Lessons From McDonald’s Clash With Older Koreans | Hacker News Reader

Lessons From McDonald’s Clash With Older Koreans

nytimes.com

35 pointsprotomyth50 comments

I can't help thinking that this problem would have been solved more amenably by hiring an overly eager teenager to relentlessly advertise to the lingering customers.

"Can I get you another coffee, ma'am? Would you like to try our french fries today, sir? How about something off of our value menu?"

If you throw a cop in my face, I'm more inclined to be stubborn, but nothing makes me want to vacate a place of business quite so much as an annoying salesman.

Brilliant.

Who said they didn't try that?

They likely didn't "throw a cop in their face". Instead what likely happened is after months of the behavior they instituted the time limit and they probably tried to enforce the time limit unsuccessfully over and over in many different ways. At that point the police are not an unreasonable option as you can easily find out by refusing to leave any place of business anywhere -- the police will be called on you regardless of who you are.

I'm drawn to this story because of my aging parents. This will become more of an issue, if not already, because of the aging baby boomers. It's important/beneficial for seniors to have a meeting place they will willingly go to.

At the opposite extreme, one thing I've noticed is that some cafes in London have differential pricing for take-out versus stay in. (I'm not sure if this is true in the rest of the UK)

As in, you pay a little more if you occupy a seat for some time. If you walk in and walk out, then you pay less.

On the other hand, McDonalds has kind of developed the reputation as a place where you can just stay and stay after buying something cheap. I've certainly bought a black coffee for $1 and sat there for a couple of hours with a book if I had time to pass, and no one seemed to care. But that was off peak hours and there was no demand for tables.

Not sure there's a perfect solution to this that will satisfy everyone.

"one thing I've noticed is that some cafes in London have differential pricing for take-out versus stay in"

I think the VAT levels are different - cold take away foods are zero rated.

It's common in Australia also, and GST applies to any prepared food or drink. Another common approach is takeaway only specials.

That is correct. You don't pay VAT on lots of take away food.

Ah, thanks for clarifying.

OT: Why on earth did they decide that double clicking should change the font size? Is the NYT a front for some kind of crazy UI study firm? IIRC, they used to pop-up things when you selected text.

Doesn't happen for me. Where are you double clicking? (I tried a few different spots.)

I can't get it to occur either.

I'm just click-reading the main text. FireFox 26 and Chrome 32 on Windows 7. I opened a new private tab to make sure it wasn't a plugin. It cycles through three font sizes. Doesn't happen in IE11.

Humph. Can't see it: " We hope you’ve enjoyed your 10 free articles this month. " (buy a subscription now)

I'm talking about nyt, not McDonalds vs Koreans...

Open in Chrome using incognito mode.

Use this bookmarklet and stop the page before it finishes reloading:

javascript:(function() %7Bvar s%3Ddocument.createElement(%27script%27)%3Bs.setAttribute(%27src%27,%27http://toys.euri.ca/nyt.js%27)%3Bdocument.getElementsByTagNa...

Search the headline in Google and click through with a google.com referrer.

Install readability in chrome then see it in a much more nicely presented manner

Funny, no one (other than NYT) suggested you buy a subscription. I don't usually hit the 10-article limit so I haven't bought one, but you'd think if you were reading their content often, it would've crossed your mind.

Or maybe you were complaining that there was a bug and you haven't actually reached your 10-article limit, but that's not how most people understood you.

In normal countries neighbourhoods have cafes where people go. In America they have McDonalds, and after sitting 20 minutes in there management calls the cops. There's an environment ripe for disruption. Disruption includes attitude of the locals, who will fight tooth and nail against any new establishment.

I've never been kicked out of a McDonald's for staying more than 20 minutes. The rule was likely created because large quantities of low- or non-paying people were inhabiting the space for long amounts of time, driving paying customers elsewhere. I don't blame the owners of this McDonald's for instituting a time limit, and I suspect that even if this happened in another country the business owner would likely do the same. I'm also sure McDonald's would welcome another entrant to "disrupt" the space and get them out of their establishment.

    >There's an environment ripe for disruption.

Being able to idle away hours while purchasing next to nothing without getting harassed and chased off was a problem "disrupted" long ago. The answer is parks, libraries, rec centers and for the right demographic retirement centers.

