The battle for breakfast customers among fast food giants just got cheaper.
Mexican-style chain Taco Bell unveiled a $1 breakfast menu, which kicks off across the nation Thursday.
The new menu comes as competitor McDonald's has phased out its "Dollar Menu and More" in favor of its "McPick 2" offering, where customers can get two items for $2. Taco Bell customers will now be able to order 10 breakfast items at $1 each, including several new additions for the hungry breakfast crowd such as a mini skillet bowl with potatoes and scrambled eggs and a sausage flatbread quesadilla.
Breakfast has been a hugely popular addition to fast food menus in recent years, particularly as on-the-go customers have started favoring heartier options like eggs over morning staples like cereal. Shifting taste buds prompted McDonald's to extend its breakfast menu all day last year. The company attributed its fourth quarter sales boost to the breakfast expansion, which launched in October.
Now Taco Bell, which started offering breakfast in 2014, aims to beat McDonald's at its own game with the new value menu as the fast food industry continues to look for ways to draw customers back to the drive-thru.
“While dollar menus disappear across America, Taco Bell is continuing to reinvent breakfast with delicious and unique menu items only Taco Bell can provide, with 10 items for $1 each," said Marisa Thalberg, the company's chief marketing officer, in a statement.
Taco Bell, owned by Yum! Brands, said it is seeking to differentiate its dollar menu with bacon, and boasted that it is now the only fast-food chain with a morning value menu that offers bacon in some of the items. The breakfast dollar menu will be a permanent addition to Taco Bell's options. It still offers what it calls "dollar cravings" on its regular menu, where certain items are sold for $1, though it's not technically a separate dollar menu.
The new $1 menu will include the Mini Skillet Bowl, a breakfast bowl with potatoes, scrambled eggs, cheese and Pico de Gallo; a breakfast taco with scrambled eggs and a choice of bacon or sausage and cheddar cheese; and a sausage flatbread quesadilla, which is a grilled flatbread filled with a blend of three cheeses, sausage and scrambled eggs.
Before launching the $1 menu, the fast-food chain actually surveyed people about how much they like to spend for breakfast and revealed the results to jokey effect in its press release.
"Taco Bell reveals American consumers would rather pay $1 vs. more than $1," the press release said.
