McDonald's fans discover that buttons on restaurant cups have a purpose

17 May 2023 , 11:22

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Employees explained how they use the buttons

When you're enjoying your McDonald's, you probably don't pause to inspect the lid of your drink. But it turns out you ought to, as the 'buttons' save you from wildly guessing which is yours when you order more than one Coca-Cola, Diet Coke or Coke Zero.

As fast food aficionados will know, most cups feature buttons designed to identify each drink in the tray. However, working this out is not always as simple as you'd hope.

If you don't believe us, you can ask a Reddit user who took to the platform looking for help. It turns out staff don't always use the correct labels on the buttons, leading to confusion.

The different buttons caused confusion (NurPhoto via Getty Images)

But several reportedly use the same system that's super straightforward once you've figured out how it works.

Explaining their conundrum in a post, the confused customer wrote: "My question is about the McDonald's drink lids which have the 'buttons' on them. I just ordered two drinks, one diet coke and one coke classic, and on one of them had the number '1' button pressed.

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"The buttons are the numbers 1 and 2, no caff, diet/light. The only one pressed was the number 1. Which one is diet? Should they have just pushed the diet one in?

Employees explained how they use the buttons

"The number 1 means nothing to me but is important I know which is which. Thank you!"

Luckily, McDonald's employees were on hand to explain the unexpected way they use the system.

One replied: "Yeah seems to be different for every store but we usually just push 1 random button for Diet Coke and then either 2 random or all 4 buttons for Coke Zero.

"It's just faster to push random buttons than spend the time to actually find the diet button on every lid I guess."

A second agreed: "We press one for Diet and either two or four for Zero."

So, there you have it. Next time you visit a McDonald's, it is well worth checking for the buttons - unless you'd rather let one of your companions start slurping your drink before you realise you've mixed up your order.

Amber O'Connor