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Comment by patio11 | Hacker News Reader

You live in a country with franchises, right? What would you articulate as the brand promise of a McDonalds? McDonalds has a very clear internal understanding of that brand promise: it includes clean bathrooms, a smile, extremely low prices available, and very consistent food.

7/11 also has a brand promise. It includes, prominently, “If you need it, 7/11 is open.”

The LTV of a conbini regular is very, very, very high and the brand does not want you to sour on it for reasons specific to Store 6548 in May 2019.

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I wonder if this matters less in the age of smartphone apps. I tend to check opening hours on Google Maps first before heading to a place when it's outside of obvious business hours (like the middle of the night).

I don't think it does. Decreased friction provides a very real, very large boost to almost any business like this. Any uncertainty or mental effort makes me much less likely to go, especially if there's another option that I am certain will provide me what I want. Conversely, if they're reliable and require little effort, I am much more likely to grow to depend on them habitually.

I think that's probably the deal with a lot of 24-hour businesses. Letting it be known that you're always open may make sense even if the overnight hours aren't always profitable.

I suspect it's true for diners, for instance, and New York bodegas. Insomniacs drinking coffee aren't paying the bills, but they'll come back for lunch or breakfast.

Bars also often seem to stay open as late as they legally can, even if it's just the bartender and the town drunk on a typical night.

> Letting it be known that you're always open may make sense even if the overnight hours aren't always profitable

Pharmacies too. People are more likely to fill their prescriptions at a place that never closes.

Even if it’s not profitable to be open, there’s always some work that can be assigned to take load off the day shift.

And if shelves are stocked overnight or deliveries are received at night, there were some people there anyway already.

I understand what a franchise is. McDonald's regularly changes its menu, removing items that do not perform. McDonald's franchise owners can run menu items in areas that make sense for them. Hours for McDonald's are set based on demand and largely up to the franchise owner.

There are many examples of franchises allowing flexibility within the brand while still adhering to the brand ideals.

It sounds like 7-11 corporate for JP is uncompromising to a fault and unwilling to meet owners halfway.

Talk to any McD's franchisee about all-day breakfast if you want a comparably "unpopular with franchisees" brand requirement.

I like the all day breakfast because it can be nice if I stayed up really late the night before and I'm getting "breakfast" at noon. I don't see the point of it past, like, 1 or 2 though.

The 24h mcd by me stops serving dinner at 2am, right when the drunks flood the lines and there are two people working the entire store. Possible reason right there.

Different franchises have different brand promises.

McDonald’s can maybe change its menu, and close at odd hours. They can’t, however, have their Big Macs taste different in Paris, London, or Riga. Nor can they remove the Big Mac from the menu outright, and serve only vegetarian spring rolls. That’s their brand promise, and they will not compromise on this.

If 7/11 has “we’re always open” as their brand promise, they will not compromise on it, even though they might be willing to meet owners halfway on other issues.

It’s not a great situation, especially for the poor guy pulling near-useless all-nighters. It seems understandable, though, why it’s happening.

>It sounds like 7-11 corporate for JP is uncompromising to a fault and unwilling to meet owners halfway.

The "meeting owners halfway" part is called a contract. Presumably, staying open 24 hours is part of that contract.

McDonalds has clean bathrooms? That's news to me.

Source: went for a wee in a McDo in Belgium last week, place was predictably disgusting.

They probably mean in Japan. Which to be quite honest was my experience while visiting for nearly a month two months ago. Bathrooms in general in Japan are very clean, and McDonald's is one of the great places with decent bathrooms to use there.

That would make sense, actually, thanks for clarifying that.

I don't want to cast aspersions on Belgium, but that's atypical. My experience is that wherever you are in the world, McDonald's is usually reliable for its food (you know what you're getting, even if you're not a huge fan of it) and its decent toilets.

(I admit there may be some residual rose-tinted-ness to my opinion here, after staying on a Greek island years ago; after days struggling with the idiosyncratic local toilets (stinking holes in the floor; dirty paper in a bin, not flushed) the clean porcelain throne in the McDonald's in the capital was like an oasis in the desert...)

Continuing on your Greek tangent, Greek pipes are generally not built to handle paper products, therefore you are supposed to throw it in a small trash bin, which may sound disgusting but they generally are rather airtight and you honestly don't smell anything if you use them properly. The alternative is clogging the pipes, which from my experience living in multiple Greek cities, happens a lot especially due to the influx of tourists who don't know any better and/or ignore any signage.

In my experience (in the mid-90s), Greek pipes weren't even built to handle an above-the-median #2. And while a wastepaper bin was standard-issue adjacent to tourist-frequented toilets, a decent plunger was not.

Which seems odd, given how cheap plungers are in comparison to service employees.

From my own observations and talking with lots of residents, plumbers would come unclog at the street level or somewhere inside the lower floors of multi-story buildings. Most people I asked said it happened pretty routinely, sometimes multiple times per month. I'm not sure a plunger would help much for a blockage 20+ meters away.

Really? I don't recall ever having used a clean McDo toilet. I can clearly recall filthy toilets in France, Belgium & the UK. I'm not sure where you frequent McDo, but it sounds to me like your experience is more atypical than mine.

To be fair, it's probably a while since I've been to a McDonald's toilet - I've not chosen to eat there for years.

Maybe I'll have to start frequenting them more and reviewing their toilets ;)

At least in the US, if I'm on the road and need to use the toilet I'll prefer to stop at mickey D's; I don't like the food so I'll often only buy a small order of fries but they're generally a very reliable bet as far as some of the most decent restrooms available.

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