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Comment by brandonmenc | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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.

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

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

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.

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