Bloody McDonald's

[lilyrabbit2]

I absolutely realise that this a first world problem and I'm sure some witty MNer will be along shortly to tell me I'm unreasonable for even eating McDonald's but regardless...

We don't have it often but do enjoy the breakfasts so took the dc today after we'd been swimming. Dd was desperate for a nap at this point so went through the drive thru thinking we'd be quick. But no we got 'can you park in a bay please' and waited 20 minutes before I had to go in and remind them we were waiting. The order was sat in a bag going cold waiting for someone to bring it out.

This happens all the time. 90% of the times we go we end up having to park up and either wait ages or go in to find we've been forgotten. The staff are busy and it seems they prioritise just eat/uber eats orders rather than the customers who are actually there.

No point complaining because a massive corporation like McDonald's won't give a shit but would it be unreasonable next time to just say sorry I can't park in a bay, we're in a rush I'll just wait here in the drive thru? It would probably hurry it up and anyway why should they take more orders before fulfilling the ones already waiting?

Again, I know it's a first world problem but it irritates the life out of me!!

Another good reason not to go to McDonald's. I didn't realise that the brand supported the eviseration of Gaza in this way.

They brought in innovation, but did not look at how all the different ways of ordering would work together.

Horrible experience these days

The last time I went, 2 years ago, I waited in person for 30 minutes for my order along with a million other people. Delivery orders pumped out quickly. After all that waiting, food was luke warm and mediocre. Never again.

The American company does. Not the UK one.

My child will only eat plain burgers so we have to park every time.

I've found ordering through the app makes it slightly quicker but NOT if you have it click and collect, you have to go to the drive thru and give the code over.

Also, last time we went we were told to park up and not given the drinks. When I asked for them I was told they weren't ready so offered to wait while they got them (standard drinks that were behind them) and was told no I had to park up. They then forgot the drinks! When I asked about this I was told they have some sort of sensor at the drive thru which means they have to move you on if the food isn't ready straight away.

So I'm not sure they would even let you wait at the window.

I live in a city and agree it's all deliveroo and Just Eat.

I really don't understand how if the food is all made to order, it's always so cold. Even it it arrives relatively quickly, it's colder than it would be if I had left food out in my kitchen for the same length if time. I wonder if they premake the burgers and let them sit out until they are ordered then construct what you wanted

It's a shame because as unhealthy as I knew it was it used to be a quick treat every so often, but it's just grim now. And as others have said, slow and expensive.

They aren’t actually on the official BDS list, excuse my postpartum brain, but many are boycotting them because ‘McDonald’s in the Israeli occupied Palestinian territories announced that it had donated thousands of free meals to Israeli soldiers.’

It sounds horrible. I would never go to one and do not understand why you keep returning

We never have that at our nearest one and I've never seen any deliveroo drivers there. We went to a different McDonalds a couple of years ago and there was loads of delivery drivers waiting and it took ages for them to sort our food. I don't know why they don't seem to do delivery at our nearest one but I'm very glad they don't.

I bloody love the occasional McDonalds. In fact, reading this thread made me go and get some for a late lunch!

But they have hugely lost touch with their customers and what sort of service they should be offering. I get that prices have gone up and it's going to take everyone a while to recalibrate as to what "cheap" food is. Gone are the days of the 79p burger!

But McDonalds having said that they need to revisit their pricing structure suggests that they do have headroom to lower prices. So clearly they put them up too much thinking they'd get away with it and have a bigger profit margin.

On top of that, they aren't fast. I've sometimes waited 10 minutes or more to be served - fast food is their USP and they're failing at it. And yes, a lot of this is due to large online orders (presumably to make it worth the delivery charge) that the kitchens struggle to fulfil. One near me was so full one Saturday lunchtime that the restaurant was standing room only because so many people were waiting. And yet more orders were coming in!

Absolutely yes to the menace that is delivery drivers too - they jostle customers because they want their order to be prioritised. I've told them off for shoving me out of the way and got filthy looks for it from them.

Move online orders to dark kitchens, lower the prices a bit and make the service faster. Why can't they see that?

(Oh and it is worth complaining - I got three free Meal vouchers after I complained about the restaurant that accepted my order when it was too full)

This ALWAYS happens to me over the last few months - we have to park up (in a tiny, overcrowded car park) and sometimes they completely forget we are there, other times it's 20 mins waiting. All I see is Uber/justeat/deliveroo drivers walking out one by one with those huge bags full of food.

They definitely do seem to take the priority. When I went last time, I had to wait about 20 mins then drove all the way home and realised they'd forgotten my daughters happy meal, the whole point I'd gone there in the first place was because it was a treat for graduating into her next swimming group 🫠🫠🫠

I’m so fed up with McDonald’s, but I give in to pester power from my children every now and then.

