McDonald’s Urges Franchisees to Open on Christmas

After seeing a 2.5 percent bump in November revenue largely due to many franchises being open on Thanksgiving, McDonald’s corporate has sent out a memo, leaked to AdAge, notifying franchise owners that they’re now expected to stay open on Christmas as well.

There are 14,000 McDonalds in the U.S., but only about 10 percent of them are owned by McDonald’s corporate; the rest are franchises. Last Christmas, all the corporate-owned McDonald’s remained open and brought in an average of $5,500 each in sales. If every McDonald’s in the country were to open on Christmas, that means an additional $84 million in revenue just for that one day.

After a disappointing October, when sales dropped for the first time in nine years, the company is pulling out all the stops in order to bring in more revenue. Encouraging franchisees to stay open on Thanksgiving worked, so this strategy will presumably work, too, as very few fast-food restaurants are open on Christmas Day.

All this is assuming that there are people out there who want to eat fast food on Christmas, of course. 

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