McDonald’s Customers Are Up in Arms Over the New Grimace Milkshake

And it's not over the broken ice cream machines.

When McDonald’s announced the new Grimace Birthday Shake in honor of the bright purple McDonaldland character’s birthday, fans were incredibly excited to try the new offering. However, mere days after the Grimace Birthday Meal hit Mickey D’s menu, customers are already upset over its availability and, more importantly, the price.

Of course, we knew with McDonald’s releasing a new milkshake, there could be potential issues actually getting to try it—since Mickey D’s ice cream machines are seemingly always broken. But even if the ice cream machines are working, customers are still having a hard time getting their hands on the new berry-flavored milkshake.

“U can’t order the Grimace shake separately from the meal on the McDonald’s app 😩 I just want to celebrate our king with a shakeeee 💜,” one Twitter user posted.

That seems to be a problem a lot of McDonald’s customers are having—they can’t try the Grimace Birthday Shake without ordering the entire Grimace Birthday Meal, which includes either a Big Mac or 10 McNuggets and medium fries.

McDonald’s responded to that user’s tweet, saying, “requests for just the shake may be accommodated by speaking with a member of our crew at your local restaurant.”

Promising, right? It’s true that the Grimace Birthday Shake cannot be ordered on its own in the app, but McDonald’s claims that it can be ordered separately at the actual restaurant. But there are conflicting stories about whether this is true—even here amongst the Allrecipes staff. One editor on our team says her friend was able to get the Grimace Birthday Shake on its own by ordering at the restaurant, while another editor said that her friend was denied the Grimace Birthday Shake when ordering at the restaurant, and they had to buy the entire Grimace Birthday Meal.

That’s because McDonald’s restaurants are franchises that can set their own parameters. So, you might be able to order the shake on its own at one location but not another—it’s all up to the franchise owners. Besides the fact that you might not be hungry enough for the three-piece meal, ordering the shake as part of the Grimace Birthday Meal wouldn’t be a problem if it didn’t cost so darn much.

McDonald’s customers have been sharing the price of the Grimace Birthday Meal on Twitter, and while some start as low as $10 for a medium-sized meal, others cost nearly $20 for the same thing.

Even the popular TikTok user, snackolator, did a deep dive to show the math behind the Grimace Birthday Meal and show that a McDonald’s franchise in his area was price “gouging [customers] $4 to get the Grimace meal.”

Again, this is happening because McDonald’s franchises have the power to set menu prices. So, they can hike up the prices of big-ticket items like the Grimace Birthday Meal (promoted by Mickey D’s, media, and social media users alike) and easily rake in extra money.

So, if you’re looking to try the Grimace Birthday Shake—or the full Birthday Meal—you should probably shop around and check other McDonald’s locations in your area to see who is selling it at the lowest price. The difference could save you a few extra bucks, at least.