https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/food/2023/09/11/mcdonalds-to-remove-self-serve-soda-machines-by-2032/70828970007/
McDonald's revealed it will slowly transition away from beverage stations in dining rooms across the country by 2032.
Bottom tier food. Bottom tier company. I don't know why anyone eats this level of trash anymore. Inflation has hit fast food harder than other types of restaurants, or groceries. It doesn't make sense justifying paying these prices for this when you can get better food for comparable prices now. There used to be an expectation that this food would at least be cheap.
I went to Arby's yesterday because it was cheaper than McDonald's and Taco Bell. Was not disappointed. Arby's still slaps IMO.
This food was never cheap tbh
The point was convenience - a hot and ready to eat meal that you can grab at any time and don't have to prepare yourself.
They had a thing called the dollar menu for decades.
During the 90s-2000s, they'd have hamburger Tuesdays where you can buy a hamburger for like $0.29 cents.
They had ads where families would come with "a few bucks" and feed everyone.
I survived on one meal a day at McDonald's when I was stuck doing day labor in Seattle around the 2002 crash.
Back then it was actually cheap to get enough food to survive on for under 5 bucks. I remember the 20 cheeseburger and hamburger deals they had twice a week.
The price increases to cheeseburgers really hurts, when that was usually my main dollar menu deal.
during that time, you could get whopper or jumbo jack or big 'n tasty, etc. for 99c just about everywhere. 3 bucks was all it took to eat lunch...
even less if you ordered the 'all american meal' at mcdonalds: small hamburger or cheeseburger, small fries, small drink. was only $1.79 or $1.89. wasn't always on the menu board, but i never encountered a store that didn't sell it even if it wasn't.
its almost 12 bucks just to get a whopper 'meal' here now.
BK around us has the 2 for $6 deal and I've found it very useful when we run late and can't cook. Not dollar menu prices by any means, but most affordable option we've found among the fast food joints around us
If using the app, BKs value is generally pretty good because they often have decent coupon deals reletively speaking compared to other fast food joints.
It used to be cheap. It wasn't that long ago there was a dollar menu. Now a cheeseburger is $2.79.
You could always make a cheaper burger yourself. Yeah a pack of buns and and pound of burger would cost more, but per burger it was always cheaper.
Time isn't free.
Saying it's cheaper to do it yourself is almost always true with cooking. It doesn't really make sense to bring up because you're comparing apples to oranges.
In reality, you just want to feel superior to people who eat fast food. Come on, admit it.
Dude. Learn Chinese cooking. Abandon your worthless Westoid foods that take 7 hours to cook. Adopt the Wok and Wok Hei will adopt you. Be one with the stir fry.
While I agree that this is a good way to cook affordable meals, it's still a luxury so many people can't afford. When I met my current husband, he was working two jobs in different parts of the city and renting a single room without a kitchen. Most of his free time was spent on the bus or train. I've known many such people, and fast food's drastic increase in price has really hurt.
I've actually upgraded to mexican cooking.
Just make a big bowl of taco stuff and shovel it onto a tortilla for a few days.
Been thinking about getting into stirfries, too.
Stir fry is great. One big pan of chicken, rice, and veggies, and you're set for days. Toss some different sauces, cheese, or spices on there to change the flavors up.
I really don't think you could've back in the dollar menu days. A double cheese burger for less than $1? Unless you're buying you're ingredients in a pretty bulk size (which if you're regularly eating off the dollar menu, you probably can't afford to do), I doubt you could have gotten much better than that
You totally could, those patties were tiny af and a pound of beef went far enough for it to even out
The point was convenience
And consistency. It may not be the best food in the world, but I can order anywhere between Miami to Miramichi, New York to Nanaimo, or LA to London, and get the exact same Big Mac and fries every single time.
I used to get 3 double cheeseburgers and a large tea for $4.20 including tax. McDonald's and Little Caesars were by far the cheapest meals I could buy unless you want to count ramen noodle packs. Groceries were way more expensive. Now both are expensive LOL.
You could get a pound of ground beef and a pack of burger buns and I think the one time I did the math it came out to 80 cents a burger.
So $0.80 for a burger or $0.99 for a double cheeseburger. I'll take the double.
Besides that, if you only had $5 to spend you could not have bought the supplies to make a single burger for $5. Have to buy at least a pound of beef, a whole pack of buns, etc. Even in your example I'd argue fast food was cheaper.
