it was a franchise choice for that community. not to defend mcdonalds, but this happens, just not usually by genocidal groups.
"In regard to the news that McDonald's in Israel was donating meals. We affirm that it was an individual decision on their part," McDonald's franchise in Saudi Arabia said in a statement. "Neither global McDonald's nor us nor any other country had a role or relationship with that decision, neither directly nor indirectly."
McDonald’s is a global chain but its franchises are often owned locally and operate autonomously.
McDonald's Corp declined to comment but a source close to the company in the U.S. said the Israel franchise was an independent business that licensed McDonald's brand. The source said it’s not unusual for franchisees to engage with their local communities when they are in need.
Honestly? I don’t care if it was just a local franchise. Corporate HQ can force local franchises to stop this if they want to stay open.
Plus, the food is shit. There are better places to eat.
Wanna say they’re $2.79 where I’m at. I know for sure they were just under $3
Yep fuck that.
2 for $1.
And egg McMuffins and sausage muffins should be <$3.00.
And the sausage burritos should be 2 for $1.
McDonald's trying to act like they're a restaurant and not a fucking logistics company. The market rate of a potato doesn't affect the price of French fries at McDonald's when they legitimately own the rights to the only brand of potato that is used to make McDonald's French fries.
Any company that is known by all doesn't do what the average person thinks they do.
McDonalds? Logistics company
CocaCola? Logistics company
Ups? Logistics company
Starbucks? Logistics company
Miller/Coors? Logistics company
Shaw's? Logistics company
W.B mason? Logistics company
Exxon Mobile? Logistics company
Amazon? Logistics company
The price of sugar doesn't affect Coca-Cola. The price of wheat doesn't affect millercoors. The price of lumber doesn't affect wb mason. The price of gasoline doesn't affect ups. The price of coffee doesn't affect Starbucks. The price of beef, potatoes, and dairy doesn't affect McDonald's. The price of oil (barely) doesn't affect Exxon Mobile.
These are the fucks that pull the levers. Not the farmers. Not the lumberjacks. Not the oil refiners.
I keep hearing that McDonald's is actually a real estate company
That’s Sears.
The market rate of a potato doesn't affect the price of French fries at McDonald's when they legitimately own the rights to the only brand of potato that is used to make McDonald's French fries.
McDonald’s certainly has enormous buying power. I do imagine widespread drought or something would impact their bottom line by some pennies if it were severe enough. Anyway, I read:
The Dakota Russet is one of eight varieties accepted [by McDonald’s] in North America. The most recent additions to the McDonald’s North American varieties were in 2016.
Don’t see that one online but other varieties appear popular.
PROCESS FOR PREPARING FROZEN FRENCH FRY POTATO SEGMENTS
(Other patents: methods of preparing / cooking food; packaging; equipment used in cooking food.)
$2.79, before taxes. Don't forget these are US companies. And any charges outside the US have likely already been taxed locally, before international tax was applied.
Don't ever assume the US gov is paying you fairly. Taxes are only an excuse for them to make even more money by manipulating the rules.
$2.50 Cones were my breaking point. The tourist trap general store next to me does a decent waffle cone for $4.
Jesus, I can't find a cone near me for less than $6.
I miss cheap fast food. Feels like it will never come back anywhere.
Hole-in-the-wall ethnic food shops/take out are the way. If you want 'murican fast food, you gotta break the bank... but find a little family owned taqueria that does their shit right and you can stuff your face with the best tacos you've ever eaten for like $3. Highly dependent on your local options ofc, so keep an eye out.
In my experience, the sketchier the restaurant looks, the better the food is.
If a restaurant looks shady and stays in business, it's either a front or the food is delicious.
And if it's a front the food might still be awesome because it's some rando doing their home cooking to cosplay as a restaurant worker
Yeah the fronts specifically want to pay for halfway plausible quality ingredients to mask their income.
Does this pretty much imply that if it looks shady and stays in business, but the food is shite, then then business is a front for money laundering or other criminal activities? Because there is this absolutely trash Mexican place near where I live and it's always dead (no business) and the food is suspiciously bad like "the refried beans are dry and look like they've been sitting out for days" kind of bad. And this place has been "in business" for like 15 years.
It could also be a hobby business to keep someone's spouse/family busy and out of the house.
There's a Bosnian place right next to an amazing Mexican place we like to go to. The Bosnian place always has people coming and going, but never staying for more than 5 minutes, and never walking out with food in hand. I'm pretty sure it's a front.
Yes. Otherwise there wouldn't be any point in keeping it open.
Restaurants have notoriously thin margins, so to stay in business 15 years, something shady is happening most likely.
Bonus points if the menu is at least half in another language
I was amazed to find out the chicken place I order from looked nice (for a sketchy hole in the wall ethnic food place). $30 CAD for two or three days worth of INCREDIBLY good chicken and fries
Like seriously, it was dying mall food court sketchy when I expected, "...You killed the health inspector with a pan to the head didn't you?" sketchy
In Louisiana some of the best fried chicken and other Cajun food is in gas stations. Not even joking. It’s usually small towns, but there are some around NOLA and other cities, too.
Best fried chiicken i ever had was at a gas station in the middle of nowhere off ther interstate in Mississippi.
One of my best fried chicken experiences was a $5 fried chicken buffet somewhere in rural Kentucky near Lincoln’s birth home.
Those breaded skewers with chicken/pickle/onion/potato you can get at roadside stations down in the MS delta area are absolutely incredible and I love them. Any time I'm passing through there I have to find some.
Bag of Dick's burgers are the only way to go in Seattle.
What is Dick's charging these days? My local equivalent burger joint has a double with fries for just over $8. Easily the best I can do around here.
$8.10. Their advertised base wage ($21/hr) must be lower than their actual base wage. I saw a posted at location janitorial position with a $23/hr start.
$5.30 for a deluxe, $2.80 for fries.
Dick's and a taco truck in the same area ($2.50/taco) are my go to cheap but delicious lunch options.
I wish we had those around here. Even the hole-in-the wall Indian places start their plates at like $12. It's absurd.
All the local taco places near me are like 10 bucks for 2 tacos
You reminded me of a dumb song by a little known christian singer from the 70s and 80s that my dad liked.
We played this song on repeat as kids because there was a giant belch in it.
You absolutely can get great American food from a hole in the wall. Also, I’m not sure why you had to say ‘murican as if our food has something wrong with it. Just a weird flex. I’m lucky to live in a city with a plethora of food trucks all around and you can get pretty much any kinda cuisine for cheaper than fast food joints.
'murican ... weird flex.
...flex?
Cheap food is still out there, but it's not corporate food.
Corporations put profit above all, which is anathema to how every successful chain became successful. Whatever mechanism they had to stresamline production, negotiate with vendors, push addition products (would you like fries with that?), their primary goal was always consistency and value. You know what to expect, and it's worth the money.
You'll find that now in local diners, in food trucks, in cafes, and in small restaurants where they value good food over profit, but you won't find it at most chain restaurants.
Food trucks are hit or miss. The food can be OK but the ones here tend to be very overpriced for the quality.
Someone else mentioned ethnic places which have become my go to for good, cheap food. There's a gyro place near me where you can get a gyro and fries for like $7. It takes 5 minutes and the food is fresh.
BBQ trucks tend to be way overpriced in my experience. But that may be biased because I make damn good BBQ. I have friends that ask me to make food for their birthday parties, diaper parties, bachelor parties etc. paying $12-15 for a sloppy mess of a pulled pork sandwich with no taste other than the sauce is absolutely unacceptable. That being said, I'm far enough away from any BBQ "hub" that nobody here knows what good BBQ is.
Taco Bell still has $1.25 bean and rice burritos where I live. It’s like 400 calories so it’s a pretty good deal.
Not here! The burritos at Taco Bell here are outrageous. A single bean burrito is 4.50CAD. The 7-layer? 8 BUCKS. The Grilled Cheesy? Fuck you, over ten dollars for a single burrito. A burrito that isn't heated right, has all the ingredients separated into disgusting pockets of single ingredient, and makes you feel terrible after eating them.
And mind you, these aren't even combos. This is just one burrito.
UK Taco Bell is somehow worse.
They seem to be trying to trade on the novelty/name, because there is no chance I'm paying £8 for a taco the size of a hamburger.
Taco Bell is my goto for cheap fast food
They aren't even cheap anymore, damn near $2+ basic bitch tacos. I can go elsewhere and get a street taco (with multiple meat options) for a buck that's actually flavorful and warmer than room-temp, and that's in fucking Ohio
I assume you are North American, look for small ethnic food shops. You will find better food at a cheaper price.
Notice they are too embarrassed to post their prices online. To see the price, you have to put the item in the cart then use some bs 3rd party app. WTF McDs?
"If you have to ask the price, then you can't afford it" happening in a McDonald's, while people are out here financing a pizza from Dominos. It's like we lost the Cold War.
That's too insanely dystopian for anybody in sci-fi to have predicted it.
The closest would be Demolition Man having Taco Bell (or Pizza Hut) as fancy dining. But they imagined the chain upping its game when it gained monopoly. How naive.
That’s how they charge different prices based on region.
Taco Bell does this too, because their prices are so ridiculous now.
Warning! This definitely reads like a taco bell add but I just really appreciate taco bell for having food for vegans and not price gouging like the rest did.
Hard disagree, if you learn what to order and how to customize your food.
Fat ass burritos for 3.50 are not a bad deal imo, and I regularly make my own burritos at home.
They have some trap items to avoid for sure, but the staples are still cheap. Hard shell and soft shell, rice and bean burritos, nacho fries are sort of in the middle price wise, etc.
They are the easiest place for me to make a vegan order from hands down, they actually label shit on their order tablets. They have some freebies that are totally worth it some people never find out about because they order at the speaker exclusively. Fresco replaces cheese and dairy with a pico de gallo, you can toast most regular burritos, and even though its extra you can add nearly anything into anything for super cheap.
Im actually not sure if I'm scamming them somehow because choosing their cheapest items and modifying is always cheaper than buying the same thing but premade. Not in any rush to ask about it either.
No, they absolutely price gouge. A 7-layer burrito here is 8 bucks before tax, just the burrito alone. They don't have anything that's actually cheap here in Canada, and I can get much better for the same price. Their "vegan" options here are also basically just their regular burritos with beans, and are just as ridiculously overpriced. It's bottom-tier garbage food at way-too-high prices for what you get.
What is Canada doing to make taco bell so expensive. I'll have to check next time I go, I know some of their menu items are poorly priced for sure but I just avoid them. 8$ for a burrito I'd be shocked to see at my local one though.
