After McDonald's Grimace success, are new restaurants next? What we know about 'CosMc'

McDonald's is looking towards its past for a future restaurant model.

The fast-food giant is working on a new restaurant concept called "CosMc," McDonald's CEO and president Christopher Kempczinski revealed during the company's second quarter earnings call July 27.

McDonald's New Business Ventures team "is in the process of developing a new concept we will call 'CosMc's' which we will be tested in a small handful of sites in a limited geography beginning early next year," he said during the call.

There is a "CosMc" in McDonald's past. An alien character named CosMc appeared in several McDonald's TV commercials and print advertisements from 1986-1992, according to the McDonald's Wiki, a fan-created site about the restaurant's history. The googly-eyed character can fly courtesy of a Robby the Robot-style space suit.

More information about "development plans and new format innovations" would be announced at the company's Investor Day at the end of the year, he said. McDonald's did not offer any additional information about the concept, expected to come to market in early 2024.

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What do we know about McDonald's character CosMc?

Only those with a good memory will remember much about CosMc, as the character hasn't been heard from in more than 30 years. A 1987 commercial "The Story of CosMc," archived on YouTube, shows Ronald McDonald and Grimace coming across a strange object that's landed in McDonaldland.

Grimace ponders whether the object is a flower pot, but then hands and a head pop out of the silver suit and the being announces its name is CosMc (pronounced Cosmic) and says, "I popped in from outer space on a trade mission." CosMc proceeds to make several trades, usually without agreement from the other characters, including swapping some flowers for the clown's picnic basket of McDonald's cheeseburgers, fries and shakes. Ronald uses a giant magnet to retrieve CosMc, who agrees to having a picnic with the others including the Professor, another forgotten character.

McDonald's could lean into CosMc's outer space, high-tech lineage as a theme for the new restaurants it wants to test. "CosMc’s is a small format concept with all the DNA of McDonald’s but its own unique personality," Kempczinski said.

The restaurant chain's reliance on its own pop culture past has delivered a recent winning streak.

After the success of adult Happy Meals last year, McDonald's reintroduced the Hamburglar in April as it announced a plan to improve its burgers. Then, in June, McDonald's brought back the Grimace character with a special birthday meal and a purple shake.

McDonald's saw an increase in global sales growth of 11.7% in the April-June quarter, compared to the same period last year. U.S. sales grew 10.3%. During the quarter, the theme was "Grimace," Kempczinski said. "Grimace has been everywhere in the past few months, all over the news, and more than 3 billion views on TikTok."

Resurrecting CosMc, Forbes reported, "is highly likely to embrace some future-facing technology which would tie in well with the character theming, it's also a nod to nostalgia – something that has worked well for the McDonald's franchise brand in recent times."

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