Has the Shamrock Shake Finally Returned?

What a difference a year can make. last year a tinge of nostalgia brought up by an off topic discussion on a message board had me searching the Internet for evidence that the Shamrock Shake still existed. That off topic thread, begun by a member who longed for the days when his local McDonald's still sold Shamrock Shakes, soon had interesting posts. As any online message board can have members from anywhere in the world with Internet access, it was not long before some members claimed that they still bought Shamrock Shakes every year where they lived, while others told tales of having to drive clear across the state line for their yearly fix. It turned out that New York City was one of the "dry" regions where the drink was no longer available, and with it came an urban legend that Mayor Rudolf Giuliani had the shake outlawed. From my own recollection the shake did disappear from McDonald's around the same time Giuliani took office. Or did it vanish in the mid '80s and I did not notice until the '90s? Curious as to what had really happened to the shake, I soon stumbled upon shamrockshake.com, a website where you can find, state by state, reports of individual McDonald's that still sell the drink. Not only a valuable tool for those searching for the shake, but a way for those who did find the shake to report it's location as well as give a review on if that location got the mixing of the shake right. The website not only confirmed that the Shamrock Shake was live and well, but that at least one location in New York City still sold it.

Only one location, at the far end of the city, right at the border and practically in the next county. A far flung section of Queens that is still under developed and sparsely populated. It is not until you cross past the city line and into the next county do you find most of the local population. This is really their McDonald's and only technically a NYC McDonald's. So why would the worlds largest and richest city not have the Shamrock Shake? One would think New York City had everything. And for the most part it does. But just not the Shamrock Shake. The reason for this was simple. McDonald's does not sell food to the public. Rather they sell food to independent McDonald's franchises who in turn sell food to the public. It is those individual franchises who determine which foods end up on the menu. And the fact was that the Shamrock Shake did not sell very well. Make no mistake, it did sell, and McDonald's that offered it did turn a profit. The problem was that it did not sell as well as the standards, Chocolate, Vanilla and Strawberry. Each McDonald's franchise has three shake machines that mix the ingredients, keep them chilled and spits it out through the nozzle once the shake is ordered. There was almost never a fourth machine. If you put the Shamrock Shake on the menu that month then one of the other three standards would have to go, usually strawberry. Each individual franchise owner would have to decide if it was worth the possibility of loss in revenue just to carry a shake with only cult status.

But things change. With St. Patrick's Day only a week away, I decided to check shamrockshake.com to see if it was still available at last year's McDonald's, or if any other McDonald's in the area were adding it to their menu. To my surprise there were sightings of several McDonald's in the city that were selling the shake. But was this true? Much like Wikipedia, any website that relies on Internet submissions is susceptible to troll activity. Namely those clowns out there who think it is funny to submit false information. How easy it would be for some jokers to submit claims they found the shake, causing others to waste their time going to a McDonald's that never had it. Last year there were a couple of claims on the website of McDonald's in the city that may have not been true. When I visited those locations the staff denied they were selling the shake. It was possible that they were mistaken. One big complaint on that site was that the staff at locations that had the shake were not aware it existed. "What's a Shamrock Shake?" they would ask before the customer pointed out that it was listed on the menu. Most of the staff at McDonald's are teenagers, not even born when the last of the Shamrock Shake commercials aired. A generation that has never heard of the Shamrock Shake, and a general manager who just never bothered to tell his whole staff that a new menu item was being made available.

The only thing to do was once again see for myself if any of the sightings were legit. I had made myself a list of reported locations, but started with the first McDonald's I came across. The McDonald's next to the Williamsburg Bridge was not on my list, but was just across the street from where I was. So I walked up to the counter and checked the menu. And there it was!! Not just a listing of the flavor but an actual picture to go with it. An unmistakable green shake. The Shamrock Shake. I immediately purchased one, and for the first time since the 1970s drank a Shamrock Shake. I wound up not going to any of the McDonald's on the list. Never had to. Today in New York City you can find a McDonald's every couple of blocks. It is almost impossible to walk in any direction for more than ten minutes without spotting a golden arch. Every McDonald's I came across I stopped in and saw the Shamrock Shake listed on their menu. I decided to buy a second one at a McDonald's in China Town, one of my favorite for shakes because they make them extra thick. Once again, success.

