Cook Out Menu Prices 2026: Trays, Combos & 40+ Milkshake Flavors

The Cook Out Tray starts at $5.49 for an entry-tier entrée (Cheeseburger, Hamburger, Hot Dog or Corn Dog) and ranges up to $7.49 for the Chicken Strips tray as of May 2026. The Big Double Cookout Style Burger tray is around $6.99, and the BBQ Sandwich tray runs $6.49. Every tray includes the entrée, your choice of any 2 of 11+ sides, and a drink. Pricing is largely consistent across the chain's roughly 325 stores because Cook Out is corporately operated, not franchised.

Cook Out offers more than 40 milkshake flavors — by a wide margin the deepest milkshake menu in U.S. fast food. The full lineup includes Vanilla, Chocolate, Strawberry, Banana, Cookies & Cream, Oreo, Mint Chocolate Chip, Chocolate Chip, Cherry, Chocolate Cherry, Vanilla Cherry, Coconut, Coconut Cream Pie, Peach, Pineapple, Piña Colada, Watermelon (summer), Caramel, Mocha, Mocha Chip, Peanut Butter Fudge, Peanut Butter Banana, Heath Bar, Hershey's Bar, M&M, Strawberry Cheesecake, Strawberry Banana, Sweet Potato Pie, Eggnog (Nov–Jan), Pumpkin Spice (fall) and many more rotating flavors. All shakes are priced at $3.59.

Cook Out has approximately 325 locations concentrated across the U.S. Southeast — North Carolina (the home state, with roughly half of all stores), Virginia, Georgia, Tennessee, South Carolina, Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, West Virginia and an expanding footprint into Ohio. The chain is corporately operated (not franchised) and remains a regional Southern chain rather than a national one. Use the Cook Out store locator on cookout.com for nearest-store hours.

Yes, meaningfully. The $5.49 Cook Out Tray (entrée + 2 sides + drink) undercuts McDonald's $5 Meal Deal once you compare like-for-like portion: McDonald's $5 deal gives one entrée + small fries + one nugget side + drink, while Cook Out's tray lets you choose any two of eleven sides. À-la-carte burgers are even cheaper: a Cookout Style Burger is $2.79 vs. a McDonald's McDouble around $3.49, and a Hamburger is just $2.49. Where McDonald's wins: app deals, coffee (McCafé) and breakfast — Cook Out doesn't serve breakfast and doesn't have a developed app.

Cheerwine is a cherry-flavored soft drink invented in 1917 in Salisbury, North Carolina, and it's been independently owned by the Carolina Beverage Corporation ever since — making it one of America's oldest continuously family-owned soda brands. Cook Out features Cheerwine on the fountain and as the Cheerwine Float ($3.99) — Cheerwine blended with vanilla soft serve, a defining Cook Out specialty drink and a Carolina culinary signature you don't find on most national chain menus.

A Cookout Style burger is Cook Out's house-dressed burger — a single beef patty with American cheese, mustard, ketchup, chili, slaw and onion on a soft bun. That chili-and-slaw build is the regional Carolina hot-dog dressing translated onto a burger, and it's the chain's signature dressing. The Big Double Cookout Style ($3.79) doubles the patty and is the most-ordered burger on the board. "Cookout Style" can also be applied as a free dressing upgrade to most entrées.

Cook Out's mobile app and digital ordering experience are not as developed as bigger chains like McDonald's, Taco Bell or Sonic. Most ordering still happens at the drive-thru speaker, with cash and card accepted at the window. There are no app-exclusive deals, no rewards program and no nationwide mobile ordering. This is part of the chain's deliberately old-school operating model — drive-thru and walk-up only, no inside dining at most stores, lean digital footprint.

Cook Out lists 40+ milkshake flavors on its menu board — substantially deeper than any other U.S. fast-food chain. By comparison, Sonic's Master Shake lineup runs around 8 standard flavors, Dairy Queen's classic shake menu is around 7, McDonald's typically lists 3 (Vanilla, Chocolate, Strawberry), and Wendy's Frostys come in only 2 flavors at most stores. Cook Out's milkshake depth — including unique regional flavors like Sweet Potato Pie and Cheerwine-adjacent options, plus seasonal Eggnog and Pumpkin Spice rotations — is the chain's single biggest brand differentiator.

The cheapest hot meal is the $5.49 Cook Out Tray with a Hot Dog, Corn Dog, Hamburger or Cheeseburger entrée — that includes the entrée plus two sides plus a drink. À-la-carte, the absolute cheapest items are the plain Hot Dog and Corn Dog at $1.49 each. You can build a $5 lunch by pairing two hot dogs with a side of hush puppies and a sweet tea, totaling about $5.96 before tax. The $5.49 tray is still the single best per-dollar deal on the board.

Primarily yes. Cook Out is a regional Southeastern chain — North Carolina, Virginia, Georgia, Tennessee, South Carolina, Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi and West Virginia make up the bulk of its roughly 325 locations. The chain has been expanding north and west more recently, with new stores in Ohio (Cincinnati, Columbus area) and continued growth in Kentucky as of 2025–2026. There are no Cook Out locations in California, the Northeast, the Mountain West, the Plains states or the Pacific Northwest as of May 2026. If you live outside the Southeast and you've heard the milkshake hype, you'd have to travel to try one.