McDonald's brings back fried apple pie for America's 250th birthday

McDonald’s rolled a 35-foot fried apple pie onto Route 66 in Joliet, Illinois, at 920 N Broadway St. The roadside display serves as a selfie stop and a souvenir-map pickup point as the chain brings back the Fried Apple Pie for a limited run tied to America’s 250th birthday.

The pie returned to participating U.S. restaurants on June 23, and McDonald’s says the dessert is an all-day menu item built around 100% American-grown apples and a fried, flaky crust. The company also set a kickoff event at the Joliet installation from 3:30 to 6:00 p.m. CT, with live music, Coca-Cola and complimentary Arch Cards. The display was scheduled to remain in place through July 4.

McDonald’s says the dessert began as a family recipe in the 1960s, when East Tennessee owner-operator Litton Cochran developed a fried apple hand pie after Ray Kroc sought a dessert for McDonald’s. Jo Cochran spent months perfecting the recipe. The original apple pies were deep-fried when they launched in the 1960s before a baked version later replaced them. McDonald’s says the fried version had been off menus for about 34 years and last appeared in 1992.

McDonald’s promotional map highlights 12 hidden words and several iconic road-trip stops. The first McDonald’s restaurant opened in 1940 in San Bernardino, California, the first Golden Arches appeared in Phoenix in 1953, and McDonald’s had opened its 100th restaurant by 1959. Today, the chain says it has more than 13,500 U.S. locations.

Ray Kroc opened the first McDonald’s east of the Mississippi in Des Plaines, Illinois, on April 15, 1955, and McDonald’s bought the brothers’ company in 1961 for $2.7 million. The Happy Meal debuted in 1979, and McDonald’s distributes around 1.5 billion toys a year. The current menu page lists the Fried Apple Pie at 220 calories.