I think the expectations of consumers for a dine in experience is just a lot higher these days than McDonalds is interested or equipped to compete with and they’re also in the process of pivoting towards a post-automation future.

This to me sounds like a company that is realigning their strategy to fit the market segment they think they have the best chance of capitalizing on, which is apparently faceless late stage capitalism burgers.

Everything you describe appeals to me. The less I have to directly interact with their employees, the better.

Being able to take a few moments to ensure my order is complete and accurate, without delaying every other customer behind me, radically improves the customer experience.

Eliminating the two most error-prone steps (communicating between customer and staff, and entering the order into the register) greatly improves order accuracy.

Taco Bell is doing the same thing, but hasn’t inflated their prices nearly as much as McDonalds. Burger King and Wendy’s are lagging behind.

That is a return to their original business model that led to them becoming a global institution.

Their dining areas were famously uncomfortable, witht he focus on being easy to clean and maintain and discourage people from lingering. The color scheme of red and yellow is purposefully garish, and combine with the lighting to make you want to get your food and get out.

There used to be a set of slanted warming shelves connecting the kitchen in the back to the area behind the front counter. You’d walk in during peak times and see rows of sandwiches already assembled and wrapped. You’d order your food and the cashier would reach around and gather the food that had been prepared 15-30 minutes ago. If you wanted a burger without onions or mustard or whatever you’d have to stand awkwardly and wait. The drive-thru used to be quick, maybe a couple minutes total.

I haven’t been to one in a few years so I’m not sure how it’s changed recently, but starting in the 2000’s they changed their business model to try to compete with places like Subway, Panera, Starbucks, Chipotle, etc. They introduced more greys and browns into their colorways. They expanded the menus with a ton more choice: novelty limited-time sandwiches, “healthy” options like salads and fruits, specialty coffees. They moved to making things to-order instead of having things pre-made. Wait times and prices both increased.

Every other “fast food” place seems to have followed them. The closest replacement I’ve seen is the expansion of gas station/convenience store food. Places like GetGo and Sheetz near me usually don’t have drive-thru’s, but I can quickly walk in and grab a pre-made sandwich for a few bucks and walk out.

What you are describing almost sounds to me like a modern automat.

Couldn’t disagree more, depending on the location.

Pretty much ever McDonald’s outside of major cities is a social hub for locals. People will go there everyday and spend hours inside talking with each other.

Buying stock in ice cream machine repair see y’all on the moon

That’s how it’s been in the US for a long time. It’s just simply not worth the money for what you get.

Yeah I hadn’t had their food in a while and we ended up going to one in Lisbon earlier this year. I was really surprised at how small the servings had gotten for what they’re charging. I don’t really understand why anybody would go there at this point. There’s a lot of decent food out there for less money.

I wonder what they did with the Royal’ with Cheese… Technically they could shrink that too since it doesn’t have 1/4 pounder in the name.

It plans to open 900 new stores in the U.S. and 1,900 in some of its bigger international markets like Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom and Australia. The company said it plans another 7,000 stores in other international markets; more than half of those would be in China.

I get what you mean, but that is probably a bad analogy. Let me explain.

Just because a mushroom is poisonous doesn’t mean its mycelium living underground isn’t essential for all the plants and trees in the area. Depending on the species, mycelium can carry warning signals between different plants, boost the health of the plant, increase fruiting yields and even fend off other damaging fungi and bacteria. There is even a type that will make little hyphae lassos to trap and consume nematodes that can destroy some root systems.

McDonald’s does none of those things for humans, even in an off-handed analogy kind of way, unfortunately. It anything, a poisonous outcrop of mushrooms gives back more to its local ecosystem than a Big Mac ever has.

Fungi are so misunderstood… ;)

Here in Korea there are some but not very many. I guess you could squish quite many in here. The question is only who will go there to buy something? I haven’t been to McDonalds for years. It’s good at night when nothing else is open but if I can choose then I’ll probable choose something else.

Hey, I saw that youtube video too!

Unfortunately it’s dead-wrong.

Terminally online people say this, but their annual profit has increased year over year except for 2020 when everything was shut down.

They had a 9.6% increase yoy from 2022. Which was itself a 5% increase from 2021.

And even with Covid they rebounded to exactly where they were as soon as the shutdowns hit.

They went down 12.7% from 2019 to 2020, but went back up 29% for 2020-2021 and has increased ever since.

So the question of who is gonna eat there is answered. It’s everyone except you apparently. Everyone else keeps buying and pushing their revenue and profit higher year over year.

They have had 2 bad years in the last 15. They probably know a wee bit more than the average Lemming.

Canada just seems fucked then. I can’t pull it up, it’s morning, but I can buy a double QPC meal for about $9.

Nuggets come from a can, they were put there by a man, in a factory downtown!

Yet their biggest abuse is on the environment. It would be so much easier to add environment pollution tax on burgers than building five hundred million wind energy generators.

more people driving to go and get their burgers

They do deliver these days.

Pretty much every restaurant loads their food up with sugar or salt because that’s what makes it taste good.

We’ve become addicted to salt so much that we don’t even realize we’re getting too much of it. You won’t make it as a chef if you don’t make your food unhealthy. Putting in a healthy amount of salt will always result in your food tasting ‘bland.’

They sell salty hamburgers spurlock. Real murder shit right there 🙄.

Self control and responsibility is dead. I guess we have to look towards our ceos to ensure only lettuce wrapped ground turkey is available! Daddy tell me what to eat!

Your list is the cornerstone of making good food. Nothing left but acids for taste answer that

I really don’t understand why. It’s trash food and it’s not even that cheap anymore.