McDonald’s has figured out their path to success – all day breakfast!
The franchisees, Who own 90% of the stores, have voted to start offering breakfast all day long beginning October 8th. All their problems are solved!
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2015/09/01/mcdonalds-start-all-day-breakfast-nationally-oct-6/71529320/
This morning – and I do mean morning – I’m at Walmart and there is a McDonald’s in the parking lot, so I figured it was time for my semi annual visit to McDonald’s. On my last visit, I turned around and left without buying anything.
McDonald’s has hopelessly compromised their products by catering to the drive-through window – nothing can take more than 20 seconds to create and the attention of everyone in the store is focused on the countdown clock of the next car in the drive through.
This time the cashiers were equally inattentive to respond to the guy standing at the cash register, but I get that. I’m fat, white, old and ugly.
McDonald’s has clearly made a decision that it does not want a person like me as a customer – the old guys who used to sit in McDonald’s nursing a cup of senior coffee all morning – although I don’t drink coffee and I don’t hang around at McDonald’s for entertainment or free wifi. The seating has been replaced mostly by stools that will be difficult to sit on and uncomfortable. At 6:45 in the morning the background music was not Barry Manilow or Frank Sinatra – it was some techno crap music with a woman singing about having sex last night. I don’t think she was talking about Ronald McDonald, and it certainly was not “kid friendly” music if they were listening to the words. This is in the heart of Bible country – I’m in South Carolina.
Been able to get an Egg McMuffin at 8 PM is not going to improve my attitude about McDonald’s .
It occurs to me I have seen these stools before. They are like the ones that were used on “the dating game” on TV in the 1960s when RCA had NBC broadcasting “in living color” to sell people new color TVs with remote control! Clack clack clack clack . In those days, color TV cameras were not very sensitive, so the colors used on sets and make up were very intense. The end.
With the $15 minimum wage going national, the cashiers will be more than just inattentive, they’ll be gone. You’ll place your order on an ipad, pay with your phone and the only people will be the ones cooking your food, which you will not get to interact with. Why would you? Everything is automated. No more problems. Right?…..right?
Seriously, haven’t we seen this movie before?
Absolutely true. They have also moved much of the food preparation to automation in the factory. When is the last time you saw someone at a national hamburger chain form a patty from ground beef?
The move now is to put machines into the individual locations and as much as possible have an assembly line where the employee keeps it fed with ingredients and the computer controlled machine does most of the work.. the employee will just take the output (similar to the way you take your bags off a carousel at the baggage claim section of an airport) and hand it to the customer while smiling like a professional greeter at a Walmart. We are not there yet, but expect it in the future
Steak & Shake is one where using fresh beef cooked in the store visible to the customer is part of the process (especially if you sit at the counter)
Five Guys is another
Fuddrucker’s takes it one step further, hanging sides of beef in view before they grind it
Waffle House is not a burger place per se, but the cooking is deliberately very visible
I would feel better about Wendy’s if they had a camera and monitor showing me the grill rather than recording me as if I’m a criminal
They closed that Fuddruckers in Huntersville off 77 . it was good back in the day. The one in Winston Salem is gone too.
‘waffle house’ is my fantasy football team name,
small world.
parrott
The Fuddruckers I was familiar with was in Flint Michigan. I looked at the main company web site, and they seem to be owned by Luby’s now. I’m guessing the sides of beef are gone. A lot of people don’t want to know where food comes from… And hamburger is not usually made from the entire animal.
And eggs laid by cage free hens!
Anyone up for a road trip to get an egg mcmuffin at 10 pm