I wish I had a better answer than just "pure and unchecked greed", but that's what's most likely. They can't even be considered the "cheap" option anymore and the quality isn't any better to make up for the increased prices.
Well at least burritos and tacos are stupid easy to make. I make a bean and rice and tomatoes mix in rice cooker all together. But yeah thats a bummer taco bell is awful near you, they've been great for me especially with the vegan friendly menu. Is it possible its only cheap if you avoid meat and dairy? Maybe thats the trick.
The vegan friendly stuff is the same price as their beef equivalents here. Taco Bell in Canada is obnoxious.
Honestly, I’m amazed people still go there to eat. The food was never really good, but at least it used to be fast and cheap. But these days, it’s neither anymore. McDonald’s is now more expensive than the gourmet burger places in my city; that feels insane.
It always takes a year or two for the business to really feel it. First, it takes consumers awhile to visit and realize the prices are so high. Most people aren't going to McDonald's every week. And sometimes it takes a few visits before they really notice the sting.
Eventually, the place just gets a reputation for being pricey, and people slowly stop going. But it's a frog in a boiling pot thing, and of course the executives search for any other reason besides their own pricing decisions from 18 months ago.
Have you ever noticed in those surveys they always ask "what can we do better?" And the answers usually don't include "be cheaper".
I remember them being $1 each and it was the fastest/easiest way for me to get some protein in a pinch.
Then they were like 2 for $3, which was still OK.
But $5 is insane.
They were literally a dollar in 2013. Used to get em all the time
Is that person rounding or are mcdoubles really 5$ a piece now?
$4.69 where I am. I had to look it up.
Absurd. Reminds me of checking cigarette prices after quitting back in 2014.
"Dollar Menu", feels like a long lost dream
At that price, Five Guys.
At once?
In your mouth and filling your belly.
It depends on how many holes you've got, but with a little creativity I'm sure you all can manage.
5x the protein shots
from where im at, five guys is an easy $20-25/meal, burgers starting around $10-12 before fries & drink. rather find a bbq place and get pulled pork and mashed potatoes.
Didnt five guys double their prices? I understand they CAN make good burgers, although they won't cook them to the right temperature for me (back when I did eat meat) for safety reasons, but is it worth it?
I'm so glad that I live in a big city, where there are hundreds of awesome small burger joints that sell better quality burgers at a much lower price.
Must be nice...
I wish this was a thing. There's maybe one place but it's not even in the same ballpark.
Yeah where I live there's a burger urge. Sells shitty burgers for like 30 dollars AUD
My nearest burger joint is locally owned and charges $11.75 for a single burger and $12.75 for a double. The fries are $3.50.
Bullshit on the "much lower price". Give some examples.
I'd argue people don't buy at McDonalds because their burgers are awesome. Their burgers are average at best. You can definitely get a much better meal with the price of a McD meal.
McDonald's whole niche is "cheap but edible", the second you remove cheap from that equation the value proposition is gone.
They saw what Pepsi was doing with Frito-lay and figured why not?
$11 for a 12 pack of sprite where I live. No. Fucking. Thanks.
Damn, they charging that much for future diabetes these days??
Right?
Europe cuts back on sweets because of a sugar tax.
America cuts back on sweets because of corporate greed.
We are not the same.
Oh wow.... Increased prices resulted in people going else where.... Who would have seen that coming 🤔
I mean, you're half right. Yeah, it's gotten expensive, but it's now expensive for McDonald's-quality food. It's not the worst of the worst, but you can easily find better quality food cheaper.
When fast food is as much or more than grocery store sushi, fuck it, I'll park the car and go grab some fish.
the only fast food that didnt go stupid during covid in my area ... quality, price or service... seemed to be five guys
i think its the simple menu plus it was already quite expensive, and so i assume they are paying a fair wage to keep good people.
Five guys already had astronomical prices.
i could have sworn i said exactly that
Yeah but you put a "please stop reading now" gap before your first line, and the one where you said they were already expensive.
I know I'm being a bit tongue in cheek, but I had to reply because I literally did the same thing your replier did. I read your first line, and my immediate thought was "wait, aren't they already expensive?" And I felt compelled to stop reading and immediately see if any replies confirmed that. And then I saw YOUR reply saying you already said they were expensive, and I had to go back to read the second half of your comment.
So yeah, not really my proudest moment, or a good sign for how the Internet is affecting attention spans... But I think that's what happened.
(If I can make ANY defence for myself and your replier, it's that your first sentence initially says five guys didn't give in to gouging like other joints, which might imply that five guys has lower prices than the restaurants that raised their prices. So maybe we stopped reading because we thought we knew where you were heading.)
i appreciate your analysis. thank you!
5 guys is insane where I live. $45 for 1 double hamburger, med drink, 1 kids hamburger, med drink and a med fry to share. I stopped going to 5 guys after that one a few months ago.
I would go to five guys if one of them would put in a drive thru. Drive thru food and ambiance but as a sit down restaurant? Why?
this is a great point. it does seem like the perfect place for a drive thru
A drive-thru would be a disaster, their average turnaround time on orders is like five plus minutes drive-thrus need to be able to be pushed out in generally under 2 minutes.
I feel like people forget that they don't pre-cook their burgers. Drive-thru's only work because a lot of the food is pre-made based on popularity and just sits under a warmer
culvers isn't quick service either, but they do it.
you order, pay, and if there's a line behind you (there always is), you get a number, pull ahead and park. they bring it out.
I feel like that's stretching the definition of drive-thru. I guess you still don't need to get out of your car but it feels like curbside delivery with extra steps
Also, Culver's has a tendency to turn their burger patties into weapons by overcooking them. If they make them right, they're amazing. If they burn them, they're worth more as throwing stars than as food.
they don't pre-cook their burgers
this is a great point.. But... we are post-covid. i would bet a non-insignificant percent of their orders are now 'pre-ordered' unlike before
Last month, the head of its US operations formally responded to the complaints with an open letter to customers, saying social media was painting an inaccurate picture.
He said the average price of a Big Mac in the US, which is now $5.29 (£4.11), was up 21% since 2019 - roughly in line with the pace of inflation - and many items had risen by less.
Sure, place the blame on anyone but themselves.
$5.29 is ridiculous for a Big Mac, which is super tiny.
Especially because that’s just the sandwich, not a side and a drink. A combo meal is like 10.15$
I’m sorry but the quality of the food does not justify 10 dollars.
For comparison, I remember in Berlin not even 5 years ago I got a currywurst with fries and a drink for 3.60 € (about 3.90$), and in London I got an absolute mound of fish and chips with peas for like 6.50 £ (about 8$). Both of these I got as much or way more food than a Big Mac combo and they were much better quality.
I won't defend McDonald's, but you'll struggle to get fish for under £7-8 now, and the chips are £2-3.
In the south, at least.
roughly in line with the pace of inflation
Roughly in line with the terrible inflation of the past 5 years which has been primarily driven by corporate price gouging.
I think you hit the nail on the head there. Even if they were to lower the prices, they'll just make the fucking burgers even smaller.
Does anyone remember how much bigger the Big Mac was in the 90's? Shrinkflation is everywhere.
They could always try to lower the quality standards to lower the price. Lmao! Quality standards! As if!
Can't wait for the McSawdust in 2026!
I think we have two classes of "fast food" now. The higher class places like Five Guys, Poke Bros, Panera are going to cost you more, and you're not going to go there every day (or even every week), but they're pretty damned good.
The OG fast food places - McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's, Hardee's/Carl's Jr., Arby's, Taco Bell - they're just not good enough to command the higher prices that the new class of fast food can. Not to mention that the quality of all of those chains has declined dramatically in the last decade. Obvious drop in quality plus increase in price, people notice that.
... They have always been. There is fast food and fast casual.
Fast food would love to be fast casual, they sell the idea to seem like fancy fast food. Like McDonald's having table service through the kiosk, etc.
But this isnt new. It's literally the business plan of the places you mentioned to not be fast food.
Except you can get a Duo meal for $7 at Panera that's soup sandwhich and chips and that's 3$ cheaper than McDonald's
I’ve never met an Panera that has everything in stock, so you’re going to be making a second or third line choice. One of your items is guaranteed to be out. Regular sandwiches, god knows why, are $14.
I used to love Panera back in high school, which was early 2000's. As someone who hung out with friends at a movie theater on weekends it was the best place to eat at in the same strip mall. I still remember getting sandwiches for $4 or $5 at the time. If I was in high school today there is no way I could eat there, and if I could I also couldn't justify spending that much. I feel like they are scrambling as well, changing a lot, making products worse, adding items nobody wants, just trying to hit big with one of them. My wife really wanted to try the new caprese sandwich they have, we were dying when she got it and all you saw was bread... when she opened it up there was like 1 slice of tomato and 1 slice of mozzarella and it was the saddest sandwich I've ever seen. I thought it was hilarious until I realized we paid over $10 for that joke...
Sharing the pic so everyone else can join in on the laugh.
My biggest gripe with them is they always add one hipster element that totally ruins the sandwich. Oh you want a high end grilled cheese? How about we put a blackberry reduction in that bitch? Grilled chicken sandwich? Why not try one with our new habanero peach marmalade?
Lol no you can't. I didn't believe you, so I checked. $11.79, and that's for mostly cheaper options of the pick 2 (broccoli cheddar + frontega chicken). And I live in Missouri, where shit's cheap.
Sorry, they are called Duets, not duos. They still come with apple/bread/chips. You cant sub anything out, but it's still a good portion for healthier fast food option.
Whoopsie doodle. Well $8 ain't $7 either.
But yea I'm shocked there's anything reasonably priced @ Panera.
They must have gone up in the past few months. It was 6.99 last I got them I thought. Oh well! Still cheaper than a big mac or whopper
Last time I tried to get fast food was like 2 or 3 months ago. I went to Taco Bell, saw that the beefy 5 layer burrito was like $4.50, and just left the drive through. Fuck all that
Taco Bell is my go to - I am vegetarian so my opinions are slim. But for $7 I can't get a crunch wrap with black beans, a cheesey bean and rice burrito, and a fiesta potato and a drink with thier app combo. Then after every other meal (like every to weeks) I get a bonus something. So. Yeah, I only mess with the build your own cravings box... 9 dollars for 3 tacos and a drink is ridiculous.
And I live in Missouri, where shit’s cheap.
Also "The show me State" and you got shownnnn awwwwwwshit boyeee
;D
Lol
Sadly the Panera here has become garbage. The staff were seemingly wholly replaced, they look unhappy all the time, the food and ingredients have shrunk, and now you have to hope you hear them call your name so you can go pick up your food from a completely different counter (they used to bring it to your table which was a nice perk of going there), or stand around like an idiot for 10 minutes while your kid or significant other holds a table for you. And to top it off, the cinnamon roll changed again.
