McDonald’s Seeks Its Fast-Food Soul | Hacker News Reader

McDonald’s Seeks Its Fast-Food Soul

nytimes.com

75 pointsdap48 comments

I spent five years working for McDonald's, and I'll say that I've never worked for a company before or since that was so easily distracted and unfocused. The general philosophy from head office seemed to be "everything is always a priority all the time". There was never any sense of what truly mattered, and there wasn't a clear vision for the future of the company.

I'd speculate the reason for this is that when you're insulated by the sheer volume of money that McDonald's was back in the 80's and early 90's, you're effectively living in a world without scarcity. As a company, they've never really been forced to make difficult choices, and haven't developed the ability to do so. Instead, they just choose everything, and hope that if they throw enough mud maybe some of it will stick.

The bit on wait times is really interesting. I don't go to McDonald's very often--maybe four or five times a year--but I've noticed that a lot of their restaurants don't have good ways to handle customers waiting for their food, which leads to people awkwardly hanging around the registers and makes it unclear when the next customer should step up, etc. It also seems to vary from franchise to franchise: is there a Starbucks-style place to pick up your orders, or do you have to stand right by the place where they took your order?

I think Five Guys handles the situation more like a pizza or Chinese restaurant: they take your name or give you a number and call you up when your food is ready. And at Chipotle or Subway and a lot of newer fast food places, they just shepherd you through the process until you pay and eat.

I wonder if McDonald's "linger-around-the-register" system is a relic of when they could turn meals around quicker.

Also, their restaurants just seem less well-maintained than those of their newer competitors--maybe because the same number of employees now spend more time prepping food and less time cleaning and changing flickering fluorescent bulbs--and the seating areas are that much less pleasant.

That has to mean a decent amount of lost business: people who will happily join business colleagues for a quick lunch at Chipotle probably wouldn't suggest McDonald's, families don't want to relax on the way home from wherever at a place with ketchup smeared all over the tables, and their periodic pushes into "treat yourself" coffee drinks and desserts are hard to take seriously when the restaurants just aren't pleasant to be in.

This is really interesting to me, I live in Australia and on a recent visit to the USA I noticed exactly the things you comment on at McDonalds, however in every other country in the world I've been to McDonald's is the place to head to if you want somewhere to sit down for free and a clean toilet.

In Australia I live across the road from a McDonald's so I admit I go a little too often for my own good, however they have implemented a number system so you give your order and they hand you a receipt with a number on it. When your food is ready your number appears on a TV screen above the collection area.

Pure speculation: Perhaps what's happening is that McDonald's hasn't noticed a significant enough drop in business when leaving these items untended in the USA, but the drop is more significant in the rest of the world and hence solves the problems you list.

I think McDonalds also targets different people in different countries. In Chile you will mostly see McDonald's in wealthy areas and shopping malls and the price it is not exactly a cheap meal for a regular Chilean. The restaurant are usually cleaner than in the US (in my limited experience). In the US you target a different audience, for example you can see homeless people eating at McDonald, you are never going to see that in Chile.

That's a good point--and probably another challenge for McDonald's in the US.

In a lot of cities, McDonald's is probably one of the easiest places for homeless people to come for cheap food (the 99 cent menu), shelter and toilets.

In some places, it's also a de facto senior center for similar reasons: "They were drawn there by proximity and price, and they have stayed for the companionship" according to http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/29/arts/design/lessons-from-m...

But that can't make it easy for the chain to target a more upscale market.

Starbucks, Chipotle, Five Guys and the rest probably don't have this problem to the same extent, because they don't really sell anything you can buy with spare change.

Maybe I've just had incredible luck at the locations I've been to ( West Coast & Mountain states in the USA ), but my experience has been much different.

McDonalds seem to be remodeling their dining areas - most of the locations I've been to in the past 2 years have been updated to feel closer to a 'Starbucks' atmosphere than a 'fast food' one.

