What the hell happened to McDonald’s ?

[Painrelief]

Last night on the way home we popped into a Maccies drive thru . I haven’t been for months due to the Monday app deals being rubbish anyway the food was disgusting . The worst I’ve ever had from a McDonald’s , The filet o fish had blatantly been recooked as the fish had fries attached to the chewy as a boot batter and the cheese burger was from dinner time I think judging by how stale it was . My mate said hers the night before from her local one had been warmed up aswell …

But seriously the prices ?!! How can they justify it ! £2.19 for a mayo chicken or a cheese burger now (used to be 99p!) and the arch meal starts from £10.99 !!!
even the slush I had from a different maccies earlier in the day was just liquid and £3.19 !

McDonalds used to be a cheap and quick treat . How have the prices gone up so much and so quickly !!!

Do you still go to McDonald’s ? Has the standards dropped or something because I’ve never experienced such awful food .

I was thinking the other day about the parties and the little tables for the kids and you could take your child with their friends and order them happy meals after the cinema and it finished off the day for them .

It’s so sterile now and certainly not as welcoming for kids . Our local one had a play dome attached with a multi frame area with the tunnels and slides when I was younger and no one can ever understand why they shut that years and years ago . It would make a fortune now .

Maybe it varies by franchise to franchise but my two teens who have worked there since c.2021 have never had to pay for their own uniforms! They receive More than min wage for their age and have free food on shift plus discount outside of shift.

I love a maccers now and then. I always get a McPlant though and usually have to wait a bit because I dont think enough people order them to keep them hot. Somehow McDonald's Fanta is nicer than out of a bottle.

Jeez £8 for One pint !
we went to a local pub yesterday and it was a nice food pub type place and we paid £13 for 2 and half pints of lager and black and a can of vimto …

£8 for one pint is madness to us !

The playground places were free to use and there’s no money for them anymore.

It’s all cooked to order in my local franchise. Not like when I worked there and you had say 10 of everything in this metal funnels with a time code at the end.

tbh I’m not sure what you’d expect for 99p for a burger now.

Mcdonalds is a great place to work, I did a good few years there as student certainly never paid for uniform.

I think they need to bring back the onion though!

What, no onions??

They said something about cooking the onions in with the meat or something?
Anyway there are no onions on top of the burger anymore like there used to be so either way i can't taste the onions

(And yes I do order the extra onions sometimes and it's slightly better but nothing like before because they used to cook the onions and put them on top and it's just raw onions if you order them as an extra)

Thank you! Absolutely need to bring back the onion!!

Maccas has got really expensive as the quality has declined, we hardly go there anymore but I got caught out at an airport recently and ended up there.

usually Burger King is better

in general I find eating out too pricey, I am often disappointed with the food or choices or get stuck next to someone obnoxious or in a corner, alongside the inability to find a car park I hardly bother anymore! Hence I am always so shocked at how expensive and rubbish everything is when I do! Ha ha

I don’t think it’s gone up that much in comparison to other food increases overall. I never had McDonald’s as a child, it was a luxury so I see it very much the same way, although we do indulge far more than we should.

Quality is definitely dependant on branch and staffing. There are 2 branches we will absolutely never go to due to horrendous service, queues, quality. A staff member tried to punch my extremely passive skinny geeky introvert of a DH because he dared get out of his car after a 40 min wait and ask how long our food was going to be…

Saying that we went away last week and McDs is our go to travelling food/easy meal options as we know everyone is happy with something so ate it about 5 times over 4 days travelling around. Each one was very much worth it. I’m happy to give it a miss for a while now though.

I haven't noticed a quality change, but prices have increased and you can hardly get to the counter sometimes with all the delivery orders.

Yes it’s super expensive. I can buy a leg of lamb for £14 in Aldi and it’s cheaper than buying McDonald’s for everyone.

It’s not a cheap way to eat any more that’s for sure! I think the quality is probably the same as it’s always been. Unfortunately eating out has become ridiculously expensive. I avoid it completely unless it’s for a special occasion. Gone are the days when we used to routinely eat out 4/5 times per week. It’s just not worth the money now.

It's that here too. Hampshire Village (but not a touristy one) £4,50 for a latte.

The two are completely different offerings and as most Wetherspoons don’t have drive through or car parking even lack the convenience factor

Haven’t experienced any of the things you mention op.. I don’t think it’s expensive compared to other places tbh!

I think it's still cheap compared to other eating out options.

We paid nearly £20 for two paninis and 2 drinks the other day at a small cafe that does takeaway. At McDonald's they do a £5 meal deal which is a drink, fries, cheeseburger & 4 chicken mcnuggets.

I've no idea why it's so popular on delivery apps though, I don't think it travels very well.

I thought they had reacted to the drop in sales by offering more deals. There is a massive poster outside my local one with loads of £5 meal deals.
I think it is suffering from being mainly a Uber Eats place now.
My three love a McDonald’s. They wanted a breakfast the other day before we set off on a long drive. It’s a 10 minute walk so I was going to pop in but when I went on the app they had loads of deals for delivery only so I got Uber Eats.
They got the order wrong. One item missing and one wrong. Didn’t apply the deal. So I paid more for some bloke to drive it to me and then there was literally no way to rectify the order. Literally.
You can give ‘feedback’ but if you want a refund or replacement you have to go to the store and sort with the manager. Sod that.
Told the children I am never ordering from there again!

Ultra processed shit…but I do love a mcplant lol

Unfortunately these play areas- especially the tunnel ones kids could climb inside- attracted the wrong type of men like flies to shit. It would be unfathomably worse now.

I’ve actually started going to McDonald’s again after a break for years. I only tend to get the wrap of the week (2.29) or chicken salad £4 ish including a coffee. The burger meals all seem really expensive. All the food is cooked to order though at my local one.

the ‘salad’ is just the same stuff they put in the burgers. They definitely need to work on that.

Probably anywhere in the South East/ London. It's not unusual.

I don’t find the quality to be any different to how it has ever been. We don’t go that often because we just don’t need to eat that volume of junk food but we’ve never had a bad experience in a McDonald’s. It’s still cheaper than most places despite prices having risen. Took the kids to nandos a couple of weeks ago and it was £50.50 for the 3 of us! In McDonald’s we could eat for less than £20 which would include a McFlurry for each of the kids.

One of our local ones (Luton) does still have a play area, I couldn’t believe it when I first saw it a few years back!