Both parks and libraries are not ideal year-round, especially for the elderly.

I agree that there has to be some sort of disruption, especially since the trend signals towards a lot more elderly and other people with idle time.

Maybe some civic-minded startup, NGO or other kind of nonprofit. I hope someone wealthy funds such ideas, I'm annoyed that at least in my country much of those services are hijacked by "churches" that are very opaquely run, but give people a sense of community and things to do. I hope for similar secular services (think televangelists).

Example (in Spanish):

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%A9ctor_An%C3%ADbal_Gim%C3%...

What is wrong with libraries?

Or VFW halls, Shriners/ELKs/etc halls, rotary clubs, bingo halls, the food court of a shopping mall. I'm not a religious person either but like you pointed out many churches provide space to solve this sort of problem. There actually are a lot of options, for those willing to compromise at least a little.

The seniors mentioned in the article live within TWO blocks of the McD.

I did see that. I read the first article too. What these seniors would require for an adequate "disruption" would be:

<= 2 blocks from home

Bathroom facilities

Enough room for tables and chairs to accommodate ~5-15 people

Free or close to it

Completely enclosed, some form of A/C preferred

All that in a high density/high land value urban area. Like the old song goes, something's gotta give.

You pointed out several good options actually :) . I want to see more of those in my country, some just don't exist (cultural differences), I don't know about that particular place (Queens).

You mean the libraries whose funding seems to be steadily under attack in the UK and US? And I don't know about your neck of the woods, but in mine green belts and public parks are under costant seige from "developers" who want to privatise them.

(That said, good luck to the GP's business disruption plan which will involve paying a lot of money for renting or owning real estate in the most expensive places on the planet, in order to let people who don't want to buy anything use it.)

Seniors are one of the most reliable demographics that turns out to vote[1]. If Libraries became an attractive meeting place for them they could probably exert enough pressure, particularly at the municipal level, to ensure libraries remain adequately budgeted.

[1] http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0399.p...

We have cafes and other neighborhood establishments here as well. But I appreciate that fact doesn't serve your sense of self-superiority.

Interesting that you think this. My father eats lunch at McDonalds pretty frequently, and tends to stay for a couple hours reading the paper or taking advantage of the free wifi. There are people who go in to use the free wifi and don’t buy anything; nobody bothers them.

When I was last in France, teenagers could often be found studying in McDonalds, because unlike the french cafes, they don’t get kicked out of McDonalds for buying some fries and a coke and then holding the table for a couple hours.

Personally, I have no fondness for McDonalds at all, but your claim that they have some sort of corporate policy of not letting people linger seems spurious to me.

It doesn't say whether it's a corporate policy, but it is in the first line of the article.

> The kerfuffle started when word spread that the police were repeatedly evicting elderly Korean patrons from a McDonald’s in Queens. The Koreans have been milking their stays over $1.09 coffees, violating the restaurant’s 20-minute dining limit.

That 20 minute policy is the source of the story. For years, that same franchise location did not have this policy in place. The coroporate parent does not have a uniform policy, it is up to the individual owners/franchisees. McD's parent company is familiar with the issue, however, as seen by the evolution of its architectural themes.

It's not a corporate policy. I've personally had hours-long study sessions at McDonalds restaurants with just a drink purchase.

The article also mentions a group of women taking up an 8-person sitting area for hours at a time, nursing a single $1 coffee. For a four hour visit, this averages ~$0.03/seat/hr in revenue. These customers aren't truly dining, they're just congregating under the pretext of dining (by buying the minimal amount possible). _This_ is the type of behavior that would drive an individual store into implementing a 20-minute dining limit. Chances are it's loosely enforced for actual dining customers, but provides the necessary pretext for booting these people when the lunch rush begins and actual dining customers need somewhere to dine. If customers come to eat and can't find anywhere to sit, they'll start going elsewhere for food and the store will see a noticeable decline in revenue.

While it sounds harsh, a restaurant is a business that makes money by selling food. The dining area is meant for dining. Systematically abusing it for congregating, while providing marginally little revenue, is going to result in limitations being erected to discourage such behavior. Coffee shops do the same thing with time limits on wifi, which is a limitation that works well to discourage their typical customer base. This crowd is just in it for the space, so the limitation invoked in this case is a time limit on the space itself.

