The Wisconsin man who holds a seemingly unassailable world record after eating nearly 36,000 Big Macs over his lifetime has found McDonald’s widely publicized new offering, the Big Arch burger, underwhelming.
During a brief interview on Sunday, Donald Gorske said he found the white cheddar cheese and tangy sauce that came on the Big Arch his son brought for him to try on 8 March as less preferable to him than the fixings on the Big Macs he has eaten twice daily since May 1972.
Gorske, 72, also said the Big Arch simply had more meat than he needed at his age, with its two quarter-pound beef patties.
“I wasn’t really crazy about it,” Gorske remarked of the Big Arch’s heft. “I’m sure it’s great for people that are younger, but for me, it’s like eating a steak or something.
“I just think the Big Mac is better. I don’t like [the Big Arch] as much as the Big Mac.”
Alluding to how he famously doesn’t own a cellphone or use the internet, Gorske politely asked why his opinion on something such as the Big Arch was newsworthy.
It was explained to him that at least some people on the internet were curious about whether he had tried the Big Arch after a video in February of the hamburger being taste-tested by the McDonald’s CEO, Chris Kempczinski, went viral online.
Many social media users and online comedians mocked the video, suggesting it seemed that Kempczinski did not enjoy his own fast food chain’s new menu item, which he referred to on camera as a “product”.
“I don’t even know how to attack it – there’s so much to it,” Kempczinski says in the clip, before proceeding to take a humorously small bite.
McDonald’s has heavily promoted the Big Arch, saying it is the iconic chain’s biggest and boldest ever burger.
Gorske can speak with authority on the topic of McDonald’s after having held since 1999 the Guinness World Records crown for most Big Macs eaten over a lifetime. He has documented each dispatched burger with receipts and containers, pushing his official mark to 35,000 on 15 March 2025.
As of Sunday morning, Gorske said he had eaten 35,746 Big Macs, the cartons of which he has stored in his basement and attic.
Gorske has become so emblematic of the Big Mac that there is a booth with his name on it inside the McDonald’s closest to his home in the Wisconsin community of Fond du Lac.
That booth is where the retired corrections officer prefers to eat the Big Macs he occasionally chooses to consume at the restaurant. Most Big Macs he brings home to refrigerate or freeze and then microwave to save on gasoline money – as well as to ensure he never loses access to his favorite burgers in case of something like a blizzard.
Gorske says his wife supports his Big Mac habit because he has kept a promise to never complain about her not cooking. Also, Gorske says he has managed to maintain his cholesterol, blood glucose and body weight at normal levels – despite ubiquitous expert warnings that regularly eating fast food packed with calories, sodium, sugar and fat could contribute to obesity and other health problems.
He could recall straying from his Big Mac devotion once – to sample a Whopper from Burger King. He said he wasn’t compelled to repeat the experience and had reached a similar conclusion about the Big Arch.
“I tried one – that was it,” Gorske said. “And that is the way it will stay.”