I don’t mind not having the food brought to me, but they could at least give us the hockey pucks again to alert us when the food is ready. Perhaps that’s just this specific store.
I used to love Panera. Maybe somewhere it’s still good.
Definitely don’t work to make the “food” better, yeah, just price gouge like every other company now.
No loss for me since I don’t go there anyway. But my childhood weeps a little for the good ole days.
McDonald's may be shit but at least they're generally consistent. I know what I'm getting when I go there. And (for me at least) it's a quick fix if I end up coming home late and don't feel like cooking. The issue is cheap shit is supposed to be cheap. 5 years ago I could get a burger and fries and water for 4-5 bucks. Now it's almost 9.
Aren’t they coming out with that $5 meal deal?
I got the $5 meal deal the other night. Dr Pepper for my drink was an upcharge. I'm not sure what drink is supposed to come with it then.
Water
Water is a chemical. It is composed DihydrogenOxyde, which is a very polar molecule, allowing it to dissolve a huge number of other chemicals. Anyway, I'm sure it's dangerous and they can only add soda flavoring to it in order to reduce its effects on thirst.
It is well documented that every person alive today will die just hours from drinking this chemical. And as you know, everyone who has ever lived died hours or days after the consumption of water. There are only few chemicals more potent that can claim such numbers. One of them is Argon.
Studies show that 100% of serial killers have Dihydrogen monoxide (DHMO) in their bodies while committing murder!
Don't you find it weird looking at all the moms at the park, with their kids, all of them consuming DHMO? Yeah. In plain light of day. And the police don't care, they drink it too!
Their consistency is sadly what made me buy McD at every country I was in Europe last year. At some point I got tired of.the food I could find there, and just gave up and bought a Big Mac meal at least once per country.
You couldn't find decent food in Europe so had to resort to McDonald's?
When you are tired of life, there is always McDonald's...
I was backpacking, so my budget was right. McD was a way to treat myself without regretting spending too much money on something disappointing, and I did find disappointing food in Europe. Mainly in Germany, and the UK.
Convenience store food was great in Switzerland, though.
McDonald's is not consistent though. A hamburger can often be flimsy thin. I don't get why you'd go there. There are enough fast food options with lower prices. McDonald's is often really terrible.
Their small burgers are always thin. It's not worth getting anything other than a double.
I always had a close restaurant nearby. I did try KFC in London, and boy was that a terrible experience! Food was too salty and the place I bought it from was so freaking dirty. It was close to Waterloo station.
Maybe I should congratulate you on being there long enough for that to happen.
A few years back I had a work trip to Singapore. It was a great experience and memorable in many ways. However the worst part is the client decided to “treat” me to familiar food and bought Pizza Hut. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. I didn’t go halfway around the world to visit a different culture to experience my own country’s fast food
I'm from Mexico. The difference with the US is that in Mexico we actually season our food ( :P ).
But yes, I believe the difference was that I was actually expecting something more than just "edible" in Europe. I bought a beelinese in fucking Berlin, for God sake, and it was the most boring piece of bread I've tasted, and I got it in Berlin! Where the bread is from! And it taste like cardboard. I found a nice beelinese in Switzerland, though, and the best part is that I bought it at a convenience store lol.
I tried Currywurst as well, and it was just a sausage with ketchup and curry powder?!? WTF it reminded me to the cheap food I had to eat while being a broke college student. How in the hell is Currywurst something people want to eat?!? There was a queue and the place was a well-known venue... For a freaking sausage with ketchup!
I also had the worst pasta I've ever had in Europe. I can't believe that being so close to Italy their pasta is so bland. I tried a local Italian "restaurant" to treat my and my SO, and lol the food was bad. It was ok for us, though. It was a hot meal for once, and the portions were great, but by no means I could call it "Italian food".
At some point we got tired of wasting our money on "eating local" and opted for what we knew for a fast meal...
It's fucking ridiculous that you're downvoted for this. Consistency is why so many of these businesses succeed!
You can go to McDonald's practically anywhere in the world and not be surprised by what you get. That's a really fucking hard problem to solve, especially when suppliers aren't obviously the same worldwide.
It's why people go to Starbucks. You can go anywhere and get a coffee that isn't the best, but is consistent and somewhat enjoyable, over trying the local barista that might use some fancy coffee you might not like, or charge a ton for a thimble of coffee that barely wakes you up/is like liquid crack.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting something that is familiar.
I can understand if other people had different experiences with McD: in the same trip I tried to buy KFC: in London to be precise, and it was the worst experience ever. The food was salty, and the place was so freaking dirty, loud and unpleasant. Still I find McD the most consistent fast food choice. That, and maybe Burger King.
I'll be visiting Japan next year. My opinion may change after that.
I feel like lately fast food has lost its appeal.
It isn't that fast any more, the service has gone done hill (habbitually checking orders now, because they're often wrong) and the prices are a joke.
Having to stand there waiting ages while a bunch of delivery guys turn up and grab orders off the counter is a piss-take.
What happened to "grab it off the rack behind them"?
they jacked prices as much as they could, had record profits, now they will have to pull back because people don't have money.
It's almost like they were warned several times that "No wage, only spend" would result in consumers who can't afford to consume.
I really hope McDonalds and like-minded companies become a case study on why you shouldn't inflate prices for short term profit. It'd be great to see them hemorrhage customers and sales.
Nobody who needs to will learn anything from this.
My McDonald's boycott is in it's 24th year. There is nothing to miss.
The bigger reason I don’t go to McDonald’s is because of the self serve kiosks they’ve forced on us instead of paying people to run the registers.
Price is still a reason though, so I’m glad they are at least considering that as well.
i don't get why people complain about this -- i'd so so much rather type my order in myself, see what's in everything, make modifications easily, etc without having to talk to someone. get those workers on the line and help ease the load on the kitchen
They didn't "get those workers on the line" though. They fired them. Fuck McDonalds, and FUCK ANY BUSINESS that forces these fucking things on us. I'm not there to work, I'm there to order food and eat. If you can't be bothered to take my order, I can't be bothered to drop a fucking dime on your business.
They weren't paying them a living wage in the first place let them replace it with screens
Of course RagingRobot would support this.
I can guarantee you nobody got fired for these machines, the turnover is already so fucking high there that it's not even needed. When I worked at MCD I lasted an entire year and excluding the managers I was probably in the top 3-4 in terms of "seniority"
You dislike self checkouts too?
The McDonalds near me have people on tills as well as the self order machines. And you say they fired them. Can you prove that?
To be clear. I dont think you are wrong, I have no idea, and I am genuinely curious and want to know if that happened. since you claimed it with such conviction, I assume you can give a reference or point me in the direction of the search terms I could use to find a source myself?
I'm saying that the 4 McDonalds in my town don't have front-line workers that take orders, save for the drive thru. All they have are the kiosks. Fuck that, and fuck them.
Because I go there once in a blue moon and it's easier for the guy doing it 1000x/day to push in my order than me finding it on a big dumb Kiosk menu.
I won't frequent places that force me to use a kiosk.
Decision paralysis.
I don't know the menu, seeing all the things flash by and not know what's in them is my reason, but in the 3 years I only been there 2 or 3 times for ice cream or coffee. But the logic applies for all other places.
Also, I feel a bit awkward when I order two BigMacs at the register.
Maybe i am just too old and go to McDonald's too infrequently, but i can never figure out how to get my order done properly on the kiosks. Try ordering a McGriddle combo with a Carmel latte. There's no visible option for that. Unless you ppan on doing a basic order, the kiosks suck
Why would you want people to take orders? It's not some amazing work that is satisfying. We should be glad these jobs are going away
If they're going to be gouging us on price the least they can do is employ people.
Nah, those jobs should disappear. Worthless labour is still worthless.
Those people could actually be doing something productive with their time instead.
Their solution will be to raise prices by 1% to make up for lost sales.
Hey sales are falling, let's implement flex-pricing and increase prices during peak times.
How about you guys rethink the food
If you can reconstitute some kind of edible food that maintains some semblance of the low price, I think that'll be enough. People started going to Five Guys and paying $16 because your burgers are clearly made of mouse shit.
The "food" they have now is the product of decades of incremental changes made to cut cost and tinkering with fat, salt and sugar contents to fool your brain into giving you a dopamine hit for eating it. What they have now doesn't even taste like hamburgers anymore.
I live in Ireland and I like McDonalds occasionally. But there is no doubt that there food is quite expensive and they aren't innovating. Once a month there will be some new burger which is usually just the same as a normal burger but with bacon or bbq sauce or some shit but it's just boring and lazy marketing. What is worse than the food is the entire ordering experience - those bullshit kiosks are very time consuming and aggravating to use and then because they're cutting staff you can look forward to a 5 or 10 minute wait for food to appear. I remember when I worked in McDs at peak periods you'd get your food almost as soon as you ordered it (unless it was a grill item) but not any more.
I only have positive vieuw on the kiosks. Easy to adjust your burger and i get the right stuff after. When in quick i can t ajust the burger on the kiosk and have to order old fadhioned. Then i often get a normal made.
I find them frustrating, because they are slow. There's no reason why they couldn't put a decent processor in them and have them actually function properly. Half the time I press a button and then end up hitting it again cause I don't know if it read the first press, since the feedback it so slow.
The Lowes near me just recently switched to newer self-serve kiosks that actually work, it's amazing how much better an experience it is.
There's no reason they can't hire more staff, give them adequate training, and pay them a living wage. But there is a rea$on why they won't.
Now that they're looking to replace as much of their staff with cheaper alternatives, it's not really surprising that they'd go for the cheapest option. After all, it's exactly what they do with their human resources.
I used to eat at McDonald's a LOT, and the main reason was you could get a large quarter pounder meal for under $10. Now it's $12+, depending on where you go. I used to get a solid quarter pounder, now it's a 50/50 chance the thing is so soaked in grease that it soaks through the cardboard and the bag, and the fries are 50/50 already luke warm.
But the innovation thing got me thinking: right before the pandemic, McDonald's in the US was doing "Meals from around the world," and it was basically McDonald's items you could only get outside the US (I think they had a French one, definitely a Canadian one, I think Brazil, etc). They changed every couple months, and it was cool! You go to try something that you may not otherwise get to.
They also used to have a lot of them open 24/7 (as did a lot of businesses), and then the pandemic shut everything down and they stopped doing it. When I worked nights and would get out of a catering event at 2 am, I'd be able to swing by McDonald's on the way home and I knew I was getting a decent meal. Now?
