How CosMc’s plans to invade and transform the beverage industry

Michael Beausoleil
6 min readMar 30, 2024

America is changing its attitude toward restaurants, and it’s motivating McDonald’s to make a cosmic change.

In late 2023, McDonald’s Corporation opened its first CosMc’s location — a beverage-focused restaurant with offerings that could let it compete with Starbucks or Dunkin’. And, on the surface, the menus seem fairly comparable.

Dig deeper and you’ll see CosMc’s hopes to offer a different experience than its competitors because it knows preferences are changing. As Starbucks is designing new, handcrafted drinks and premium treats to lure customers in, CosMc’s is churning out drinks with the intent of getting customers out the door.

CosMc’s restaurant sign on a space-themed background
CosMc’s graphic via McDonald’s

CosMc’s out-of-this-world concept

When CosMc’s was announced, it attracted a lot of attention for its design concept. The restaurant aims to offer an experience that’s less personal than McDonald’s’ namesake restaurants, and the business believes this is the future of the food service industry.

The restaurant also adopted a futuristic design — which is a bit ironic when you look at its mascot. It’s named for CosMc, an alien who visited McDonaldland and appeared in McDonald’s ads from 1986 through 1992. Then, the brand retired the character until 2023.

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Michael Beausoleil

User Analytics | Digital & Brand Marketing | Productivity … hoping to explore topics that interest me and find others with similar passions