McDonald's for years really stepped up their coffee game.

McDonalds found themselves in a weird place in the 90’s. Drive-throughs were tremendously successful, to the point where they had massive amounts of real estate that was primarily empty inside. People weren’t eating in as much, and so the dining rooms were empty.

Hence refurbishments and the introduction of McCafe — the whole point of which was to encourage more people to come in and use the dining rooms (and by sticking around, maybe buy more stuff than they would if they just came through the drive through). It’s why they introduced baked goods and mini doughnuts — back in the 80’s the only “baked goods” you’d get were apple pies and boxes of prepackaged mini cookies. Coffee and baked goods were the driver to get people to sit inside the restaurants more often — and if you go to any McDonalds in Canada in an area with a decent number of retirees, I’d say it seems to have worked.

And while I was still working out of a truck a few years ago, the mcD’s coffee went to shit again, so they changed yet again, but for the worse. But for that brief time, McD’s did have the best cheap takeout coffee.