I'm lucky if when I order a large meal with a large drink, I actually get a large drink. Idk if this is happening all over, but I'd say 6/10 times now, I order a large meal and the cashier automatically puts in a medium drink. When I ask about it, they say they'll let the people know up front, and then they don't. And then I feel like a jackass for having to tell the people at the window my drink was supposed to be a large (I know they're the same price, but if I ordered a large meal, why would I order a medium drink?), and they usually give me a look or an eye roll.
Whereas before the pandemic, I was once asked to pull up to the second window to wait for my food. I wanted 5 minutes, tops, and the manager brought me my food and gave me 2 free meal tickets for the inconvenience. I went last week and waited 10 minutes and the kid didn't even confirm my order before basically dropping it through my car window and walking off.
I don't blame the employees, even in my state McDonald's wages are laughable, so who gives a fuck? But wtf happened to the corporation, where's the care? It's disappointing to see, not that I have sympathy for a billion dollar corporation.
I stopped understanding McDonald’s when there’s hundreds of homemade-like small burger places everywhere. They are so frikin tasty and cost the same
I still remember eating an especially tasty one and playing Disco Elysium then dying from heart attack in the game. Somehow it has become a permanent memory
Exactly, McDonald's niche was a very cheap and quick burger. Why pay $12 for a shitty McD when I can have a $10 burger at the Apple Pan
As far as I can tell the whole appeal of McDonald's is bland but edible food, quickly, at a low price.
Over the years, they've switched to what appears to be a prepare by order method so it's no longer quick (it used to be on the little racks behind them, all pre-made), and it's no longer cheap (especially if you get delivery and therefore immediately send half your dinner money to a Silicon Valley billionaire). It's not quite Burger King levels of pricing, but it's getting close.
The only thing they've got left is bland but edible, and that's only desirable if you're feeding a bunch of picky children.
There are so many better places to eat, and they don't cost an enormous amount more.
It's definitely a lot slower. I remember working there and at lunchtime they'd be working the grills 24 down - basically double the usual capacity and that stuff was wrapped and put into the racks constantly. They'd try and make burgers to meet demand with a holding time by which the burger should be sold by or thrown into a red bin. Usually it worked fine and waste was minimal but I assume some beancounter thinks that system and red bin waste costs McDonalds more money than it does to waste 5-10 minutes of somebody's lunch break. If people get pissed off by the wait though they might consider going somewhere else - after all, if they're going to wait, why not in a place where something more substantial than a burger is being prepared.
Or even a more substantial burger. I just learned that the standard McDonald's burger patty is 45 grams (that's 1.6 oz or approximately 1 medium celery stalk in freedom units). 45 grams! Only the quarter pounder has the 4 oz (113g for the rest of us or the weight of two large eggs for the Americans) patty.
This is all the pre-cooked weight. If your average patty loses 25% of its weight during cooking, that 45g patty becomes about 34g. WTF.
Ok, converting to imperial is nice but then acting like we don't understand our own measures is just insulting.
BK here is cheaper and wayyyyyy better than McD. So weird when people say "at least McD is consistent" - that doesn't help if "consistent" is inedible garbage.
A BK opened near my office a year or two ago. I've never had a burger I'd describe as depressing before then. But that Bacon King or whatever they called sure was.
BK opened up in my country with slightly higher prices than McD and slightly better burgers.
Then McD went up to match and now BK has also gone up again
And then there's Hesburger which makes McD and BK seem like gourmet food, but has increased in price to keep up with them. It's getting to the point where there are somewhat nice restaurants that give you a real fucking meal for maybe an euro or two more than a BK meal lmao
I don't think the production method has changed, I worked there a decade ago and it seems to be the same, essentially precook the meat and assemble to order. However, I think they no longer pay employees enough to care about speed. They don't pay more now than when I worked there. In fact, I moved to a state where they pay LESS. Why the hell would anyone working there bust their ass to get food out quickly? You get what you pay for.
It was a lot longer ago than that.
They used to have it so those racks behind the counter were stuffed with already made standard prep burgers, and if you just wanted that you'd get one pulled off the shelf and be served in seconds.
You only had prep-to-order if you wanted the change the default configuration, no lettuce, no mayo, etc.
Here in Germany Burger King is actually cheaper than McDonald's, especially when you use coupons, since the ones at Burger King are actually useful.
You feed picky children by giving them anything they don’t eat the next day.
I don't get fast food often, but I did go to McDonald's a week or two ago. I learned that they replaced their fountains so that they no longer dispense water, so you can't get a free cup of water anymore. You have to buy a bottle of water or a soda.
I don't intend on ever returning to a McDonald's.
The charging for packets thing is the one thing that irks me nonstop especially the employees that stick by it. Unless they’re getting penalized, why do you have to gatekeep an extra BBQ sauce for 25 cents?
Sure, keep them behind the counter so people don’t grab 20 but asking for 1-2 extra shouldn’t require a surcharge or separate transaction.
the firm would lean on discounts to try to stop the sales decline
So not even price cuts, just temporary discounts. Eff off!
Dynamic pricing inbound.
I went to an Asian mall in my city the other day. My wife and I got these two huge containers of food+bubble tea and dessert. Came out to $16 for the two of us. A big Mac meal costs about $18 now where I am. Fuck that place, I used to go every week. Now I haven't been in over a year.
Any time I try to get fast food I see what they’re charging for it and remember steak is $10 a pound. Steak and frozen veg with a baked potato for about the same price.
Steak and eggs at a breakfast spot near me is $20 (plus tip). To add insult, it’s a “touristy” one, so while the food is good, they definitely up-charge a bit, say $1-2, on most things vs places off the beaten path.
So….why am I buying a ‘meal deal’ for $13-15 at McDonalds again? I might as well go and fork out a few more bucks for table service and better food at that price point.
They were making way too much money to begin with, nevermind growth.
Also McDonald's is just a real estate company, I'm guessing the franchisees are complaining they aren't going to stick around.
As someone who used to be a daily fast food eater, I'm just proud that these greedy fast food chains have forever lost me as a customer. Ethics aside, after not eating at these places for so long, I now get to compare the experience to the local places around me or my own cooking skills. The only way I'd ever go back to one of these fast food joints I used to frequent daily is if they provide a better value than myself or the local restaurants here. And the local quick service places here give you a ton of good food instantly for under $10, which I know McDonalds et al will never reach again.
I think this will be the long term impact.
Customers have been pushed to discover alternatives and are unlikely to return for reasons beside price and quality.
For example, there are sit down restaurants near me that haven't raised their prices or have barely done so and are now cheaper than McDonald's.
The fact that local one offs haven't needed to raise prices signals to me that a large multinational company did not need to either. This adds a fuck off and die factor to my future purchasing decisions. I am not a price conscious customer but I take being gouged personally.
Their food sucks. 🤷♂️
They should just quadruple the prices and make it an elite experience,
My boss at work went to pick up some McDonald's food a few months ago, not particularly because he wanted to eat that, but because he wanted one of those free glasses that came with the meal - honestly, what a strange reason, right?.
He was sick for a solid two weeks due to salmonella. If I have had any desire to go eat there again, it evaporated when he told me that.
Not to try and discredit your or your boss or anything but a lot of people assume that they got salmonella from the last food they ate. Usually it's from food they ate a day or so ago, as the incubation time is between 24 and 48 hours.
If he got sick right after eating McDonald's food then it's probably just a coincidence. Have he got sick 2 or 3 days later then yeah it was probably the McDonald's burger.
Also what free glass?
Honestly, even if it hit him 2-3 days later, it'd be kind of hard to pin it on the McDonald's unless he ate all of his meals there that day or there was an outbreak of salmonella in the area and McDonalds was the common factor between the cases.
He could have just as easily gotten it from his breakfast or dinner, and that may even be more likely. I won't pretend for a moment that McDonald's employees can be 100% trusted to follow their proper food handling procedures and such to the letter, but I'm certain that a corporate outfit like McDonald's probably has so many guidelines in place and has idiot-proofed as much of their equipment as possible that it should be next-to impossible for them to be at fault even if half their rules end up getting ignored.
There's of course cases where things out of their control could happen, like they get a batch of lettuce that's contaminated with salmonella from their supplier, but that's the kind of thing that could happen at literally any restaurant, and there's only so much you can do to mitigate that.
There is a reason why it is almost impossible to sue for food poisoning. It's almost impossible to prove, because generally the person claiming to have had the food poisoning is doing so several weeks after the event, and by the time the court case is heard it would be months after the event, so it's very much a case of he says she says with no real evidence either way. If there has not being an outbreak the courts are not going to believe that the person either had food poisoning, or that they got the food poisoning from the establishment. Innocent until proven otherwise cuts both ways.
Does in America exist small fast food restaurants? In my country those are affordable and most of times better than McDonald's I prefer to spend money there.
I think you kind of need to define a bit what fast food means and what you consider small.
Following the McDonald's model with a drive through, self-seating dining area, no table service, etc. those are mostly going to be chains, although some chains are pretty small, only operating in certain areas with a handful of locations.
And there are exceptions of course, some independent restaurants do have a drive through (often I see this setup when they move into a location that was formerly a corporate fast food place) and there's chains or locations that don't have a drive through, or do have table service, etc. but those tend to be exceptions rather than the rule.
If you expand it a bit to include other small, no-frills restaurants with a heavy emphasis on fast service and take-out, there's a lot of places that could fit the bill. Pretty much every town has some little hole in the wall burger joint, deli, sandwich shop, taqueria, Chinese takeout, pizzeria, bodega, snack bar, etc. that you could potentially argue fits the fast food category.
Most of those places probably don't exactly advertise themselves as fast food and would probably want to avoid that label (although to be fair, the same can probably be said for most fast food restaurants, I've never heard a McDonald's commercial call themselves "fast food")
There's also going to be some overlap with other categories, fast-casual, convenience stores, etc. where the lines get blurred about what can be considered "fast food."
In general though, in America, the term "fast food" is usually going to refer to the larger chains, and the smaller independent restaurants with otherwise similar service will be called something else.
Kinda, but not really. Restaurants are kind of a tough business in the US.
This isn't just McDonalds. I walked into KFC the other day and it's got so darn expensive there, too. Nowadays we don't bother eating out unless we're on the road or something. Just ain't worth it.
KFC isn't even a blip on my radar for this reason
If you want another reason: the food quality is all over the place.
I used to like their non-chicken bucket menu items like the spicy big crunch and chicken bowls.
But I stopped going because getting a chicken bowl from there as a "treat" instead of making one at home has been a disappointment, as was the last spicy big crunch. The ingredients just tasted off, like they had a manager that insisted on ingredients being used after they had started going bad or staff that didn't know how (or care) to recognize that produce was off.
Like it wasn't at a "makes you sick" level, but it was gross and disappointing.
