Former McDonald's Chef Behind Limited Szechuan Sauce Recalls Hate Mail, Death Threats
In October 2017, McDonald's bowed to pressure from Rick and Morty fans by bringing back its limited edition Szechuan sauce that had been featured prominently as a plot in the third season premiere of the popular Adult Swim series, "The Rickshank Rickdemption," earlier that year. The dipping sauce, which had originally been created to promote the 1998 Disney film, Mulan, was initially revived for an exclusive, one-day-only promotion.
However, it wasn't hard to predict what happened next. After Rick and Morty diehards lined up at McDonald's restaurants across the country to get their hands on the sauce, supplies quickly ran out—leading to widespread outrage from fans. Due to popular demand, McDonald's eventually announced that the sauce would return to all stores in February 2018, which likely was of little consolation to the hapless employees who had to deal with the uproar.
And among those poor, unfortunate employees apparently includes the mastermind behind the revived concoction.
Former McDonald's corporate chef Mike Haracz has become well known on TikTok for spilling secrets of the chain, and this week, he divulged about the hate mail and death threats he received from Rick and Morty fans who weren't able to get their hands on the sauce.
"Yes, I am the chef that helped bring back the Szechuan Sauce for Rick and Morty," Haracz said in one of his latest videos this week, noting that it's a story he's told many times. "I implemented a tweet that went viral, McDonald's picked up on it, they said, 'Let's play along,'" he recalled. He said that at first, they made a few jugs of the sauce which they gave to the series creators.
"And then there was the day that the Szechuan sauce was to be in the restaurants," he continued. "In the morning, everybody was happy, it was awesome. Then, within 10 minutes, I received thousands of hate messages because there was not enough Szechuan sauce for everybody."
"And when I tell you, I received the most horrible personal attacks from random people—thousands of them, from Rick and Morty fans—yes, that was the greatest batch of hate mail that I have ever received," Haracz explained. "I can't say a lot of the things but it was death threats, it was 'I didn't get my little packet of sauce, you should end yourself' and yada yada yada..."
Although the hype had certainly died down by then, McDonald's later brought back the Szechuan sauce in March 2022 as an app-only exclusive. It's unclear whether Haracz was still working for the chain at that point, but one would have to imagine he faced less backlash that time around.