As far as the queueing - even before the remodels, they've printed a customer number on your receipt and call out your number when your food is ready. If it isn't busy, the person at the register just brings your food to you instead.

I think for 'to go' orders made inside at the register - whether you're at Five Guys, In N Out, or McDonalds, people will stand around waiting for their food. If you go during a main meal rush, there might be some confusion - but everyone standing around waiting for their food is usually polite enough to answer the question "are you in line?" with "Oh, I already ordered. Go right ahead." or "The line for ordering is over there."

I work remotely - the remodeled McDonalds are pleasant and clean enough of an environment that I'll go there to work if I'm having connectivity issues at home.

Also worth noting is that the remodeled McD's have free wifi and premium coffee & espresso drinks, and the ones around me also have had electric car charging stations added.

When I was growing up, it was typical for your order to be fulfilled absurdly fast. Almost by the time the cashier finished making change the tray would be ready with your order.

Their just still built around that model and never figured out what to do for those waiting. It's a constant problem at other fast food places as well. Taco bell, chickfila etc.

In India, McD is "Luxury-cool-young" food. It has to be seen to be believed, the amount of young people that flock McDs here. The food is neither cheap nor expensive. They have some unique variations - grilled Paneer (ala Haloumi) sandwich, etc. And the service is fast-ish but not under-a-minute fast.

And they are pushing the service norms for the better. For an outsider and an Indian alike, their trained-earnestness may come off gimmicky but the core lessons are good in a country where service can use many doses of improvement.

Vending machines. Seriously.

McDonald's core products are so assembly-line friendly that there's no need for human hands. Every office multiplex should have a machine that spits out Big Macs, McD's fries, and Cokes - one of the greatest flavor combinations ever concocted.

The problem with vending machines is the intake of fresh food. Do you really want to eat a five month old thing of mcdonalds fries?

When I was in college, there was an A&W machine on campus that dispensed hamburgers, fries, pizza, etc.

I don't know if it's even actually the case but I assume it stored the food frozen then microwaved it when you ordered it.

It wasn't the best food in the world, but it was quite edible (although it kept burning the pizza.)

Vending machine with freezer, automated deep fryer, flattop, etc. Basically a robotic McD's in a box.

I would love to work on that problem. Maybe I should apply to YC with it...

McDonald's has a technology group that already works on problems like these. Look for patents under McD's holding company "Restraurant Technology, Inc."

https://www.google.com/?tbm=pts&gws_rd=ssl#tbm=pts&q=inassig...

(My favorite? US Design Patent #D277,235: The McRib.)

McDonald's likes to come up with these solutions and then license the patents to the OEMs that actually produce the equipment. I've worked for some of these OEMs in the past and McDs drives new ideas downward just as often as the OEMs drive new things upward. But it doesn't mean those ideas are always economically or even technically feasible when deployed to 30,000 stores...some in very remote locations.

If McDonald's had a way to start moving more into fully robotic prep-and-assembly (more than they already are), then you would see it in the stores. It's still too expensive and too fragile. Humans are more versatile and cheaper.

I think you should! This is actually quite common (although not by McDonalds) where I live, in Amsterdam:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Distributeurs-febo.jp...

At least for fries, this is apparently about to be rolled out across Australia by a company unrelated to McDonald's: "You put your money in and it goes from frozen to the fryer and in your cup within two minutes and 20 seconds," Mr Bendotti said.[1] It's been tried before though.[2]

I imagine it could be very successful around nightclubs where people might want to eat something greasy on their way home without really thinking about it, but I find it disheartening to see an Australian innovator trying to capitalise on something as unhealthy as the consumption of fries by the general population given the national obesity epidemic.[3]

[1] http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-01-28/chip-vending-machine/6...

[2] http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-01-29/sach-hot-chip-vending-...

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity_in_Australia

I'll take a bottle of Soylent from a vending machine any day over McDonalds, whether from a vending machine or a traditional retail outlet.

