Why Did McDonald's Get Rid Of Its Fan-Favorite Cinnamelts

It's a sad day when the chain restaurant that you frequent discontinues one of your favorite menu items. Like the time when Cracker Barrel discontinued its beloved Sunrise Sampler or when Wendy's halted the sale of its Black and Blue Burger. The decision is often surprising and unannounced — you simply show up one morning to order your Dunkin' Dunkaccino and find that it's been mysteriously removed from the board. That's exactly what happened one fateful day in the late 2010s when McDonald's discontinued its Cinnamon Melts, otherwise known as cinnamelts. The explanation for the discontinuation has never been explicitly given, but many people theorize that it was either due to low sales, high production costs, or the desire to introduce a new menu item in its place.

McDonald's first introduced cinnamelts in 2007. These doughy nuggets coated in cinnamon, cream cheese icing, and sugar were a deconstructed version of a cinnamon roll, easier to eat on the go thanks to their smaller size. Plenty of other restaurants offered regular cinnamon rolls, but McDonald's was the only one to introduce the easily consumable, pull-apart cinnamelts. Despite their popularity, the cinnamelts were discontinued and have yet to make a comeback, leaving many fans to speculate on their unusual demise.

Although the cinnamelts were a fan-favorite, the menu item's time in the sun was cut short when McDonald's decided to eliminate the menu item in the late 2010s. Fans were extremely disheartened by the discontinuation of cinnamelts, so they began a petition to urge McDonald's to revive the breakfast menu item. Despite thousands of signatures, McDonald's has not yet reintroduced or made further comments about the cinnamelts. The cinnamelts were reportedly difficult to create logistically. Its production cost was high, menu value was low, and so were sales, so the fast food chain removed cinnamelts permanently. In 2020, McDonald's attempted to suffice for cutting the cinnamelts by introducing regular cinnamon rolls to their breakfast menu, but those too were phased out in 2023.

This isn't the first time fans have been publicly upset about the fast food chain discontinuing a menu item. In 2016, McDonald's discontinued the Snack Wrap, the easily transportable tortilla wrap filled with lettuce, cheese, chicken, and sauce. Similar to the cinnamelts, the Snack Wrap was reportedly a time-consuming menu item that wasn't doing well enough with sales for McDonald's to continue distribution. But in late 2024, Joe Erlinger, the McDonald's U.S. president, announced that the Snack Wrap would officially return to McDonald's menus in 2025. Fans continue to hold out hope that, like the McRib, the adored cinnamelts will one day make a triumphant return to the McDonald's menu.