I remember when their Fried Chicken Pizza came out.. I figured "You do good chicken, and Yum Foods owns Pizza Hut, and I love their pizza.. So... this should be a treat."
Felt like throwing up, only finished the damn thing because I paid so much for it and my mama taught me to never waste food that's edible.
And for the record, I'm someone who regularly ate the Double Down Chicken Sandwich, ya know the one that basically could have been called "This Will Cause A Heart Attack". I'm all about greasy disgusting things that would be considered war crimes if you fed them to enemy soldiers. Fried Chicken Pizza should have knocked it out of the park with my demographic, but... ugh... just tasted like someone threw up on my chicken tendies.
And I've stopped eating at McDonalds as much.. only go there if I'm in a hurry and need to get something on the way into work. A big part of that isn't just me needing to save cash for a con I'm heading to later this month, but.. the taste just isn't there. I used to love these burgers, they were a guilty pleasure for me. Sure they couldn't compare to some spices on a medium rare burger, especially when you lather the meat with a bit of bud light before you cook it (I know that sounds Redneck as fuck, but it's delicious if you do it right)
But fuck at least that was an ideal pick-me-up. But I can't even call them Unhappy Meals because that implies they have an unpleasant flavor instead of... Well none at all.
Learn how to cook the food first.
Finally. Better late than never I guess.
Gradually increasing revenue each year is more sustainable, as it avoids the pressure of constantly surpassing record highs and potentially alienating your customer base. CEOs somehow fail to understand this. Morons.
First sales fall since 2020.
Three years? So what? That's nothing. Now if they said first sales fall since 2002, now that would be something.
No business weathered Covid without a drop in sales, except maybe for the healthcare sector. Good luck finding any customer-facing business that survived Covid without lost sales.
Healthcare definitely lost out during the pandemic. Hospitals were struggling to stay open amidst consumers opting to delay elective procedures.
Yeah basically all business lost money when covid hit.
Good. I used to grab a burger after work sometimes but it barely feels worth it anymore.
At what point are we blaming people who eat there?
Blame them for what? The sales decrease? That makes no sense.
The people that eat there are not tolerating their continued price gouging after the pandemic shortages.
Since day one sir. Since day one.
Many have little choice in the matter.
What? Isn't it cheaper to buy and cook your own meals?
In order to prepare a meal, you need to be able to afford ingredients, have the required skills, and have the time/energy to cook. So yes, it is cheaper to prepare your own meal, but if for example you're working three jobs to make rent while raising a child, you're going to have difficulty finding the time or energy required for cooking. Doubly true if you don't already know how to cook.
There's also people without access to a kitchen. If you have to rely on other people to cook for you, you're extremely limited in options and as a result you'll likely have to spend more money on fast food and takeout.
Another thing to think about: it's cheaper to grow your own food than to buy it. Most of us don't grow our own food - probably because we lack time, knowledge, or land.
All valid points, thank you.
Another aspect to this is our society and culture. Eating out is a special treat, a privileged event that's deep in our subconscious. Have grandparents that take you to a favorite spot? A friend that loves to eat at this one certain place. Just want to have a more relaxing day because of over-stressing? The food joint is our new spa.
I don't enjoy eating out so it's easy for me to avoid it. But, my family has the average addiction and my partner comes from a household that would eat out at any opportunity (I've seen them do all 3 meals in a day when visiting once). You don't realize the amount of money being spent on advertising till you're trying to get someone to cut back. Newspapers, online ads, roadside signs, we even get "coupons" in the mail it feels like several times a week. Kid's programming, sponsored school events from nearby food chains, high schools will have a domino's in it before they get a robotics lab.
It's crazy we allow any of this, we know from past cigarette legislation what this kind of inundation can do to people psychologically.
A homeless person couldn't really do that.
Very true, for some reason that didn't cross my mind.
It probably doesn't cross most people's minds most of the time. That's why people on these forums seem to be changing so much.
Wrong, there are so many fast food places to go to besides McDonald's. There is literally no one on this planet who is forced to eat there.
Alright, so they'll be forced to eat at Greggs or Subway, then, I guess.
I resent the implication that Greggs and Subway are equivalent. Subway is the only place where they ask you 500 questions when you ask for a cheese sandwich.
I'll just take some ketchup with whatever the other hobo is having then, I guess.
But I find mayonnaise quite distasteful.
Subway is the only place *that has decent vegetables even available
Every time a thread like this pops up the sentiment is that their food is awful and you're an idiot for eating there - so I'd say for at least a decade or two.
bubble popping?
We all wish
They largely removed their vegan options. Nuff said.
Because low demand, the demand is low because McDonald's is a burger joint. Also most vegans are ethical vegans and wouldn't support giving business to a huge player in the cattle slaughter game.
Imagine 'McDonald's' being your baseline fur 'decent fast food'
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nobody ever went to mcdonald's because it's "good" but because it was cheap and fast
now it's none of those 3 things. no reason to go there at all. that applies to most other fast food shit too.
McDonalds also directly supports the IDF
it was a franchise choice for that community. not to defend mcdonalds, but this happens, just not usually by genocidal groups.
"In regard to the news that McDonald's in Israel was donating meals. We affirm that it was an individual decision on their part," McDonald's franchise in Saudi Arabia said in a statement. "Neither global McDonald's nor us nor any other country had a role or relationship with that decision, neither directly nor indirectly."
McDonald’s is a global chain but its franchises are often owned locally and operate autonomously.
McDonald's Corp declined to comment but a source close to the company in the U.S. said the Israel franchise was an independent business that licensed McDonald's brand. The source said it’s not unusual for franchisees to engage with their local communities when they are in need.
Honestly? I don’t care if it was just a local franchise. Corporate HQ can force local franchises to stop this if they want to stay open.
Plus, the food is shit. There are better places to eat.
fair enough
It also relies on forced prison labor.
https://apnews.com/article/prison-to-plate-inmate-labor-investigation-c6f0eb4747963283316e494eadf08c4e
Only reason to go there now is because they've tricked my kids into being addicted to it.
glad they're raising you right
You know it, savages.
Only thing i noticed it's bland. Saving on salt?
I won't go back until hash browns are 2 for $1.
Fuck outta here with this $2.00 hash brown bullshit.
You can get a pack of frozen hash browns for cheaper than that. Saves time, money, and tastier imo.
And crunchy af in the air fryer.
Shout-out to Trader Joes' hash brown patties.
Wanna say they’re $2.79 where I’m at. I know for sure they were just under $3
Yep fuck that.
2 for $1.
And egg McMuffins and sausage muffins should be <$3.00.
And the sausage burritos should be 2 for $1.
McDonald's trying to act like they're a restaurant and not a fucking logistics company. The market rate of a potato doesn't affect the price of French fries at McDonald's when they legitimately own the rights to the only brand of potato that is used to make McDonald's French fries.
Any company that is known by all doesn't do what the average person thinks they do.
McDonalds? Logistics company
CocaCola? Logistics company
Ups? Logistics company
Starbucks? Logistics company
Miller/Coors? Logistics company
Shaw's? Logistics company
W.B mason? Logistics company
Exxon Mobile? Logistics company
Amazon? Logistics company
The price of sugar doesn't affect Coca-Cola. The price of wheat doesn't affect millercoors. The price of lumber doesn't affect wb mason. The price of gasoline doesn't affect ups. The price of coffee doesn't affect Starbucks. The price of beef, potatoes, and dairy doesn't affect McDonald's. The price of oil (barely) doesn't affect Exxon Mobile.
These are the fucks that pull the levers. Not the farmers. Not the lumberjacks. Not the oil refiners.
I keep hearing that McDonald's is actually a real estate company
That’s Sears.
McDonald’s certainly has enormous buying power. I do imagine widespread drought or something would impact their bottom line by some pennies if it were severe enough. Anyway, I read:
Don’t see that one online but other varieties appear popular.
Now, enjoy
(Other patents: methods of preparing / cooking food; packaging; equipment used in cooking food.)
$2.79, before taxes. Don't forget these are US companies. And any charges outside the US have likely already been taxed locally, before international tax was applied.
Don't ever assume the US gov is paying you fairly. Taxes are only an excuse for them to make even more money by manipulating the rules.
$2.50 Cones were my breaking point. The tourist trap general store next to me does a decent waffle cone for $4.
Jesus, I can't find a cone near me for less than $6.
It's worse here in Canada.
3 USD
I miss cheap fast food. Feels like it will never come back anywhere.
Hole-in-the-wall ethnic food shops/take out are the way. If you want 'murican fast food, you gotta break the bank... but find a little family owned taqueria that does their shit right and you can stuff your face with the best tacos you've ever eaten for like $3. Highly dependent on your local options ofc, so keep an eye out.
In my experience, the sketchier the restaurant looks, the better the food is.
If a restaurant looks shady and stays in business, it's either a front or the food is delicious.
And if it's a front the food might still be awesome because it's some rando doing their home cooking to cosplay as a restaurant worker
Yeah the fronts specifically want to pay for halfway plausible quality ingredients to mask their income.
Does this pretty much imply that if it looks shady and stays in business, but the food is shite, then then business is a front for money laundering or other criminal activities? Because there is this absolutely trash Mexican place near where I live and it's always dead (no business) and the food is suspiciously bad like "the refried beans are dry and look like they've been sitting out for days" kind of bad. And this place has been "in business" for like 15 years.
It could also be a hobby business to keep someone's spouse/family busy and out of the house.
There's a Bosnian place right next to an amazing Mexican place we like to go to. The Bosnian place always has people coming and going, but never staying for more than 5 minutes, and never walking out with food in hand. I'm pretty sure it's a front.
Yes. Otherwise there wouldn't be any point in keeping it open.
Restaurants have notoriously thin margins, so to stay in business 15 years, something shady is happening most likely.
Bonus points if the menu is at least half in another language
I was amazed to find out the chicken place I order from looked nice (for a sketchy hole in the wall ethnic food place). $30 CAD for two or three days worth of INCREDIBLY good chicken and fries
Like seriously, it was dying mall food court sketchy when I expected, "...You killed the health inspector with a pan to the head didn't you?" sketchy
In Louisiana some of the best fried chicken and other Cajun food is in gas stations. Not even joking. It’s usually small towns, but there are some around NOLA and other cities, too.
Best fried chiicken i ever had was at a gas station in the middle of nowhere off ther interstate in Mississippi.
One of my best fried chicken experiences was a $5 fried chicken buffet somewhere in rural Kentucky near Lincoln’s birth home.
Those breaded skewers with chicken/pickle/onion/potato you can get at roadside stations down in the MS delta area are absolutely incredible and I love them. Any time I'm passing through there I have to find some.