I would imagine if they ever get their supply levels up, someone will try to make a Soylent machine. They could even do the "flavor additive" thing from the new Coke dispensers.

I asked Rob on twitter a while ago if they'd ever do cans for vending machines, and they said its on their roadmap.

That's not a half bad idea. Perhaps fast and slow lines

The difficulty they are having suggests that their "loyalists" aren't simply identified by locale or financial status, if that was the case then maybe you spin up a new brand to cater to the wealthier folks or something, it seems like people of all backgrounds and statuses like them in some capacity. That is interesting to me.

This is one of those ideas that makes complete sense on paper but would never fly in real life.

I'm sure even for crap fast food customers attach value to the fact that their food is prepared by humans as a sort of quality assurance.

There's bound to be people out there (other than me) that hate dealing with other humans - let alone other humans who barely understand the language you speak, have bad hearing and work in a noisy environment.

The machines would be more expensive to buy and maintain than minimum wage workers.

The people in this article that are still in charge of McDonald's are clueless, which gives me no faith in a turnaround from McDonalds. Everyone complains about the wait time (3 min is too long), but no ones brings up the fact that people routinely wait 15+ minutes for Chipotle. The problem is not time or price, it's quality. Give food people are willing to wait for. Anyone who has ordered any of McDonald's so-called premium burgers will tell that it's the same flavorless hamburger patty found in their other burgers just served in a different bun. Not worth the wait, or the price.

IMO, the drive-through was the double edged sword that ultimately brought down McDonald's. People in cars don't want to wait. Speeding up production lead to lower quality. You already saw it happen with Starbucks. These articles always reference Chipotle, and I hope Chipotle never has drive-through.

As for a solution, I never understood why McDonald's the company is required to operate McDonald's the restaurant. Instead of turning McDonalds into Chipotle and Starbucks, just create a new restaurant that more directly competes. Change McDonald's restaurants to focus on core products, and offer wraps and burritos in some other venue. Buy that company if you have to.

McDonald's was a relatively early (1998) and significant investor in Chipotle.

They sold their stake after the Chipotle IPO, fully exiting the position in 2008, netting about $1.2 billion.

(I remembered the investment but cribbed the details from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chipotle_Mexican_Grill )

"The problem is not time or price, it's quality."

When you make that assessment, you have to remember that you probably live in a bubble. You're probably in tech, and you probably make over 100k a year, or are pretty close. To you, a few extra dollars doesn't matter, so you want better quality. Since you're probably salaried, a few extra minutes doesn't matter either. Every time I go to a Chipotle on lunch, its easily 80-90 office workers.

I think the problem is the economy is splitting really aggressively. The middle ground doesn't exist any more. Either you're relatively well off, or you're sharing shitty hours with a group of other minimum wage workers, and the idea of spending a few more dollars for lunch isn't an easy option.

So to me the problem is, the only way to grow is to target the more wealthy individuals. Except they never have, so they don't have the mindset to do it, and their established brand is also working against them.

Terrible, tasteless food largely marketed to children, ugly plastic interior, that's the image they worked so hard to acquire all these years, isn't it?

You can't just reverse decades of marketing and customer experience by altering the interior a bit and offering salads.

McDonalds and Burger King will always be bottom-rung establishments in my mind.

At least Burger King has veggie burgers! I mean, come on McD's!

They've been long overdue for an overhaul.

Remember when Ford kept saying, "Quality is Job #1" yet nothing they did seem to reflect that? It seems to be just like that.

Yeah it sucks that they became and still are the fast food scapegoat, but it really should have been a wake-up call for them

As a customer, I think that Carl's Jr (aka Hardies?) has done a much better job at being what McDonald's is talking about.

They seem to have better tasting burgers, and offer their Thickburger, as well as a Natural burger (with actual cheese). I've never noticed an excessive wait, and appreciate that they'll "low-carb style" pretty much anything on the menu.

