The Stinky Reason McDonald's Didn't Want To Sell The Filet-O-Fish

You've probably seen the golden brown Filet-O-Fish on McDonald's menus before, even if you've never tried it. It boasts a square fillet of wild-caught Alaskan Pollock, melted cheese, and a topping of tartar sauce between two steamed buns. It's a unique item on a menu known for burgers, and offers a nostalgic alternative to red meat. This fishy sandwich has been around for well over 50 years, and we owe it all to a man named Lou Groen, who gambled on the sandwich's success against stiff opposition from the fast food giant's founder, who thought the now-beloved staple was too stinky.

Groen opened a McDonald's in Cincinnati — the first in the area – in 1959, and was surprised to find that a huge percentage of his customers weren't coming in on Fridays. This lost him a lot of money, and he quickly realized that it was because a large portion of the area was Roman Catholic. During this time, Catholics were not allowed to eat flesh meat on Fridays, so they simply didn't come in. Groen did observe, however, that they ate fried fish at other restaurants. So, he came up with a fish sandwich to serve, then went to McDonald's founder Ray Kroc to pitch it. 

You might think that such ingenuity would be immediately praised, but that wasn't the case. Kroc abhorred the idea of selling fish at McDonald's, saying it would stink up the joint. He went as far as to call the idea "a bunch of crap." Another concern was whether it would be too complicated to prepare and source, so it seemed that the Filet-O-Fish was dead in the water.

The reason we see this item on menus today comes down to a simple bet. Ray Kroc did admit they were losing money on Fridays, but he had a different answer — a grilled pineapple sandwich with cheese and sauce. He bet Lou Groen that his "Hula Burger" would sell better than fish, and the two decided to test it on one Friday. Groen's Filet-O-Fish sandwich outsold the pineapple sandwich 350 to 6. Kroc begrudgingly relented and allowed Groen to continue selling the fish sandwich.

As you might guess, Friday sales numbers went up almost immediately. By 1965, it was on the official menu. There were advertising campaigns around it, and it became something of a fan favorite. People even made several brilliant Filet-O-Fish hacks that are fun to try. It was so popular that, when McDonald's removed it from menus in 1996, customer outcry caused the chain to add it back to the menu in 1998.

While Catholics can now eat meat on Fridays, Lent is still a time when they generally abstain from it (except fish). So, even though the McDonald's menu now features plenty of non-meat items to pick from, the Filet-O-Fish gets a big boost during Lent — which accounts for about 25% of all fish sandwiches sold each year at the chain. Due to this and longstanding tradition, McDonald's keeps the Filet-O-Fish on the menu permanently.