to think McDonald's have lost the main idea of "fast food"

You live in SE London, don't you.

The same at our local one.

Iv still not forgiven them for taking away the breakfast bagels 😭😭

The worst is if they make you park, and you grab it and drive off only to discover they have given you pancakes with NO maple syrup. Worse than useless, but you are back on the freeway. Feels like a total tragedy though.

That was when they were batch cooked. Now they're all cooked as ordered, so they're not stacked up waiting on the dispenser shelves anymore. The change happened when they started allowing/encouraging customisation.

In theory, they should be dispensed in order and that means they should never hang around long enough to get cold.

Trouble starts when they make something by accident, i.e. make a big mac without pickles and put pickles on by accident, then it goes out to be served, and they have to make another without pickles. The one with pickles will sit there until someone orders it, and of course, a new one will be made for that order, so another will sit there, and so it goes on. Should be fine for a fast moving staple like a BigMac, but when it happens for something less popular, it could indeed be sat there a long time, and there's no time on it, so could languish and go cold.

If you stand at the counter and look at the "warm" tray ready to serve, there are often items in there that simply never move during the 5-10-15 minutes you're waiting, which have obviously been accidentally made, and will only get handed out when someone comes into order them.

And MacDonalds isn't even conducive to home delivery! It arrives cold and sometimes with the order wrong/drinks spilt/loose fries, etc.

I think I’ve reached the age where I can’t sit in a MacDonalds anymore without seething at the youth enjoying themselves. And Deliveroo always, always mess up our order. We’ve pretty much given up bothering.

I’d rather spend the money on a Chinese takeaway these days. Much more food for the same price.

Funnily enough I was thinking of starting a thread about the same thing. Even when I’m the only person queuing I still wait a fair while for my food. They just prioritise the drive thru and Uber eats now.

A customised order is called a "grill" where I live. It will definitely be freshly made. ( For example a Big Mac with no cheese)

I agree op. Takes forever whenever I've been.

They ALWAYS ask us to park
Up and wait for the food, but give us the milkshakes and ice creams first, which then melt while you're waiting. They forget the dips. Every time.

I do love the breakfasts if we are off out early on a day out.

I wonder if they are a victim of their own success?

We dined in the restaurant with 6 children last week. Ordered on the app before we went and it was delivered to the table in around 5 mins. Couldn't fault them.

And I had the £1.99 happy meal and was very pleased with the uno game!

I'd be surprised if that was right. Back when the dinosaurs roamed and I was a teenager I worked briefly at Maccas. There was a metal sign with a time marked on it that was put behind the burgers as they were loaded . 15 minutes each. You got to that 15 minutes you threw them out, and gave the customer the next burger.

Most are franchises. According to their website, 1100 of the UK's 1300 restaurants are franchises, i.e. 85%. The three local to us are all franchisees (all three owned by the same owner) and dips are free in proportion to the food you order.

If you ask for dips after you've ordered and theyve given you your food they don't tend to charge you ime

Same with the ice cream. I've heard the same that it's either they can't be bothered to clean the machine (that apparently needs a lot of cleaning at least once a day) or it's that they don't have enough staff as they're labour intensive and ideally need two people in that area, one doing the hot/cold drinks and another doing the ice creams, so if they don't have two at busy times, they just change the system to show ice cream not available on the apps/screens. Apparently, you can still order in person at the counter and they'll take your order if not ridiculously busy, they just don't want a lot of app/screen orders which is harder to control when done online.

That's your franchise they are free in non franchises.

I used to love it as a teenager but I can't eat food like that as an adult. It makes me feel gross.

And the milkshakes are often not available due to the machines “not working”. However I heard from someone who worked there that what that actually means is they haven’t cleaned it and they’re a pain to clean, so the job gets put off.

The UK - maybe I have completely missed it because I can’t customise no salt on the screens on site. Will have another look!

@CasperGutman you are very lucky then, there are 5 near me and they are all equally slow and shite. The food is always cold from one, the queues out the doors from others and one always fuck up your order.

That's without mentioning the hair I found whilst chewing a chicken mayo burger.... 🤢

It's not just that the deliveries slow the speed, the drivers usually park dangerously, or in the disabled spaces, or take up 2 spaces, in their ancient unroadworthy cars that often don't have valid road tax nor MOT, and they seem to clog up the counter area just waiting and making it harder for other customers to get to the counters, as they don't wait for the number to be called before going to the counter, they just go straight there, and wait, right at the counter, so sometimes, other customers can't get near.

I think I read that in some places, they've built special McDonalds that only do deliveries, i.e. a completely separate building not open to the public at all, and in others, they've redesigned the existing stores to have special waiting/serving areas for the delivery drivers, so McDonalds themselves clearly know there's a problem!!

I think your problem is with the branch you're using, not with McDonald's. We went to a very busy local branch with a drive-through last week. There was a long queue for the drive-through, so we parked in the car park, walked in, sat at a table, ordered on the app giving the table number. Ordered customised toppings on all the burgers. The food was brought to the table in five minutes.

Incidentally, the employee who brought the food over offered us free dips from a pouch they were wearing, so the "dips now cost 10p" isn't an issue round here either.

What country are you in? I can customise to have unsalted fries on the app I use.

I cook from scratch most days and haven't had a McDonalds in a year but I still dream of the dopamine hit I get from the Filet of Fish, fries and chocolate milkshake combo.

I guarantee nothing you make can beat that dopamine hit, because fast food is designed to hit those receptors in our brain with all the sugar, salt and fat.

They may be "built one by one", but if you order a standard/common item, you may not get the specific one "built" for you. Say, a bog standard, Big Mac, the one you get could have been sat in the "warm tray" for a while and a customer who ordered one a few minutes before you could get the fresher one as soon as it comes through from the cooking area, if the rest of their order was taking longer, if you see what I mean. All the "ready to go" items are sat waiting in a large warm tray, with no markings on them as to allocation to orders. When I've been stood at the counter, there have been boxed-up burgers which havn't moved from that tray in the 5-10-15 minutes I've been standing there, so will be cooler and less fresh, but eventually get put on to someone's tray or in someone's bag.

At least with a customised order, you're more likely to get your "own" burger as it's less likely someone else will have ordered exactly the same customisation at around the same time.

I've noticed that they are much slower these days since putting new systems in maybe 7 years ago.