Well yeah, the last time I did the math was probably 2006 or something lol
Though the prices I'm seeing currently are $7.94 for 2lbs, $2.88 for 8 buns, $2.48 for 24 cheese slices.
$1.51 per 1/4lb cheese burger.
tbh I have no idea how much this stuff costs without looking it up anymore, I just eat vegetables and beans now lol
Except now it takes forever to get your food from a place like this and they refuse to let you order ahead, which is insane.
what an austere dumb cheap fucking company. i went in last week and there wasn't anywhere to get my own soda or ketchups or anything, just a plain dining room. i loved waiting 10 minutes for the 1 guy slaving away back there to get my drink with the food as well instead of having cups by the order kiosk, which WORKED FOR YEARS AND YOU STILL PROFITED HANDSOMELY YOU FUCKING CHEAP FUCKS GOD IT MAKES ME SO SICK IT NEVER ENDS
next they're going to phase out menus, it's just 1 button you hit it and it takes $20 from your checking and they give you berder and 10 grammes of french fries
what a fucking dogshit world. companies used to actually give a shit about UX, but now they're making it as shitty as possible out of attrition
Their food has been trash since covid started (i'm sure some will say sooner)
The snack wraps went off the market, the selects are gone, the nuggets are thinner and more flakey
And i'm sure they just want to make it more difficult to get a drink without ice so they can give as little as possible.
Actually mcdonalds is way better than it used to be decades ago. It still blows me away how bk fell so much in quality (this may be just in the cities or my city) while mcDeesnuts rose. Not that its good now, but its been worse.
Maybe it's regional, but I cannot possibly fathom why you would think Mcdonalds would be better. There's two mcdonalds in my area, i've visited 3, and all of them have fewer options than they did 4 years ago, and whats still there is definitely worse than it was back then.
Like I certainly gave it a chance, but there were times when I couldn't even finish the nuggets and was starting to feel sick. I went from 10 nuggets to 6 nuggets to just looking for other places to eat.
They greatly improved the quarter pounder while back and they went to much more of a cook to order process. Again not saying they are good just that back in the 80's they were really crappy. Back then other fast food places would make fun of heat lamps with thier competitors and they meant mcdonalds who actually did use them extensively. Back then BK always cooked to order unless they were completely slammed. Overall for the fast food that is pretty much available everywhere I think wendys has kept up quality the best but they have still missed a step or two over the years. I agree with some other sentiments though. At this point I can grab a real burrito or burger at a non frachise place and its not much more but waaayyyyy better.
yeah yeah and I got that. Its just that they used to be so bad I had to point that out. As bad as they are, they have been waaayyyy worse. And could be again.
Old nuggets make me question all the life decisions I made which led me to get McDonald's chicken nuggets.
Fresh nuggets? Pure crack. I find myself having to talk myself down from buying another 10 piece.
Maybe the employees at your McDonald's are cooking too many early on and giving you old nuggets. But I promise you. If you show up 10 minutes before closing and request a 20 piece and force those poor people to cook you some fresh, they are still amazing.
My experience was the opposite. I hate all fast food burgers so my opinion is based on chicken sandwiches but BK has always been so gross to me. Soggy and flavorless. I had it most recently like 2 years ago and I was kicking myself for going there
The McDonald's chicken sandwich is OK. Not the best but acceptable. However the only thing I order there is breakfast (bacon egg and cheese bagel) which is more expensive than it's worth but still tasty
Snackwraps were one of the best menu items anywhere. Such a shame they're gone
I've had the exact opposite experience. McDs has gotten worse, BK has gotten significantly better(except the nuggets, those still suck).
yeah that might be true in the last year. Im looking at it from the last several decades. So it depends a bit on the time scale. I dunno maybe I have the old personas nostalgia but seriously man I feel bad for younger folks not tasting chocolate or bannanas or a whopper or a suzeQ the way they used to be. Heck I begrudge not being a decade or two older to have experienced the real good stuff. More and more its like we are getting closer to eating straight up plastic.
Wendy's had the same snack wraps and were a million times better. Then both went away when covid started and I was sad... Wendy's has a new one now but it's super expensive and tastes terrible. I feel like the selects where only ever good the first time they released which was like 20 years ago, never liked them when they came back... as for the nuggets your crazy! Still the same and still love them, it's the only thing I don't mind getting from them every once in a while. Everything else is meh, and the chicken sandwiches are gross.