Bag of Dick's burgers are the only way to go in Seattle.
What is Dick's charging these days? My local equivalent burger joint has a double with fries for just over $8. Easily the best I can do around here.
$8.10. Their advertised base wage ($21/hr) must be lower than their actual base wage. I saw a posted at location janitorial position with a $23/hr start.
$5.30 for a deluxe, $2.80 for fries.
Dick's and a taco truck in the same area ($2.50/taco) are my go to cheap but delicious lunch options.
I wish we had those around here. Even the hole-in-the wall Indian places start their plates at like $12. It's absurd.
All the local taco places near me are like 10 bucks for 2 tacos
You reminded me of a dumb song by a little known christian singer from the 70s and 80s that my dad liked.
We played this song on repeat as kids because there was a giant belch in it.
I give you Randy Stonehill's American fast food (what a stupid way to die)
You absolutely can get great American food from a hole in the wall. Also, I’m not sure why you had to say ‘murican as if our food has something wrong with it. Just a weird flex. I’m lucky to live in a city with a plethora of food trucks all around and you can get pretty much any kinda cuisine for cheaper than fast food joints.
...flex?
Cheap food is still out there, but it's not corporate food.
Corporations put profit above all, which is anathema to how every successful chain became successful. Whatever mechanism they had to stresamline production, negotiate with vendors, push addition products (would you like fries with that?), their primary goal was always consistency and value. You know what to expect, and it's worth the money.
You'll find that now in local diners, in food trucks, in cafes, and in small restaurants where they value good food over profit, but you won't find it at most chain restaurants.
Food trucks are hit or miss. The food can be OK but the ones here tend to be very overpriced for the quality.
Someone else mentioned ethnic places which have become my go to for good, cheap food. There's a gyro place near me where you can get a gyro and fries for like $7. It takes 5 minutes and the food is fresh.
BBQ trucks tend to be way overpriced in my experience. But that may be biased because I make damn good BBQ. I have friends that ask me to make food for their birthday parties, diaper parties, bachelor parties etc. paying $12-15 for a sloppy mess of a pulled pork sandwich with no taste other than the sauce is absolutely unacceptable. That being said, I'm far enough away from any BBQ "hub" that nobody here knows what good BBQ is.
Taco Bell still has $1.25 bean and rice burritos where I live. It’s like 400 calories so it’s a pretty good deal.
Not here! The burritos at Taco Bell here are outrageous. A single bean burrito is 4.50CAD. The 7-layer? 8 BUCKS. The Grilled Cheesy? Fuck you, over ten dollars for a single burrito. A burrito that isn't heated right, has all the ingredients separated into disgusting pockets of single ingredient, and makes you feel terrible after eating them.
And mind you, these aren't even combos. This is just one burrito.
UK Taco Bell is somehow worse.
They seem to be trying to trade on the novelty/name, because there is no chance I'm paying £8 for a taco the size of a hamburger.
Taco Bell is my goto for cheap fast food
They aren't even cheap anymore, damn near $2+ basic bitch tacos. I can go elsewhere and get a street taco (with multiple meat options) for a buck that's actually flavorful and warmer than room-temp, and that's in fucking Ohio
I assume you are North American, look for small ethnic food shops. You will find better food at a cheaper price.
Notice they are too embarrassed to post their prices online. To see the price, you have to put the item in the cart then use some bs 3rd party app. WTF McDs?
"If you have to ask the price, then you can't afford it" happening in a McDonald's, while people are out here financing a pizza from Dominos. It's like we lost the Cold War.
That's too insanely dystopian for anybody in sci-fi to have predicted it.
The closest would be Demolition Man having Taco Bell (or Pizza Hut) as fancy dining. But they imagined the chain upping its game when it gained monopoly. How naive.
That’s how they charge different prices based on region.
Taco Bell does this too, because their prices are so ridiculous now.
Warning! This definitely reads like a taco bell add but I just really appreciate taco bell for having food for vegans and not price gouging like the rest did.
Hard disagree, if you learn what to order and how to customize your food.
Fat ass burritos for 3.50 are not a bad deal imo, and I regularly make my own burritos at home.
They have some trap items to avoid for sure, but the staples are still cheap. Hard shell and soft shell, rice and bean burritos, nacho fries are sort of in the middle price wise, etc.
They are the easiest place for me to make a vegan order from hands down, they actually label shit on their order tablets. They have some freebies that are totally worth it some people never find out about because they order at the speaker exclusively. Fresco replaces cheese and dairy with a pico de gallo, you can toast most regular burritos, and even though its extra you can add nearly anything into anything for super cheap.
Im actually not sure if I'm scamming them somehow because choosing their cheapest items and modifying is always cheaper than buying the same thing but premade. Not in any rush to ask about it either.
No, they absolutely price gouge. A 7-layer burrito here is 8 bucks before tax, just the burrito alone. They don't have anything that's actually cheap here in Canada, and I can get much better for the same price. Their "vegan" options here are also basically just their regular burritos with beans, and are just as ridiculously overpriced. It's bottom-tier garbage food at way-too-high prices for what you get.
What is Canada doing to make taco bell so expensive. I'll have to check next time I go, I know some of their menu items are poorly priced for sure but I just avoid them. 8$ for a burrito I'd be shocked to see at my local one though.
I wish I had a better answer than just "pure and unchecked greed", but that's what's most likely. They can't even be considered the "cheap" option anymore and the quality isn't any better to make up for the increased prices.
Well at least burritos and tacos are stupid easy to make. I make a bean and rice and tomatoes mix in rice cooker all together. But yeah thats a bummer taco bell is awful near you, they've been great for me especially with the vegan friendly menu. Is it possible its only cheap if you avoid meat and dairy? Maybe thats the trick.
The vegan friendly stuff is the same price as their beef equivalents here. Taco Bell in Canada is obnoxious.
Honestly, I’m amazed people still go there to eat. The food was never really good, but at least it used to be fast and cheap. But these days, it’s neither anymore. McDonald’s is now more expensive than the gourmet burger places in my city; that feels insane.
It always takes a year or two for the business to really feel it. First, it takes consumers awhile to visit and realize the prices are so high. Most people aren't going to McDonald's every week. And sometimes it takes a few visits before they really notice the sting.
Eventually, the place just gets a reputation for being pricey, and people slowly stop going. But it's a frog in a boiling pot thing, and of course the executives search for any other reason besides their own pricing decisions from 18 months ago.
Have you ever noticed in those surveys they always ask "what can we do better?" And the answers usually don't include "be cheaper".
Four McDoubles for 20 bucks. Fuck off!
I remember them being $1 each and it was the fastest/easiest way for me to get some protein in a pinch.
Then they were like 2 for $3, which was still OK.
But $5 is insane.
They were literally a dollar in 2013. Used to get em all the time
Is that person rounding or are mcdoubles really 5$ a piece now?
$4.69 where I am. I had to look it up.
Absurd. Reminds me of checking cigarette prices after quitting back in 2014.
"Dollar Menu", feels like a long lost dream
At that price, Five Guys.
At once?
In your mouth and filling your belly.
It depends on how many holes you've got, but with a little creativity I'm sure you all can manage.
5x the protein shots
from where im at, five guys is an easy $20-25/meal, burgers starting around $10-12 before fries & drink. rather find a bbq place and get pulled pork and mashed potatoes.
Didnt five guys double their prices? I understand they CAN make good burgers, although they won't cook them to the right temperature for me (back when I did eat meat) for safety reasons, but is it worth it?
I'm so glad that I live in a big city, where there are hundreds of awesome small burger joints that sell better quality burgers at a much lower price.
Must be nice...
I wish this was a thing. There's maybe one place but it's not even in the same ballpark.
Yeah where I live there's a burger urge. Sells shitty burgers for like 30 dollars AUD
My nearest burger joint is locally owned and charges $11.75 for a single burger and $12.75 for a double. The fries are $3.50.
Bullshit on the "much lower price". Give some examples.
I'd argue people don't buy at McDonalds because their burgers are awesome. Their burgers are average at best. You can definitely get a much better meal with the price of a McD meal.
McDonald's whole niche is "cheap but edible", the second you remove cheap from that equation the value proposition is gone.
They saw what Pepsi was doing with Frito-lay and figured why not?
$11 for a 12 pack of sprite where I live. No. Fucking. Thanks.
Damn, they charging that much for future diabetes these days??
Right?
Europe cuts back on sweets because of a sugar tax.
America cuts back on sweets because of corporate greed.
We are not the same.
Oh wow.... Increased prices resulted in people going else where.... Who would have seen that coming 🤔
I mean, you're half right. Yeah, it's gotten expensive, but it's now expensive for McDonald's-quality food. It's not the worst of the worst, but you can easily find better quality food cheaper.
When fast food is as much or more than grocery store sushi, fuck it, I'll park the car and go grab some fish.
the only fast food that didnt go stupid during covid in my area ... quality, price or service... seemed to be five guys
i think its the simple menu plus it was already quite expensive, and so i assume they are paying a fair wage to keep good people.
Five guys already had astronomical prices.
i could have sworn i said exactly that
Yeah but you put a "please stop reading now" gap before your first line, and the one where you said they were already expensive.
I know I'm being a bit tongue in cheek, but I had to reply because I literally did the same thing your replier did. I read your first line, and my immediate thought was "wait, aren't they already expensive?" And I felt compelled to stop reading and immediately see if any replies confirmed that. And then I saw YOUR reply saying you already said they were expensive, and I had to go back to read the second half of your comment.
So yeah, not really my proudest moment, or a good sign for how the Internet is affecting attention spans... But I think that's what happened.
(If I can make ANY defence for myself and your replier, it's that your first sentence initially says five guys didn't give in to gouging like other joints, which might imply that five guys has lower prices than the restaurants that raised their prices. So maybe we stopped reading because we thought we knew where you were heading.)
i appreciate your analysis. thank you!
5 guys is insane where I live. $45 for 1 double hamburger, med drink, 1 kids hamburger, med drink and a med fry to share. I stopped going to 5 guys after that one a few months ago.
I would go to five guys if one of them would put in a drive thru. Drive thru food and ambiance but as a sit down restaurant? Why?
this is a great point. it does seem like the perfect place for a drive thru
A drive-thru would be a disaster, their average turnaround time on orders is like five plus minutes drive-thrus need to be able to be pushed out in generally under 2 minutes.
I feel like people forget that they don't pre-cook their burgers. Drive-thru's only work because a lot of the food is pre-made based on popularity and just sits under a warmer
culvers isn't quick service either, but they do it.
you order, pay, and if there's a line behind you (there always is), you get a number, pull ahead and park. they bring it out.
