Turns out, not only does McDonald’s offer the perplexing Land, Sea and Air Burger, consisting of a beef patty, chicken, and fish, but also they serve a variety of other different items too. Items like the Monster Mac, a colossal-size burger towering high with eight beef patties, or the Pie McFlurry, consisting of a traditional McFlurry topped with a slice of warm pie, are just some of the secrets they keep hidden behind those golden arches. 

But it’s not just McDonalds that offers a secret menu. In fact, pretty much most of them do. Whether it be an Incredible Hulk from Taco Bell a whopping five-layer burrito filled with guacamole and cheese) or an Apple Pie Frappuccino, complete with apple juice, caramel, and syrup from Starbucks, there’s a little something for everyone. It only takes a little online sleuthing for customers to find the secret menus to most of their favorite eateries.

While this may seem a bit odd, after all the saying goes secrets don’t make friends, according to Johnson & Wales University’s  Patricia Bowman, who teaches in Providence and online, they might not make friends but they do create loyal customers. “What makes them so attractive to the customer is they feel like they have the password to the unknown and that rush of having something no one else knows about,” she said.

Fries Out of the Bag

But if these items aren’t on any official list, it begs the question of how they were created in the first place. For that, Bowman said it likely starts with the customer. “It all begins when a customer requests something they had somewhere else and the employee tries to recreate the original,” she said. “Since the employee is familiar with the product line from working with it every day and they also have a creative side, this new menu item is created and it is off and running.”