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

[urwildquoter24]

It's not even fast anymore. It takes at least 15 minutes on a good day to get food, and on a bad day even longer. The drive-thru is even worse, I was in there last weekend and there were three cars in front of me and took half an hour to get my food and go.

I haven't even seen McDonald's do anything particularly creative recently. They're just bringing back old things and the food really doesn't look anything like in there adverts (which we established years ago)

And don't start about the new Happy Meal toys!!!

McDonald's is basically where fast food started, and now I think it's lost it a bit.

It is def the deliveries that make it slower. I find it hit and miss. I tend to order ahead on the app, went Friday and it was ready very quickly but was our of town so assuming no deliveries. Was waiting a long time for one in town recently, had to chase it up.

Occasionally buy the kids a happy meal if they've got squishmallow toys lol, drive thru takes ages and the chips are always freezing cold. Bit naff!

Totally agree. Our local one takes ages! At least 15 minutes and the toys are rubbish.

Totally agree. They have diversified too much on menu meaning that some of the more niche items are only cooked to order, or they are dry/cold or too much wastage.

Plus, the biggest thing that pees me off is that the order and collection area is always cluttered up with Just Eat And Deliveroo drivers. Once an online order is placed they are duty bound to honour it in a specific time frame, meaning any customers in the store get shunted to the back of the queue that is always much bigger than it looks, because you can't see how many online orders they have pending. It really annoys me.

I agree @urwildquoter24 If there are more than 10 people in the queue (waiting) you can easily wait 15 minutes before you get your food. Sometimes longer. Last Thursday, DH and I went to Maccies, and we waited - in the restaurant - for nearly 20 minutes, for our food.

My DH's burger and his fries were cold! (I had a special order that they only make from scratch, and they clearly made his and then left it to go cold while they made mine!) I ended up giving him half my fries so at least he had SOME hot food

His 'cold' drink was warm too, and we got over-charged. Paid for 2 EVMs (extra value meals,) and got charged separately for the drinks. I was pissed off as I didn't realise it til we got home - and we live 13 miles from Maccies so I wasn't going back for the sake of £3.59. (We don't to Maccies that often, and when we do, we rarely have an EVM each - so I wasn't familiar with the prices. I only noticed it when I looked at the receipt!)

I did tell DH to take his burger and drink back, but as we had already waited so long, and it was packed, he couldn't be arsed. Problem is, like most other places, they have cut back on staff, they only offer zero hours contracts for most, and there aren't enough people to cope when they're busy!

It will be a long time before I go there again, they're fucking useless. I agree with ps, it's since they started deliveries that the service in the restaurant, AND the drive-thru has gone downhill badly. In the McDonalds in my area, (and many others I believe,) they only deliver within 1.5 miles! FFS what is the point?!!! I know there will be the odd exception, but I am pretty sure most people could get off their arse, get in the car, and go to Maccies and get the food themselves!

!

Drive thru McD and deliveries sound like the sort of thing to be considered only in a food emergency of some kind. McD French fries are like cardboard if they are not REALLY fresh from the frier. And stinking out the car with fast food is gross.

The UK needs to start taxing delivery services big time. It’s becoming an utter social nuisance.

Please do not eat while driving. It’s dangerous to other road users.

McDs will have to decide ultimately whether they decide to cater to Just Eat/Deliveroo etc customers or to their normal in store customers.

The one McDs I've used recently (Victoria, London) was unusual in that it had less delivery drivers waiting, but that area has lots of tourists. The others in SE London have all been very busy with delivery drivers but the one in Bromley was fairly easy to get served in. That makes me sound like I love McDs but I don't. They're cheap for tea/hot drinks.

What I've found interesting if you want to compare - Greggs also have deliveries so you can order and get delivered. In all Greggs you're not kept waiting, you're served. So either there's less demand for delivery from Greggs or they handle it better.

Completely agree!

Ours is the same OP, so so slow, I'd say it would be quicker for our food to be ready in a chain pub, and not much more expensive either! We only used to go once in a blue moon, but we avoid at all costs now.

Haven't been for years. Burger King was much better I think.