Through all the industrialization of McD's through the 90's they lost me... I think they could very well turn things around by just reverting to more of their core menu... toasting at least the buns to order, and not trying to be everything to everyone. They mention the McMuffin is real/whole eggs.. but don't mention that the pancakes are pre-cooked, and the scrambled/folded eggs come from a pre-mixed carton. Hell, they could go back to the 70's standards and they'd probably do better... In-And-Out kicks their ass with a product lineup that pretty much mirrors what McD's started out with.

And if you don't want a burger, Arby's has quite good deli sandwiches if you're in a pinch. Very salty meat, but excellent bread and fresh toppings.

McDonald's did get better, and did get menu focus. The problem is that all those franchises aren't part of the McDonald's franchise system and are called In-n-Out Burger.

Except for the prices, the menu at an In-n-out [1] looks alarming like the original McDonald's menu [2]

1 - https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5349/7048945907_6890107167_o....

2 - http://s.hswstatic.com/gif/5-failed-mcdonalds-menu-items-6.j...

when McD's kept their focus, they grew. Here's their menu from 1972, some 30+ years after they started http://cdn.iwastesomuchtime.com/5112014023433.jpg

I can't even find where the beverages are on a modern McD's menu these days.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/dougalug2005/3176399858/

In-N-Out's branding [3] even looks like McDonald's 1960s logo [4]

3 - http://typophile.com/files/In-N-Out_Burger_6481.png

4 - http://goodlogo.com/images/logos/mcdonalds_logo_2465.gif

Importantly, the food, when served [5], carries branding and colors through to the product, which looks pretty much like what the marketing pictures of the food looks like [6]

5 - http://soupbelly.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/DSC_0324_thu...

6 - http://www.wpromote.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/in-n...

Adding in a relentless focus on quality and most of the In-N-Out burgers I've been to have been packed with customers.

McDonald's is trapped in serving a market that grew up with their product. Their burgers are more or less the same as the ones I remember when I grew up. They keep adding halo items to the menu, but the burgers haven't kept up with the times and growing competitive market. They're also trying to keep prices artificially low, you can still walk in and get a burger for around $1.

Mcdonald's needs to figure out how to adopt and mimic the In-N-Out model as much as In-N-Out was inspired by the McDonald's model.

I can't even find where the beverages are on a modern McD's menu these days.

You could argue that this is a "dark pattern", by hiding the other beverage choices in the corners of the menu along with other things like the dollar menu (note in image 2C that there isn't even a "$1.00" next to the Dollar Menu items to let you see that as a pricing choice).

The larger value menu items are where they want your eye to focus, although I suspect that's also for ordering speed as much as product flow.

I can't even find where the beverages are on a modern McD's menu these days.

I find most fast-food menus terrible, often for this reason. Mostly I just keep in mind what I've ordered in the past, plus whatever I might have heard or seen advertised in the last two days, and choose one or two items from that set.

I think the reason is that most fast food menus have little integrity. They try to be all things. In-n-Out is an exception to this, as is Chipotle. If I'm here, it must be because I want one of these honking giant burritos. I don't need to look at a menu to decide between chicken and carnitas in that burrito. If I wanted a coffee with lots of sugar and dairy added, I would go to a place that specialized in such concoctions, thanks!

A fast food restaurant with integrity is legible to the diner; there won't be any surprises after one has eaten there a couple of times. The API is simple. McDonald's OTOH has a complicated API.

> If I wanted a coffee with lots of sugar and dairy added, > I would go to a place that specialized in such > concoctions, thanks!

I don't necessarily disagree, but would you kill a $2B/yr product?

In 2010, McDonald’s CEO Don Thompson said coffee accounted for more than 6% of its U.S. sales. That share may since have increased, but even 6% of the chain’s 2013 domestic sales would be $2.15 billion.