I feel like that's stretching the definition of drive-thru. I guess you still don't need to get out of your car but it feels like curbside delivery with extra steps
Also, Culver's has a tendency to turn their burger patties into weapons by overcooking them. If they make them right, they're amazing. If they burn them, they're worth more as throwing stars than as food.
this is a great point.. But... we are post-covid. i would bet a non-insignificant percent of their orders are now 'pre-ordered' unlike before
Sure, place the blame on anyone but themselves.
$5.29 is ridiculous for a Big Mac, which is super tiny.
Especially because that’s just the sandwich, not a side and a drink. A combo meal is like 10.15$
I’m sorry but the quality of the food does not justify 10 dollars.
For comparison, I remember in Berlin not even 5 years ago I got a currywurst with fries and a drink for 3.60 € (about 3.90$), and in London I got an absolute mound of fish and chips with peas for like 6.50 £ (about 8$). Both of these I got as much or way more food than a Big Mac combo and they were much better quality.
I won't defend McDonald's, but you'll struggle to get fish for under £7-8 now, and the chips are £2-3.
In the south, at least.
Roughly in line with the terrible inflation of the past 5 years which has been primarily driven by corporate price gouging.
I think you hit the nail on the head there. Even if they were to lower the prices, they'll just make the fucking burgers even smaller.
Does anyone remember how much bigger the Big Mac was in the 90's? Shrinkflation is everywhere.
They could always try to lower the quality standards to lower the price. Lmao! Quality standards! As if!
Can't wait for the McSawdust in 2026!
I think we have two classes of "fast food" now. The higher class places like Five Guys, Poke Bros, Panera are going to cost you more, and you're not going to go there every day (or even every week), but they're pretty damned good.
The OG fast food places - McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's, Hardee's/Carl's Jr., Arby's, Taco Bell - they're just not good enough to command the higher prices that the new class of fast food can. Not to mention that the quality of all of those chains has declined dramatically in the last decade. Obvious drop in quality plus increase in price, people notice that.
... They have always been. There is fast food and fast casual.
Fast food would love to be fast casual, they sell the idea to seem like fancy fast food. Like McDonald's having table service through the kiosk, etc.
But this isnt new. It's literally the business plan of the places you mentioned to not be fast food.
Except you can get a Duo meal for $7 at Panera that's soup sandwhich and chips and that's 3$ cheaper than McDonald's
I’ve never met an Panera that has everything in stock, so you’re going to be making a second or third line choice. One of your items is guaranteed to be out. Regular sandwiches, god knows why, are $14.
I used to love Panera back in high school, which was early 2000's. As someone who hung out with friends at a movie theater on weekends it was the best place to eat at in the same strip mall. I still remember getting sandwiches for $4 or $5 at the time. If I was in high school today there is no way I could eat there, and if I could I also couldn't justify spending that much. I feel like they are scrambling as well, changing a lot, making products worse, adding items nobody wants, just trying to hit big with one of them. My wife really wanted to try the new caprese sandwich they have, we were dying when she got it and all you saw was bread... when she opened it up there was like 1 slice of tomato and 1 slice of mozzarella and it was the saddest sandwich I've ever seen. I thought it was hilarious until I realized we paid over $10 for that joke...
Sharing the pic so everyone else can join in on the laugh.
My biggest gripe with them is they always add one hipster element that totally ruins the sandwich. Oh you want a high end grilled cheese? How about we put a blackberry reduction in that bitch? Grilled chicken sandwich? Why not try one with our new habanero peach marmalade?
Lol no you can't. I didn't believe you, so I checked. $11.79, and that's for mostly cheaper options of the pick 2 (broccoli cheddar + frontega chicken). And I live in Missouri, where shit's cheap.
Sorry, they are called Duets, not duos. They still come with apple/bread/chips. You cant sub anything out, but it's still a good portion for healthier fast food option.
Whoopsie doodle. Well $8 ain't $7 either.
But yea I'm shocked there's anything reasonably priced @ Panera.
They must have gone up in the past few months. It was 6.99 last I got them I thought. Oh well! Still cheaper than a big mac or whopper
Last time I tried to get fast food was like 2 or 3 months ago. I went to Taco Bell, saw that the beefy 5 layer burrito was like $4.50, and just left the drive through. Fuck all that
Taco Bell is my go to - I am vegetarian so my opinions are slim. But for $7 I can't get a crunch wrap with black beans, a cheesey bean and rice burrito, and a fiesta potato and a drink with thier app combo. Then after every other meal (like every to weeks) I get a bonus something. So. Yeah, I only mess with the build your own cravings box... 9 dollars for 3 tacos and a drink is ridiculous.
Also "The show me State" and you got shownnnn awwwwwwshit boyeee
;D
Lol
Sadly the Panera here has become garbage. The staff were seemingly wholly replaced, they look unhappy all the time, the food and ingredients have shrunk, and now you have to hope you hear them call your name so you can go pick up your food from a completely different counter (they used to bring it to your table which was a nice perk of going there), or stand around like an idiot for 10 minutes while your kid or significant other holds a table for you. And to top it off, the cinnamon roll changed again.
I don’t mind not having the food brought to me, but they could at least give us the hockey pucks again to alert us when the food is ready. Perhaps that’s just this specific store.
I used to love Panera. Maybe somewhere it’s still good.
Definitely don’t work to make the “food” better, yeah, just price gouge like every other company now.
No loss for me since I don’t go there anyway. But my childhood weeps a little for the good ole days.
McDonald's may be shit but at least they're generally consistent. I know what I'm getting when I go there. And (for me at least) it's a quick fix if I end up coming home late and don't feel like cooking. The issue is cheap shit is supposed to be cheap. 5 years ago I could get a burger and fries and water for 4-5 bucks. Now it's almost 9.
Aren’t they coming out with that $5 meal deal?
I got the $5 meal deal the other night. Dr Pepper for my drink was an upcharge. I'm not sure what drink is supposed to come with it then.
Water
Water is a chemical. It is composed DihydrogenOxyde, which is a very polar molecule, allowing it to dissolve a huge number of other chemicals. Anyway, I'm sure it's dangerous and they can only add soda flavoring to it in order to reduce its effects on thirst.
It is well documented that every person alive today will die just hours from drinking this chemical. And as you know, everyone who has ever lived died hours or days after the consumption of water. There are only few chemicals more potent that can claim such numbers. One of them is Argon.
Studies show that 100% of serial killers have Dihydrogen monoxide (DHMO) in their bodies while committing murder!
Don't you find it weird looking at all the moms at the park, with their kids, all of them consuming DHMO? Yeah. In plain light of day. And the police don't care, they drink it too!
Their consistency is sadly what made me buy McD at every country I was in Europe last year. At some point I got tired of.the food I could find there, and just gave up and bought a Big Mac meal at least once per country.
You couldn't find decent food in Europe so had to resort to McDonald's?
When you are tired of life, there is always McDonald's...
I was backpacking, so my budget was right. McD was a way to treat myself without regretting spending too much money on something disappointing, and I did find disappointing food in Europe. Mainly in Germany, and the UK.
Convenience store food was great in Switzerland, though.
McDonald's is not consistent though. A hamburger can often be flimsy thin. I don't get why you'd go there. There are enough fast food options with lower prices. McDonald's is often really terrible.
Their small burgers are always thin. It's not worth getting anything other than a double.
I always had a close restaurant nearby. I did try KFC in London, and boy was that a terrible experience! Food was too salty and the place I bought it from was so freaking dirty. It was close to Waterloo station.
Maybe I should congratulate you on being there long enough for that to happen.
A few years back I had a work trip to Singapore. It was a great experience and memorable in many ways. However the worst part is the client decided to “treat” me to familiar food and bought Pizza Hut. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. I didn’t go halfway around the world to visit a different culture to experience my own country’s fast food
I'm from Mexico. The difference with the US is that in Mexico we actually season our food ( :P ).
But yes, I believe the difference was that I was actually expecting something more than just "edible" in Europe. I bought a beelinese in fucking Berlin, for God sake, and it was the most boring piece of bread I've tasted, and I got it in Berlin! Where the bread is from! And it taste like cardboard. I found a nice beelinese in Switzerland, though, and the best part is that I bought it at a convenience store lol.
I tried Currywurst as well, and it was just a sausage with ketchup and curry powder?!? WTF it reminded me to the cheap food I had to eat while being a broke college student. How in the hell is Currywurst something people want to eat?!? There was a queue and the place was a well-known venue... For a freaking sausage with ketchup!
I also had the worst pasta I've ever had in Europe. I can't believe that being so close to Italy their pasta is so bland. I tried a local Italian "restaurant" to treat my and my SO, and lol the food was bad. It was ok for us, though. It was a hot meal for once, and the portions were great, but by no means I could call it "Italian food".
At some point we got tired of wasting our money on "eating local" and opted for what we knew for a fast meal...
It's fucking ridiculous that you're downvoted for this. Consistency is why so many of these businesses succeed!
You can go to McDonald's practically anywhere in the world and not be surprised by what you get. That's a really fucking hard problem to solve, especially when suppliers aren't obviously the same worldwide.
It's why people go to Starbucks. You can go anywhere and get a coffee that isn't the best, but is consistent and somewhat enjoyable, over trying the local barista that might use some fancy coffee you might not like, or charge a ton for a thimble of coffee that barely wakes you up/is like liquid crack.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting something that is familiar.
I can understand if other people had different experiences with McD: in the same trip I tried to buy KFC: in London to be precise, and it was the worst experience ever. The food was salty, and the place was so freaking dirty, loud and unpleasant. Still I find McD the most consistent fast food choice. That, and maybe Burger King.
I'll be visiting Japan next year. My opinion may change after that.
I feel like lately fast food has lost its appeal.
It isn't that fast any more, the service has gone done hill (habbitually checking orders now, because they're often wrong) and the prices are a joke.
Having to stand there waiting ages while a bunch of delivery guys turn up and grab orders off the counter is a piss-take.
What happened to "grab it off the rack behind them"?
they jacked prices as much as they could, had record profits, now they will have to pull back because people don't have money.
It's almost like they were warned several times that "No wage, only spend" would result in consumers who can't afford to consume.
I really hope McDonalds and like-minded companies become a case study on why you shouldn't inflate prices for short term profit. It'd be great to see them hemorrhage customers and sales.
Nobody who needs to will learn anything from this.
My McDonald's boycott is in it's 24th year. There is nothing to miss.
The bigger reason I don’t go to McDonald’s is because of the self serve kiosks they’ve forced on us instead of paying people to run the registers.
