Realistically, in an automated world, their flesh-and-blood employees provide negative value.
I wish dearly that I could just enter my own order on the POS system when I am in such places
They've got a pretty big gulf of social-class-stigma to get past, but it seems like McDonalds is at the beginning of a comeback.
Delivery might be a guilty pleasure gateway.
Maybe it's because I grew up within a couple miles of the headquarters of McDonalds, but the only people I know that don't go to McDonalds are health nuts. That being said, the stores around here are way nicer than the ones I've gone to in other parts of the country. I think proximity to the HQ probably keeps the franchisees in line, plus there are a bunch of corporate owned stores which are amazing.
I wonder if McD's sees this delivery stuff as an easy way to increase revenue without vastly increasing cost. If they can pair it with downsizing in-building personnel due to automation could turn out to be a big win for them.
Then in a decade or something they can just automate the delivery with autonomous cars/drones.
http://www.pcmag.com/news/349707/mcdonalds-pilots-mobile-ord...
Visit France. Not only the burger quality is much better there, but also you can order yourself on self serve POS systems for almost a decade. They're also implementing restaurants where your food gets brought to your table.
I wonder if Japan would be a testing ground for such a concept. They already have pizza-ready vending machines, for example.
As others have mentioned, they already have in several places. The UI is horrible and confusing though, you have to find the picture of the burger you're after, like selecting a netflix movie, which is even worse with McDonalds because the picture looks nothing like what you get.
Much like self serve checkouts they increase time but move that cost onto the customer.