Any McDonald’s around me hasn’t had self service fountains for years. I assumed up to now it’s been a franchisee decision
This is bullshit. Even with multiple refills, the biggest hit to their margins on the soft drinks is the actual cup itself. The syrup is basically free in the quantities they buy it in, and the water is filtered(...hopefully) tap water.
Oh I'm not disagreeing with you that it's a bullshit reason - but I can bet that some penny pincher accountant working at McDonalds proved the company could save $X million (single digit lol) if they did this change. Never forget how a dude working for American Airlines in the 1980's figured out that removing one olive from each salad in first class would save over $40k per year.
You're missing an ingredient, the CO2. There's two main sources for food-grade CO2 in the USA, natural gas refining and mining it from resevoirs. The largest resevoir in the USA (An extinct volcano in Mississippi) was contaminated by a pocket of radioactive gas. And sanctions on Russsia drove the price up in that market.
I like mixing frozen juice concentrate with soda water but its gotten too expensive in the past few years
I can tell you this, there's no way to operate those machines that doesn't give a massive profit margin. This isn't about affordability, it's about control.
Partially true. I fix coke stuff for a living. They do keep it chilled with a multiplex unit in the backroom. That's the secret to their pop. It's basically a big tank of water with coiled copper tubes to chill the water to just below freezing. There's an agitator motor to keep it from icing over completely and that cold water is recirculated 24/7 to keep drinks cold. But they absolutely do not add more syrup than anybody else and it's the exact same formula as anywhere else.
The real reason is that they're switching to automated processes. Customer comes in, punches button on screen, drink served. Plus many don't want to dump their older ABS 1.0 machines after upgrading the one in the drive through to a newer 2.0.
And now it's not even cheap. It used to be that it sucked, but you could walk out stuffed for like $4, but the last time my wife and I went on a road trip it was literally like $30 for the two of us.
At those prices you're better off going to an actual restaurant unless you have absolutely no time for it
When they say "soda fountains", is that just USA talk for drinks machines?
I must have heard the phrase a hundred times but it only just clicked in my head that that must be what a soda fountain is 😅
It makes sense to just have one machine that employees have to maintain and refill. Sounds like you can still ask for a refill.
Go to 7/11 if you want to make your gross soda combos lol
As a former fast food employee, I promise you that it's much better having to clean an additional machine once a day and occasionally attach a new box of syrup than it is to have to constantly refill drinks for customers, especially considering how annoying the general public are to serve
I think the corporate goal here is that most customers won't bother asking someone to refill their soda because they don't want to wait for it.
Why are soda combos gross but alcohol combos are not?
People will spend $15 on a cocktail with olives and shit in it, but no we gotta draw the line at people putting a splash of Mr. Pibb into their Coke Zero...
(I love self-serve fountain drinks and I'll die on this hill, motherfuckers.)
Wow, the instructions are clear now!
I ask for a refill, I get 80% ice, 10% drink, and 10% air.
Thank you kindly creepy clown restaurant!
I think you mean "employee" because they can't find anyone else willing to work there lol
People constantly steal from self-serve fountains (walk in off the street with their own cups), so this is inevitable.
Won't sombebody think of the 0.000000001% of corporate profits being lost to rogue refillers off the streets?
Fountain soda costs a few pennies per gallon, the lost earnings of which would ordinarily be counted as small beans compared to the wages saved by reducing the bodies you need to pay to run your restaurant. The pandemic taught companies though that you don't need a body for every job, you need only as many as it takes to keep the door unlocked. The single person whipped and frantic doing the jobs of eight people will just have to work harder and maybe next year they'll get a fifteen cent raise
the extra labor to fill and refill dining room drink orders is very temporary. robots or automated dispensers will be pouring the drinks long before 2032.
they used to have automated dispensers and robotic 'fry guys' at some locations... back in the early 1990s
that's an individual store problem. it isn't one at most stores with self-serve fountains.
many mcdonalds even put self-serve cup dispensers next to the self-serve kiosks, which would make it even easier to grab a freebie.
eliminating 1-3 fountains from every store reduces the maintenance part of their coke contract by a not-insignificant amount. that's the primary motivation here. the somewhat long time frame would be required to accommodate terms of existing contracts and changeovers would happen as those are renewed or renegotiated.