I'm in central Europe. There's not a problem with having to wait a long time for the food but I think there are far fewer customers than there used to be and delivery hasn't caught on here yet. The main problem is the price. I used to go to McDonalds more often than was healthy as I often need quick food on the go due to the nature of my work and it was easy to call in and get something cheap and cheerful and quickly. But the prices are ridiculous these days. A big mac menu is now over €12 and that's way beyond the price I am willing to pay so I've all but stopped going there now which is good for my health.

They are opening more 'ghost kitchens' so hopefully the pressure from delivery drivers will wear off. I used to go in, see what was ready, and order what I could see, in and out straight away. Don't bother now that it takes as long as a restaurant order and is generally dry and crap.

They’re going to have to rethink some of their foods if they want to become some sort of delivery magnet as their default business model! French fries are clearly not working.

Fair. But their onion rings were so expensive!

I used to work near a greasy spoon cafe and takeaway, now long gone. I reckon the hygiene standards were on a par with medieval coaching inns. But the burgers and side of onion rings could induce spiritual awakening, and were a third the price of Burger King.

Oh that interesting that staff are made to make the delivery companies first priority. I expected that was the case,
but didn’t know it to be the case.

I take the kids once a week around 4.30pm inbetween an evening full of after school clubs. It’s fairly uneventful and we eat in with table service. I can’t really moan.

In ye olde McDonalds they used to make up a certain amount of cheeseburgers, hamburgers, big macs, etc, wrap them up and then leave them on a heated stand so the workers could just grab them as needed. Now they cook the various components and keep them in heated drawers and workers assemble each burger as an order comes in. Add to that the delivery service orders and a bigger menu and its no wonder that each order takes much longer than it used to.

I worked in a McDonald's about 4 years ago and the micromanaging that goes on from head office is ridiculous. Workers are given targets like 25 seconds to take an order, 12 seconds to pick and pack, 8 seconds to take payment (completely unrealistic). They wanted to reduce how many staff they pay so they brought in order kiosks, then worried that customers missed the human touch so posted a worker at the front door to say hello and goodbye. We were also forced to badger customers to fill in customer satisfaction surveys to prove to management how effective we all were. Hated that place.

Completely agree! Went to McDonald’s at the weekend at around midnight, was driving home from the theatre and we were hungry. Waited for ages for 2 Big Macs, a chicken sandwich with fries and drinks, pretty standard menu items. We reminisced about the good old days when you got a free apple pie if your food took too long.

I fully agree. But first they need to start ensuring existing laws are enforced, i.e. that proper tax/NIC is being paid by the delivery drivers, that the cars being used are legally taxed, insured and MOT's, that delivery riders aren't using illegal electric bikes/scooters, and all delivery staff are adhering to other road laws such as obeying pedestrianised areas, traffic lights, etc.

Pointless imposing more taxes that probably would be ignored as the delivery riders/drivers are ignoring so many laws (including taxes) at the moment anyway.

The city centre branches I go into sometimes for coffee are very fast with orders and service.

YANBU.

Its worse now for all this 'fresh' cooking they do. Its always cold and was always much better before when it had sat in the 'bin' (the thing they made them and placed them in for the counter staff to take from) under the lights and the cheese had melted.

Agreed, taxguru, there is a whole bunch of stuff that needs enforcing and regulating. Ugh!

If I were queen-dictator of the UK, we’d be taxing online delivery stuff in general to reflect the externalities it’s inflicting on society. A portion of tax monies accrued would be used to plump up benefits/allowances for disabled people, to allow them to purchase the now-somewhat-more-expensive services if they need to (or if they sensibly prefer other ways of feeding themselves, they could spend it on those things instead!).

Try going with my mum. She has a filet, with no sauce, or any thing else in it at all. And no salt on her chips. It takes forever!!

Stopped going ages ago. Fries are always shit and milkshake thing never working. Prefer BK and the prices are comparative now. Also, just discovered Wendy's. Wendy's is only slightly more expensive than BK but my god the food. Never done Mcdonalds regularly because I resent paying for shit food, I would rather pay a little more when we do go and know its going to be banging.

The very first time I went to McDonalds it was in Canberra, Australia, 46 years ago. At that time they had a policy that if you didn't get your food within 1 minute you got it free. I very much doubt that it was possible to customise your order though, or that they had such a big menu of items!

So I suppose we have sacrificed the speed for the choice. Which would you rather have?