Haha you're right of course. I'm not saying the illegible garish mess that McD's has for a menu is the wrong thing for them, but I do see why more footprint-growth-focused chains don't have that.

You mean you dont like reading menu screens that abruptly replace the items on the screen with a video promotional half-way through deciding what to order?

Where do you find a menu? Most stores I've been too (mainly Europe) just have screens above the cashiers with a few key meals and that's it. Some have a menu of all items stuck to the wall, about the size of an A4 sheet on one side of the cashiers.

Is there any reason to believe that any of this matters to McDonald's?

Like, how do their head to head locations compare on revenue and profitability? If In and Out isn't consistently beating McDonald's on measures like that, all you've done is explain that you find In and Out more appealing.

No idea. In-n-Out is a private company and don't report official figures.

That doesn't jibe very well with Mcdonald's needs to figure out how to adopt and mimic the In-N-Out model as much as In-N-Out was inspired by the McDonald's model.

I , in the UK, actually like the taste of a McDonald’s cheeseburger, fries and maybe even some nuggets. It's generally a cheap and easy meal and most locations are quick. What I don't understand is the idea that McDonald’s is supposed to continue to grow. It's everywhere. We know what it is. We actually quite like it. But if we eat it more, we'll likely start to die off at a rate that's going to decrease their profits anyway.

All in all, the alarmist attitude of management might just be their downfall.

A few years ago I discovered the McDonald's value menu. It was a great option on days when I was too busy to sit down for a meal--just really fast, cheap, and decent enough quality.

I rarely see the value meal mentioned in articles about McDonalds' business. I don't know if it's because it's not very popular or if the profit margins are lower or what.

Statistically insignificant anecdotal observations from Australia:

When they moved to "cook on demand" I stopped going anywhere near as often. Now instead of having my burger fries and coke 30 seconds after parting with my money I'm often standing around 3, 4, even 5 minutes waiting.

The burgers are less consistent now, often the filling is half out of the bread. The cheese is no longer melted by spending some time in the warmer waiting to be ordered.

If you can't nail fast, and you can't nail consistent... what's left? Mediocre products of wildly varying quality.

As a final observation: I never get take-away. It's always eat-in. The staff ask "eat in or take away?" and I answer them. Perhaps 20% of the time my food is given to me on a tray, usually they just forget(?) and give it to me in a bag like take-away.

Two things about McDonalds highlight the problem with the company: they feel the need to tell you that burgers are in fact made out of beef, and you can't get breakfast after 10AM.

In the mid-80s, when I was in elementary school and was the prototypical kid hassling my parents to go to McDonalds, people actually flipped burgers, shook some salt and garlic powder on them and put it on a toasted bun. It was hot, greasy and delicious.

Now, a McDonalds burger is some sort of steamed monstrosity. It isn't greasy, tastes engineered, and is usually cold upon delivery.

Cooking a 5mm thick burger on a grill is not rocket science, and every greasy spoon on the planet can successfully put together an egg sandwich 24x7. Get back to the basics and cook some food.

it's 10:30 In most places. The only thing I really eat at McDonald's is the egg mcmuffin. Actually, for whatever reason, they are the only ones to get the simple breakfast sandwich right. At one McDonald's I went to, they start serving breakfast at midnight(not sure if this is a decent thing), which was amazing and I ordered an egg mcmufffin and a cheeseburger, transplanted the patty and had a great midnight sandwich.

McDonald's breakfast is the best food they have. Seriously. They should just get rid of everything else and serve breakfast 24/7.

Kevin Rose recently interviewed Jamie Oliver and he had made a good point where he talked about McDonalds in England and France using organic milk, free range eggs, and "good pork, good beef" because of the pressure there.

Seems like the consumers will have to be the door-to-door missionaries helping international McDonald's to find their soul…

http://youtu.be/VMj98OncYW4?t=52m15s

McDonald's UK talking about it. http://www.mcdonalds.co.uk/ukhome/whatmakesmcdonalds/questio...

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