McDonald's announced plans to add around 900 new U.S. locations in 2025. That's not a typo. Nine hundred restaurants in a single year, at a time when most chain operators are closing underperforming units and trying to figure out how younger customers actually want to interact with restaurants.
I've spent more time than I'd care to admit reading through industry reports lately — occupational hazard of retirement, I suppose — and this particular number caught my attention. Not because I think any of you are worried about a Big Mac stealing your brisket customers. But because understanding how the big chains think about growth tells us something useful about where independent commercial BBQ operations actually have an advantage.
The Chain Playbook Isn't Your Playbook
Here's what McDonald's is banking on with that kind of expansion: standardization at scale. Every one of those 900 new locations will produce food that tastes exactly like the location 200 miles away. Same patty weight. Same bun. Same cook time. The equipment they use is designed for consistency above all else — and I'm not saying that dismissively. For what they're trying to accomplish, it works.
But that standardization comes with tradeoffs that matter to anyone running a real smoke program.
I had a conversation last year with an operator who'd spent fifteen years managing quick-service restaurants before opening his own BBQ joint in Beaumont. He told me the hardest adjustment wasn't the longer cook times or learning to read smoke. It was accepting that his product would have natural variation. "I kept thinking something was wrong," he said. "Then I realized customers were coming back specifically because Tuesday's brisket was a little different from Thursday's."
That's not a bug. That's the whole point.
Volume Strategy vs. Quality Strategy
When chains expand aggressively like this, they're making a bet on traffic volume. More locations means more customer touchpoints, which means more transactions even if each transaction is smaller. The math works because their food cost is tightly controlled and their labor is designed around minimal skill requirements.
Your math works differently.
A commercial operator running an SP-700 isn't competing for the customer who wants food in 90 seconds. You're competing for the customer who's willing to pay more and wait longer for something they can't get from a drive-through. That customer still exists — I'd argue they're more motivated than ever to find you, given how homogeneous the chain landscape has become.
The question isn't whether you can match McDonald's on speed or price. You can't, and you shouldn't try. The question is whether your operation is set up to deliver consistent quality at a volume that makes financial sense.
What "Consistent Quality" Actually Requires
I spent 22 years fixing commercial smokers, and I can tell you exactly what separates operators who build sustainable businesses from those who burn out in three years: equipment reliability.
Sounds obvious. It isn't.
The operators who struggle are usually the ones who bought their equipment based on initial price without thinking about five years of service calls, parts availability, and temperature stability under heavy loads. I've pulled up to jobs where the owner was hand-rotating racks because the rotisserie motor failed and the replacement part was on a six-week backorder from overseas. That's not a minor inconvenience when you've got a catering contract for 400 people on Saturday.
Southern Pride units have their share of maintenance needs — everything does — but the difference I've seen over two decades is parts availability. When a motor goes out on an SP-500 or the ignition module on an SL-270 needs replacing, those parts are stocked domestically. I've ordered components through Southern Pride of Texas on a Tuesday morning and had them in hand Thursday. Try that with some of the import brands flooding the market right now.
The Real Cost of Downtime
Let me give you some numbers from an actual situation. Operator in Houston was running a used Ole Hickory unit that needed a new thermocouple assembly. Simple part, should've been a 30-minute fix. Except the specific assembly for his model year wasn't stocked anywhere he could find. He ended up jury-rigging a solution that worked for about two weeks before failing again during service.
Total cost by the time he got it properly fixed: somewhere around $2,800 between the temporary repairs, the overnight shipping on the correct part when he finally found one, and the lost revenue from running at reduced capacity. For a thermocouple.
I'm not trying to trash Ole Hickory — they make decent equipment, honestly. But their distribution and service network outside of certain regions can leave you waiting at exactly the wrong time. That matters more than the sticker price when you're feeding paying customers.
Competing on What Chains Can't Do
Back to McDonald's for a second. The trade publications are full of analysis about how they're trying to appeal to different generations — Gen Z wants digital ordering, Millennials want customization, older customers want familiarity. The chains are spending enormous money trying to be everything to everyone.
You don't have to do that.
The advantage of running a commercial BBQ operation is focus. You're doing one thing — smoking meat — and doing it well enough that people seek you out specifically for it. The big chains will never be able to match that because their model depends on speed and uniformity.
A customer walking into your restaurant or ordering from your catering menu knows they're getting something that took 12-14 hours to produce. They know the bark on today's brisket might be a little different from last week's. That's a feature, not a liability.
But — and this is the part some operators miss — you still need to deliver that quality consistently enough that customers trust you. If your smoker temp swings 40 degrees because your equipment can't hold a set point under load, you're introducing the wrong kind of variation.
Equipment Sizing for Actual Growth
One more thing worth mentioning while we're talking about expansion strategies. I've seen operators buy undersized equipment because they were being "conservative" about growth projections, then hit capacity ceiling within 18 months.
If you're doing consistent volume now and you're thinking about catering, adding a second location, or expanding your menu, look at what the next tier of equipment would give you. An SP-700 handles roughly 30% more capacity than an SP-500, and the jump to the SP-1000 series opens up large-scale production possibilities that some operators don't even realize they need until they're turning away business.
The rotisserie systems on those larger units — that's probably the single most underappreciated feature for high-volume work. Even cooking without having to manually rotate means your staff can focus on prep, service, and everything else that actually requires human judgment. I've watched operators who switched from fixed-rack systems cut their labor time significantly just from not having to babysit product position.
The Real Takeaway Here
McDonald's can add 900 locations because their model is infinitely replicable. Same menu, same equipment, same training, same experience everywhere. That's their strength and their limitation.
Your strength is being impossible to replicate. The specific smoke profile from your particular wood blend, the technique you've developed for your regional style, the relationships you build with repeat customers — none of that scales the way a franchise model does. But it also can't be competed away by a corporation opening another location down the street.
What I'd suggest thinking about isn't how to grow like a chain. It's how to make sure your operation is solid enough to outlast the chains that inevitably overextend. That means equipment you can depend on, parts you can actually get, and a focus on the thing you do better than anyone with a drive-through ever could.
They're playing a volume game. You're playing a quality game. Just make sure your smoker can keep up with whichever game you're playing.
Resources: Southern Pride of Texas | Southern Pride | National Barbecue & Grilling Association
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Photo by Hamit Ferhat on Pexels.
About the Author: Ray is a retired authorized Southern Pride service technician with 22 years of field experience on commercial BBQ equipment across the Gulf Coast and Southeast.