So what was different this year? McDonald's is. For the past four decades McDonald's has been targeting children. They actually wanted the whole family, but realized that once they had the kids begging to go to McDonald's then mom, dad and the older siblings would wind up going too. That is why their spokesperson is a clown and why they sell Happy Meals. The problem is that this strategy has come back to haunt them. America's children are becoming obese, and suspect #1 is the fatty foods that are sold at McDonald's. Not that there are many families that go there on a nightly basis, but just enough that politicians are threatening regulations. As an act of good publicity McDonald's had begun offering healthy kids meals, but really, is a child going to want to eat apple strips when everyone else in the restaurant is eating french fries? Inevitably states began banning the sale of Happy Meals. Meanwhile this past year has seen more Subway outlets open up world wide than McDonald's, making it the world's #1 fast food restaurant. Subway's mascot, Jared Fogle, an obese man who became thin on a diet of nothing but Subway sandwiches. No one would ever buy that McDonald's could provide healthy food, especially after Morgan Spurlock made the documentary Super Size Me which had Spurlock gaining weight and becoming increasingly unhealthy on a diet of nothing but McDonald's food.

McDonald's realized that it's days of selling to children were numbered. If they were to continue then they would have to target an older demographic. Not children, not teenagers, but young adults. And what do the young adults like? Starbucks. So McDonald's created the McCafe. Instead of the three shake and one brand of soda option there would be a wide range of flavors, mostly of the Iced Coffee variety. The shakes were revamped. Gone are the wax cups and plastic lids that had been around forever, replaced with a plastic see through cup and bubble lid. and now all shakes come with a dash of whipped cream topped with a cherry. All this to attract the Starbucks crowd. The good news here is now that McDonald's has increased the variety of beverages available in each of it's locations there was suddenly more of an incentive to have more than three flavors of shake. This meant that all McCafes would be selling the Shamrock Shake. The bad news, whipped cream and cherry. Without a spoon there is no way to remove it, and juices from the cherry tend to drip down into the rest of the shake adding an unwanted extra flavor.

Yet on the other hand there seems to be another bonus to the McCafes shakes. It has been over a week since St Patrick's Day, and at the time this article was being written the Shamrock Shake is still on the menu in most McDonald's. In the past the shake was removed from the menu as soon as soon as St Patrick's Day hit midnight. McDonald's was strict about this, and I know of no franchise that dared sell the shake the day after. So for it to still be available on the menu a week later there is the possibility that the shake could remain on the menu permanently and not just for one month out of the year. This would make a lot of sense. One of the reasons why the Shamrock Shake has never risen above cult status was because of the limited time it was available. There is no reason why a mint flavored shake could not catch on the way that strawberry had. But it would need time for regular customers to discover it, and once discovering it having it be available when they want to purchase it again. I remember my experience with the Shamrock Shake as a child. My family barely ever went to McDonald's. It only happened when we made the long car trip to my grandparents, and even then only if we left early enough in the day to stop for lunch. It was by luck that we planned a March trip early enough for a McDonald's lunch. I recall enjoying the shake so much that the next time we stopped at McDonald's, which was around June, I asked for the Shamrock Shake again. I was heartbroken to find out it was no longer available, and would have to wait until February for it to return. And as luck had it my family never again traveled to my grandparents house in March. I am sure that there are others with similar experiences who wanted to but were unable to purchase the shake out of season. And thus the shake was unable to build a following that would rival chocolate and vanilla.

But can the Shamrock Shake gain a foothold? As far as I can tell McDonald's has not in any way promoted the shake, no local or national commercials heralding it's return that I have ever seen. No print ads. Not even a mention on their website. McDonald's seems to be selling the shake by word of mouth. When I purchased my shake at the Chinatown McDonald's and walked out of the restaurant with it, I did notice quite a few people who were surprised to see I had one and some who even asked where I got it from. It also appears that the return of the shake may have only happened in select regions and not the entire country. Shamrockshake.com reports many areas where there are claims the shake is not available. And then there is the big question. Will McDonald's new target demographic buy a Shamrock Shake? I will, because I remember it from childhood. But I am much older than their target demographic. And it has not been advertised in more than two decades. The young adults they are targeting would either have been too young to remember the commercials or not born yet. It is something they never heard of. Will they buy the shake just because it is there? Or perhaps McDonald's hopes that Internet chatter would reach the younger generation who would buy the Shamrock Shake just to see what their parents are going on about. Hopefully the experiment will turn out to be a success, and enough patrons buy the Shamrock Shake that it becomes a permanent feature. Otherwise it will end up once again being as rare as a leprechaun, and just as hard to track down.