Why the same beef price crunch that's shuttering Texas BBQ joints is now squeezing McDonald's
Consumers may love Texas brisket, but there is a price at which even the most loyal carnivore draws the line. That threshold varies by person, income, and what’s on the plate — but once crossed, people either skip the purchase or slash how often they indulge.
That concept, known as the consumer breaking point, was front and center during a recent industry conference, as reported by Bar and Restaurant News. David Henkes, senior principal at Technomic, warned that the timing could not be worse for restaurants already battling a value perception problem.
“This cost increase couldn’t come at a worse time because the industry is already struggling with a value challenge, a value image problem,” he said. While Henkes was referring specifically to tariffs, the underlying issue transcends any single source of inflation.
Consumers are still dining out, but they are far more selective about where and how they spend. “Consumers are still going out to eat, they've just become a lot more selective when they do,” Taylor Bowley, an economist at Bank of America Institute, told S&P Global. Analysts say the combination of higher input costs and choosier demand is eroding the pricing power restaurants once took for granted.
The pain is especially acute for barbecue restaurants built around beef brisket. Skyrocketing beef prices — driven by the smallest U.S. cattle herd in 75 years — have forced some iconic Texas joints to close permanently. Unlike McDonald's, a brisket-centric pit cannot simply pivot to chicken items to offset rising costs.
“Right now, there is a tightness in the U.S. protein supply, especially where beef is concerned, due to reduced cattle herds that could go on for years before they’re replenished,” Bill Lapp, president of Advanced Economic Solutions, told the National Restaurant Association.
The math is brutal. A pitmaster buys a 12-pound raw brisket, trims hard fat, then loses up to half its weight during a 14-hour smoke. “A 15% increase in raw beef prices effectively doubles by the time that brisket hits the cutting board,” explained Dominick Miserandino, CEO of RTMNexus and an advisor to TheStreet. McDonald’s, by contrast, buys a pound of ground beef and sells a pound of ground beef, with far less shrinkage.
Indeed, McDonald’s has been aggressively expanding its chicken lineup — sandwiches, tenders, wings — to take the pressure off beef. Chief Restaurant Experience Officer Jill McDonald said on the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call that the global chicken category is “2x the size of beef and faster growing.” The chain’s share of the chicken market grew across its top 10 markets in 2025, and it aims to gain at least another percentage point by the end of 2026.
But for Texas barbecue, chicken is not a substitute. The U.S. Department of Agriculture reported that the average retail price for beef — the kind used in brisket — hit a record $9.64 per pound in April, up 13% from a year earlier. The Associated Press noted that the average price of all uncooked ground beef in the U.S. was $6.86 per pound in March, nearly 48% higher than in March 2021. Those numbers have not eased.
The human toll is visible across Texas. Brett Jackson, co-founder of Brett’s BBQ in Katy, Texas, told Texas Monthly that eight months before closing, about one in eight groups were splitting a two-meat plate for two. Customers who once visited twice a week dropped to once a week — or less. Jackson shut his restaurant in December.
He’s not alone. Kirby’s owner Shawn Jones told his YouTube followers, “When brisket costs $36 a pound for the consumer… you can easily be spending $70 to $100 for barbecue.” Russell Roegels, who owns two BBQ restaurants in Houston, summed up the mood: “This is as bad as it gets. Everybody’s at risk these days: You’re one bad week from closing.”
The same forces that closed those smokehouses are now lapping at the Golden Arches. While McDonald's has more tools — menu diversification, global scale, massive purchasing power — the core problem of constrained beef supply and rising prices remains. The difference is that McDonald's can still manage the squeeze, at least for now. For independent pitmasters, the heat has become unbearable.
This story was originally published by TheStreet on Jun 1, 2026, where it first appeared in the Restaurants section. Add TheStreet as a Preferred Source by clicking here.