiment was once only available at McDonald's Canada before it was discontinued, but more recently, it was introduced to the U.S. It's now the signature sauce for the bagel sandwiches, and if you're lucky enough to be in one of the three cities with participating McDonald's, you'll be able to see why customers are such big fans of the bagel sandwiches.