Most McDonald's locations will be open on Memorial Day, hours vary by store

Most McDonald’s locations were open for Memorial Day, but for crew members the bigger issue was not whether the doors stayed unlocked. It was who got scheduled, how hard the shift would run, and whether managers had enough people to handle the rush without stretching the floor too thin.

Memorial Day fell on Monday, May 25, 2026, and McDonald’s told customers to check local hours because store schedules vary by location. That variation is built into the chain’s structure: McDonald’s says U.S. restaurants are either company-owned or independently owned and operated by franchisees, and its franchising materials say about 95% of McDonald’s restaurants worldwide are owned and operated by independent local business owners. In practice, that means one store may keep regular holiday hours while another trims staffing, adjusts the close, or changes service depending on the operator’s plan.

For workers, a holiday opening usually means the pace of the day shifts in predictable ways. Breakfast can start with a lighter crew, then lunch, drive-thru, and mobile orders can stack up quickly. McDonald’s says its app and restaurant locator list participating restaurants’ location, phone number, hours, drive-thru details, and other services, which is the same tool customers use to confirm whether a nearby store is open, and how it is operating that day. The company’s menu and app materials also point customers toward drive-thru and McDelivery ordering, which can add another layer of volume when a store is already managing in-person traffic.

Memorial Day also carried its own time-based pressure. The White House proclamation for the holiday referenced the National Moment of Remembrance at 3:00 p.m. local time, a reminder that the day still had a public meaning even as restaurants stayed on service duty. In a fast-food kitchen, that can translate into uneven rushes, tighter breaks, and more last-minute schedule changes if a crew member calls out or a manager has to cover a station that suddenly went short.

The national scale matters too. McDonald’s reported 13,706 U.S. restaurants at year-end 2025, and in May 2025 the company said it would hire up to 375,000 restaurant employees across the U.S. that summer while extending hours at many locations until midnight or later, with some stores running 24/7. The practical message for crew and managers was straightforward: confirm the local holiday schedule early, ask how holiday pay is handled at that restaurant, and expect a day where staffing, not just traffic, shapes the shift.