The service is now unbelievably slow, and I have to do the job of the cashier too. The receipt hardly ever prints, and I have to try and remember to look at the screen to see my order number.

They nearly always forget to add sauce sachets for my children.

And the price has risen so much! It doesn’t help that my children are kind of outgrowing the Happy Meal portions, and also those meals don’t offer the whole range of burgers for example, which I don’t agree with, and so I’m now often having to order medium meals for my children too. We went the other week and it came up to £24 for the 3 of us. I’d promised my girls a McFlurry too, so then this totalled around £28.000 before we left. To add insult to injury, one of the Security men got viciously assaulted by a teenage girl while we were in there, and it was happening close to the doorway so we weren’t able to leave either - this was at lunchtime. Completely disgusting behaviour.

@TeaGinandFags

she uses supermarket food to make her own food all the time. She wanted to go to McDonald’s cos it’s quick and easy and she didn’t have to cook.
oh and bigger portions than McDonald’s are not nescessary.

You've got more faith in people than me. I'd bet good money the main reason people aren't going is long wait times, not ethics.

Yes me too,in fact l've walked out of many a business from dry cleaners to paper shop/whatever when they have answered a phone behind the counter as l've approached it. Some but not all even say ' I'll be with you in a minute'.
I just walk out.

I agree. We go to one occasionally and when we've done walk in, you wait for aagggees while the just eat drivers dominate the waiting area and all seems to get sorted in a few minutes. I've waited 35 minutes before (I had DS with me and had already promised, plus didn't have any time sensitive plans after). I was furious.
At the drive in, they always seem to forget stuff or muddle up the orders. I had a staff member once yell at me that I hadn't paid enough for my order but she'd "let me off" while they hurried to make the rest of it. She had muddled me up with the person after me. I've ordered a burger and received nuggets, been given the wrong burger, the wrong mcflurry etc. At the drive I now have to carefully check each item before I drive away which they also whinge at me for.

Two local to me. Neither have the issues everyone else seems to be having, but one overcooks the fillet O’fish every single bloody time. After realising that the dark brown item with chewy desiccated fish inside wasn’t a one-off but how they seem to think it ought to be cooked, I haven’t been back.

Voting with your feet is the only thing to do!

I totally get your annoyance OP. I don't use drive-thrus as I don't drive. But when I'm waiting in the actual restaurant for my order and I'm kept waiting for ages for a small order because the delivery drivers get priority over actual people in the restaurant,it really pisses me off. On quite a few occasions I've had to go up to the counter (when I've requested table service) to find out why I'v been waiting 20 minutes for a Big Mac and fries. I'm inevitable fobbed off with a lame excuse and never receive an apology.

i wasn’t surprised at all when i read the other day that profits were down. as everyone else says it takes bloody ages now to get any food, and prices have shot up - costs best part of £20 for 2 meals now if you go large, get a mcflurry etc! they need to go back to basics, start prioritising set in/drive through customers ahead of delivery drivers and bring prices down a bit.

Nope

I work in a McDonalds - they have separate screens/workers for delivery and instore, so no orders are prioritised over another, they're completely separate. We take thousands of £££ an hour, so obviously mistakes are going to happen! We have people giving food back telling us that it's cold when it's not and has literally just been made, we have people saying things have been left off their burgers when they actually haven't, and we have people complaining about the wait when we can see that sometimes it's been a grand total of 10 minutes! And if you've been moved to the next window, it's not because we can't be bothered to do your order, it's because the next one has been assembled and is ready waiting to go while yours might just be waiting for sometimes one item. So you move to the next window so the next order can go out while it's warm. If you refuse to move, you won't get your food any quicker. But if you're going to do that anyway, don't be rude to the minimum wage 16 year old who's serving you please!

This is very accurate.

But the kitchen will be flooded with the bulk justceat orders? I see it all the time

We've got 3 different 'sides' of our kitchen which deal with different orders. Drive thru orders get priority in the kitchen and instore/delivery are lumped together and get dealt with in the order we receive them. We have 2 people cooking meat, 2 people cooking the chicken and then up to 4 people on each 'side' putting the burgers together. Any more would overcrowd the kitchen and slow things down. If an order gets forgotten it could be that the kitchen staff just missed it on their screen - they can have sometimes 30 a time on each side! Or receipts can get lost for drive-thru, which is horrible when that happens as you realise you have to go into the kitchen to ask them to make that whole order again! And sometimes customers are waiting for their food instore and haven't realised they haven't actually paid yet 🙃 We do have too many orders for our store, but we're not understaffed we just really need to split the store in two to deal with the volume!

They might care more than you think at the moment. Sales have fallen and they're trying to encourage customers back. They won't want people boycotting over slow or poor customer service.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c728313zkrjo