McDonald's adds beverage specialists as it rolls out new drinks nationwide

McDonald’s is turning drinks into a more formal part of the kitchen line. As six new specialty beverages rolled onto menus nationwide on May 6, the company also began adding a beverage specialist role in U.S. restaurants, signaling that the drink station is moving from an afterthought at the register to a staffed part of the operation.

The new lineup includes three Refreshers and three crafted sodas, and McDonald’s says the drinks are permanent menu items available across nearly 14,000 restaurants. Corporate materials describe them as hand-crafted and built with ingredients including freeze-dried fruit, popping boba and cold foam. The chain has framed the launch as a “new era of drinks,” and Alyssa Buetikofer, McDonald’s chief marketing and customer experience officer, has said the company’s fans have an obsession with beverages.

That shift matters on the floor. NBC Chicago reported that higher-performing employees will be selected first for the beverage specialist role, with the expectation that eventually all employees will rotate through beverage positions. For restaurant teams, that points to a new layer of training and scheduling: crews will need to learn drink recipes, prep timing, equipment use and quality checks, while managers decide how to balance labor between front counter, drive-thru and beverage production when orders spike.

It also changes the pace of service. A drink built with cold foam or popping boba takes more hands-on work than pouring a soda or handing out a cup. That raises the stakes for consistency and speed, especially in restaurants already trying to keep drive-thru times tight. McDonald’s has said it wants a more consistent beverage experience across ordering channels, and the new role suggests the company is willing to pay for that consistency with more structured labor inside the store.

The launch fits a broader plan that has been building for years. McDonald’s first confirmed in September 2023 that it would phase out self-serve beverage stations in U.S. restaurants by 2032, shifting to crew-managed beverage service. Axios reported at the time that free refills were not expected to end for dine-in customers. In May 2025, McDonald’s closed all five stand-alone CosMc’s locations, discontinued the CosMc’s app and said CosMc’s-inspired beverages would be tested inside some McDonald’s restaurants. Together, those moves show a company treating drinks as a serious profit and traffic driver, not just a side order.

For workers, that means beverage execution is becoming another core skill, closer to sandwich build standards than to the old self-serve soda model. In a chain long shaped by the Fight for $15 era, minimum-wage pressure and automation debates, McDonald’s is now adding a more human layer of labor to one of the least labor-intensive parts of the store.