Do We Know Why All McDonald’s Locations Don’t Have Szechuan Sauce?

Adult Swim Rick looking sad because he can't have Szechuan sauce.

McDonald’s is offering Szechuan sauce today, but only a small number of restaurants are actually carrying it. Why is the quantity so limited? Why isn’t every McDonald’s location offering Szechuan sauce? You can get the Szechuan sauce with the store’s new buttermilk chicken tenders — but only at a small number of stores, in limited quantities, starting at 2 p.m. local time. McDonald’s is offering the sauce as part of a special promotion (and after so many Rick and Morty fans have been clamoring for Szechuan sauce ever since Season 3’s first episode premiered.)

See a full list of every McDonald’s location that will carry Szechuan sauce in Heavy’s story here. 

But why isn’t McDonald’s just offering the sauce at all its locations, knowing how many people are wanting the sauce? Wouldn’t that only help sales of their new chicken tenders?

It seems this would be the pragmatic choice, but McDonald’s hasn’t shared why they’re limiting the quantities and locations so much. The quantities are so limited that nine states aren’t offering the sauce at all. And some restaurants that do have Szechuan sauce only have 20 packets each.

McDonald’s has been pretty tight-lipped about the limited quantities. Maybe they just didn’t have enough ingredients to make that many sauces. (That seems unlikely.) Maybe, for some reason, Szechuan sauce is more expensive to make (either because of ingredients or licensing), so they’re keeping the quantities down. Or maybe they’re just testing interest, in case they might roll out Szechuan sauce again at an even bigger event down the road. This is all conjecture, but there must be a pretty good reason they’re not offering more Szechuan sauce locations, since the demand seems to be so big. They’re missing out on a lot of sales by not offering more.

While the mystery continues, fans of Rick and Morty have a few ideas of their own for why we don’t have more Szechuan sauce.

Some have posited that maybe we’re in a dimension where McDonald’s actually lost the Szechuan sauce recipe to the Galactic Federation, and they had to buy a small amount from The Citadel of Ricks to placate fans.

Or maybe McDonald’s has to hold some in reserve to placate Ricks from other dimensions, so the Ricks don’t go all “Pickle Rick” at the McDonald’s headquarters. They’re afraid to run out, so they’re only offering a small number of Szechuan sauce packets.

Or perhaps Szechuan sauce is used as currency by an alien race, and McDonald’s has to keep what they offer limited so they don’t completely disrupt that race’s currency.

Why do you think McDonald’s isn’t offering Szechuan sauce in more locations? Let us know in the comments below.