What Time Does McDonald's Breakfast Menu End?

There's something truly, unexpectedly glorious about fast food breakfast. If you're up at some ungodly hour anyway (defined as "any hour before 10 a.m."), treating yourself to some greasy, low-cost breakfast food only seems fair. And of all the fast food chains that serve breakfast, none are as iconic or as beloved as McDonald's. Though there are certainly other good breakfast options, nothing can really compete with the McDonald's Egg McMuffin in popular conception — let alone the company's hash browns. Heck, it's surprising no religions have formed around the McDonald's Big Breakfast.

But if you wait too long, you'll be out of luck if you're seeking that McGriddle. So when does McDonald's stop serving breakfast? It turns out it isn't as simple as a flat answer; a lot depends on the restaurant itself. Much like opening time varies by location, the end of breakfast changes based on your local store.

If you're wondering when McDonald's stops serving breakfast, you will have to check with your local spot. According to McDonald's, it's a bit of the Wild West out there, with individual stores choosing whether to stop serving breakfast at 10:30 or 11 a.m. This can even vary by day of the week; sometimes, stores will serve breakfast until 10:30 a.m. on weekdays and 11 a.m. on weekends. You really just have to check for yourself.

There was a time, though — a brief, glorious, shining moment — when you could get McDonald's breakfast all day. Back in 2015, in a desire to compete with all-day breakfast chains, the company announced that its breakfast menu (or at least a significant portion) would be available all day. In 2020, however, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, McDonald's announced the end of all-day breakfast. Pour one black coffee out for all the McMuffins since uneaten.

Look, there's a reason McDonald's breakfast is so iconic: You've got options. The most prominent is the aforementioned Egg McMuffin, a concoction of a fried egg in a ring mold, cheese, and Canadian bacon on (as the name implies) an English muffin. Since its inception in 1971, the McMuffin has undergone only one ingredient change: The 2015 swap from liquid margarine to real butter — meaning it's only improved over time. If you're not a fan of ham, you can also swap out the Canadian bacon for sausage, and while it's not clear what actually goes into McDonald's sausage, it should probably be certified as a UNESCO Cultural Heritage monument at this point.

But that's hardly all that's out there. You can make an entire meal out of McDonald's hash browns. The Big Breakfast gives you all the various items — biscuits, eggs, sausage, hash browns, possibly pancakes — without forcing you to make a single sandwich. There's also the McGriddle, a combination of sausage or bacon, scrambled eggs, and cheese on a syrup-infused griddle cake bun; it's basically a pancake sandwich. Any of these make good choices.

While Jack-in-the-Box may have an all-day breakfast, most chains are like McDonald's because they stop serving it at a certain point. But are there any breakfast items you can get from the Golden Arches after the clock strikes 10:30/11 a.m.?

Much like the end of breakfast time, there's no company-wide mandate here. Some locations serve limited breakfast menus all day (typically, these consist of McMuffins and maybe hash browns), but it depends entirely on your local store. It really does all come down to checking the situation where you live.

Whatever you order from McDonald's at breakfast time, it's important to know when the clock runs out. But hey, as long as you show up at 10 a.m., you should be good no matter where you are; fortunately, it doesn't seem like any stores stop the McMuffin party before then.