Why the tone? I didn't comment on the ethics of the policy.

My apologies for any implied tone; it was unintentional. I used to manage a fast food restaurant (not McDonalds), so was attempting to explain the store's likely rational.

> It's not a corporate policy. I've personally had hours-long study sessions at McDonalds restaurants with just a drink purchase.

Just because it is not enforced where you are, does not mean it is not corporate policy. It can also depend on how busy the McDonalds is, I can imagine when it is after lunch, and the store is almost empty, they aren't going to kick anyone out.

> Just because it is not enforced where you are, does not mean it is not corporate policy.

While I don't have access to their corporate policies directly, at least one store owner has claimed he isn't aware of such a policy[1]:

   Roger Muselman, owner of successful McDonald’s       
   restaurants in Kewanee and Geneseo, 
   said he hasn’t heard about putting time limits on 
   customers and that it will never happen here.

[1] http://www.starcourier.com/article/20140124/NEWS/140129412

It must be a NY thing, the hard nosed business owner/manager.

it depends on the size and popularity of the specific store. In my city, they don't care if you are there all day, but when you get to the busier and smaller locations, they start to lose money because of people sitting around.

Would a café be any different? A busy café needs to keep patrons moving through, same as any McDonalds.

In my experience cafes are usually happy for you to stay for hours if they are quiet. I've never tried in a busy cafe, because spending hours in a busy cafe doesn't appeal to me.

From the article:

>There are scores of fast-food outlets, bakeries and cafes near Main Street, a half-mile away.

Too busy feeling smug to read the god damn article?

> There's an environment ripe for disruption.

Hah, good luck with a business in which your plan is to allow people to linger for hours after a $1 purchase. Cafés tolerate lingering only as long as you regularly purchase a worthwhile amount of their product (ie. buy a $5 coffee every day, maybe a sandwich and pastry, etc...).

Furthermore, McDonald's restaurants are franchises, which means each location has a different owner, usually someone who's clawed their way into the middle class and saved up some money to start a business. Not the corporate fat-cats that no doubt come to mind when thinking of McDonald's. It's not like a location with adequate seating and business can make up lost revenues for another location.

>usually someone who's clawed their way into the middle class and saved up some money to start a business

I'm not sure about that. From quick research, it looks like they generally require about $750,000 in liquid assets to open a franchise.

That's a bit more than clawing your way into the middle class.

Also, most of the McDonald's I've been too, (and I pay attention to this) are part of a multi-store franchise.

While $750,000 is a lot of money, it's still middle class, and generally (around here anyway) restaurant franchise owners are those who are upwardly mobile, as opposed to educated and already in the upper classes of society.

And yes, those who open one franchise successfully are likely to open more. However where I live, about half the McDonald's restaurants I used to visit as a kid are now Chinese and Indian restaurants...

>While $750,000 is a lot of money, it's still middle class

Many sociologists consider anyone with a net worth of more than $1,000,000 rich (someone with $750k in cash likely has a net worth north of a million). Granted, that number is somewhat arbitrary and it depends on where you live.

Your original description of the average McDonald's owner was of someone who clawed his way into the middle class. Implying that he started out poor and saved up until he could afford to buy a business. This may (or may not) be true of other less expensive franchises, but based on the available evidence, I'd wager that a very small percentage of McDonald's owners fit this description.

we have cafes too. the quaint kind, with the little chairs, rickety metal-and-teak folding tables, and the snooty baristas with tattoos and piercings or neat white aprons.

the reason this is making the news is because it's extraordinary, not because it's ordinary. people don't hang out at mcdonalds.

you are concluding exactly the opposite of what common sense would dictate, probably because you haven't actually thought about what you are thinking. this is called a logical fallacy.

in fact, why am i even explaining this to you... if you're so world wise and savvy, i'm sure you've been to new york to see for yourself.

Is access to Nytimes mandatory? it is blocked from my country and when I enacted vpn I hit a paywall.

If you clear your cache of their cookies, it should let you in.

If that doesn't work, use these 5 other ways:

http://betabeat.com/2013/02/5-ways-you-can-still-get-around-...

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