Price is still a reason though, so I’m glad they are at least considering that as well.
i don't get why people complain about this -- i'd so so much rather type my order in myself, see what's in everything, make modifications easily, etc without having to talk to someone. get those workers on the line and help ease the load on the kitchen
They didn't "get those workers on the line" though. They fired them. Fuck McDonalds, and FUCK ANY BUSINESS that forces these fucking things on us. I'm not there to work, I'm there to order food and eat. If you can't be bothered to take my order, I can't be bothered to drop a fucking dime on your business.
They weren't paying them a living wage in the first place let them replace it with screens
Of course RagingRobot would support this.
I can guarantee you nobody got fired for these machines, the turnover is already so fucking high there that it's not even needed. When I worked at MCD I lasted an entire year and excluding the managers I was probably in the top 3-4 in terms of "seniority"
You dislike self checkouts too?
The McDonalds near me have people on tills as well as the self order machines. And you say they fired them. Can you prove that?
To be clear. I dont think you are wrong, I have no idea, and I am genuinely curious and want to know if that happened. since you claimed it with such conviction, I assume you can give a reference or point me in the direction of the search terms I could use to find a source myself?
I'm saying that the 4 McDonalds in my town don't have front-line workers that take orders, save for the drive thru. All they have are the kiosks. Fuck that, and fuck them.
Because I go there once in a blue moon and it's easier for the guy doing it 1000x/day to push in my order than me finding it on a big dumb Kiosk menu.
I won't frequent places that force me to use a kiosk.
Decision paralysis.
I don't know the menu, seeing all the things flash by and not know what's in them is my reason, but in the 3 years I only been there 2 or 3 times for ice cream or coffee. But the logic applies for all other places.
Also, I feel a bit awkward when I order two BigMacs at the register.
Maybe i am just too old and go to McDonald's too infrequently, but i can never figure out how to get my order done properly on the kiosks. Try ordering a McGriddle combo with a Carmel latte. There's no visible option for that. Unless you ppan on doing a basic order, the kiosks suck
Why would you want people to take orders? It's not some amazing work that is satisfying. We should be glad these jobs are going away
If they're going to be gouging us on price the least they can do is employ people.
Nah, those jobs should disappear. Worthless labour is still worthless.
Those people could actually be doing something productive with their time instead.
Their solution will be to raise prices by 1% to make up for lost sales.
Hey sales are falling, let's implement flex-pricing and increase prices during peak times.
How about you guys rethink the food
If you can reconstitute some kind of edible food that maintains some semblance of the low price, I think that'll be enough. People started going to Five Guys and paying $16 because your burgers are clearly made of mouse shit.
The "food" they have now is the product of decades of incremental changes made to cut cost and tinkering with fat, salt and sugar contents to fool your brain into giving you a dopamine hit for eating it. What they have now doesn't even taste like hamburgers anymore.
I live in Ireland and I like McDonalds occasionally. But there is no doubt that there food is quite expensive and they aren't innovating. Once a month there will be some new burger which is usually just the same as a normal burger but with bacon or bbq sauce or some shit but it's just boring and lazy marketing. What is worse than the food is the entire ordering experience - those bullshit kiosks are very time consuming and aggravating to use and then because they're cutting staff you can look forward to a 5 or 10 minute wait for food to appear. I remember when I worked in McDs at peak periods you'd get your food almost as soon as you ordered it (unless it was a grill item) but not any more.
I only have positive vieuw on the kiosks. Easy to adjust your burger and i get the right stuff after. When in quick i can t ajust the burger on the kiosk and have to order old fadhioned. Then i often get a normal made.
I find them frustrating, because they are slow. There's no reason why they couldn't put a decent processor in them and have them actually function properly. Half the time I press a button and then end up hitting it again cause I don't know if it read the first press, since the feedback it so slow.
The Lowes near me just recently switched to newer self-serve kiosks that actually work, it's amazing how much better an experience it is.
There's no reason they can't hire more staff, give them adequate training, and pay them a living wage. But there is a rea$on why they won't.
Now that they're looking to replace as much of their staff with cheaper alternatives, it's not really surprising that they'd go for the cheapest option. After all, it's exactly what they do with their human resources.
I used to eat at McDonald's a LOT, and the main reason was you could get a large quarter pounder meal for under $10. Now it's $12+, depending on where you go. I used to get a solid quarter pounder, now it's a 50/50 chance the thing is so soaked in grease that it soaks through the cardboard and the bag, and the fries are 50/50 already luke warm.
But the innovation thing got me thinking: right before the pandemic, McDonald's in the US was doing "Meals from around the world," and it was basically McDonald's items you could only get outside the US (I think they had a French one, definitely a Canadian one, I think Brazil, etc). They changed every couple months, and it was cool! You go to try something that you may not otherwise get to.
They also used to have a lot of them open 24/7 (as did a lot of businesses), and then the pandemic shut everything down and they stopped doing it. When I worked nights and would get out of a catering event at 2 am, I'd be able to swing by McDonald's on the way home and I knew I was getting a decent meal. Now?
I'm lucky if when I order a large meal with a large drink, I actually get a large drink. Idk if this is happening all over, but I'd say 6/10 times now, I order a large meal and the cashier automatically puts in a medium drink. When I ask about it, they say they'll let the people know up front, and then they don't. And then I feel like a jackass for having to tell the people at the window my drink was supposed to be a large (I know they're the same price, but if I ordered a large meal, why would I order a medium drink?), and they usually give me a look or an eye roll.
Whereas before the pandemic, I was once asked to pull up to the second window to wait for my food. I wanted 5 minutes, tops, and the manager brought me my food and gave me 2 free meal tickets for the inconvenience. I went last week and waited 10 minutes and the kid didn't even confirm my order before basically dropping it through my car window and walking off.
I don't blame the employees, even in my state McDonald's wages are laughable, so who gives a fuck? But wtf happened to the corporation, where's the care? It's disappointing to see, not that I have sympathy for a billion dollar corporation.
I stopped understanding McDonald’s when there’s hundreds of homemade-like small burger places everywhere. They are so frikin tasty and cost the same
I still remember eating an especially tasty one and playing Disco Elysium then dying from heart attack in the game. Somehow it has become a permanent memory
Exactly, McDonald's niche was a very cheap and quick burger. Why pay $12 for a shitty McD when I can have a $10 burger at the Apple Pan
As far as I can tell the whole appeal of McDonald's is bland but edible food, quickly, at a low price.
Over the years, they've switched to what appears to be a prepare by order method so it's no longer quick (it used to be on the little racks behind them, all pre-made), and it's no longer cheap (especially if you get delivery and therefore immediately send half your dinner money to a Silicon Valley billionaire). It's not quite Burger King levels of pricing, but it's getting close.
The only thing they've got left is bland but edible, and that's only desirable if you're feeding a bunch of picky children.
There are so many better places to eat, and they don't cost an enormous amount more.
It's definitely a lot slower. I remember working there and at lunchtime they'd be working the grills 24 down - basically double the usual capacity and that stuff was wrapped and put into the racks constantly. They'd try and make burgers to meet demand with a holding time by which the burger should be sold by or thrown into a red bin. Usually it worked fine and waste was minimal but I assume some beancounter thinks that system and red bin waste costs McDonalds more money than it does to waste 5-10 minutes of somebody's lunch break. If people get pissed off by the wait though they might consider going somewhere else - after all, if they're going to wait, why not in a place where something more substantial than a burger is being prepared.
Or even a more substantial burger. I just learned that the standard McDonald's burger patty is 45 grams (that's 1.6 oz or approximately 1 medium celery stalk in freedom units). 45 grams! Only the quarter pounder has the 4 oz (113g for the rest of us or the weight of two large eggs for the Americans) patty.
This is all the pre-cooked weight. If your average patty loses 25% of its weight during cooking, that 45g patty becomes about 34g. WTF.
Ok, converting to imperial is nice but then acting like we don't understand our own measures is just insulting.
BK here is cheaper and wayyyyyy better than McD. So weird when people say "at least McD is consistent" - that doesn't help if "consistent" is inedible garbage.
A BK opened near my office a year or two ago. I've never had a burger I'd describe as depressing before then. But that Bacon King or whatever they called sure was.
BK opened up in my country with slightly higher prices than McD and slightly better burgers.
Then McD went up to match and now BK has also gone up again
And then there's Hesburger which makes McD and BK seem like gourmet food, but has increased in price to keep up with them. It's getting to the point where there are somewhat nice restaurants that give you a real fucking meal for maybe an euro or two more than a BK meal lmao
I don't think the production method has changed, I worked there a decade ago and it seems to be the same, essentially precook the meat and assemble to order. However, I think they no longer pay employees enough to care about speed. They don't pay more now than when I worked there. In fact, I moved to a state where they pay LESS. Why the hell would anyone working there bust their ass to get food out quickly? You get what you pay for.
It was a lot longer ago than that.
They used to have it so those racks behind the counter were stuffed with already made standard prep burgers, and if you just wanted that you'd get one pulled off the shelf and be served in seconds.
You only had prep-to-order if you wanted the change the default configuration, no lettuce, no mayo, etc.
Here in Germany Burger King is actually cheaper than McDonald's, especially when you use coupons, since the ones at Burger King are actually useful.
You feed picky children by giving them anything they don’t eat the next day.
Oh no!
.... Anyway.
$12 🤔 No, $15😀🤭 Me rethinks.
I don't get fast food often, but I did go to McDonald's a week or two ago. I learned that they replaced their fountains so that they no longer dispense water, so you can't get a free cup of water anymore. You have to buy a bottle of water or a soda.
I don't intend on ever returning to a McDonald's.
The charging for packets thing is the one thing that irks me nonstop especially the employees that stick by it. Unless they’re getting penalized, why do you have to gatekeep an extra BBQ sauce for 25 cents?
Sure, keep them behind the counter so people don’t grab 20 but asking for 1-2 extra shouldn’t require a surcharge or separate transaction.
So not even price cuts, just temporary discounts. Eff off!
Dynamic pricing inbound.
I went to an Asian mall in my city the other day. My wife and I got these two huge containers of food+bubble tea and dessert. Came out to $16 for the two of us. A big Mac meal costs about $18 now where I am. Fuck that place, I used to go every week. Now I haven't been in over a year.
Any time I try to get fast food I see what they’re charging for it and remember steak is $10 a pound. Steak and frozen veg with a baked potato for about the same price.
Steak and eggs at a breakfast spot near me is $20 (plus tip). To add insult, it’s a “touristy” one, so while the food is good, they definitely up-charge a bit, say $1-2, on most things vs places off the beaten path.
So….why am I buying a ‘meal deal’ for $13-15 at McDonalds again? I might as well go and fork out a few more bucks for table service and better food at that price point.
They were making way too much money to begin with, nevermind growth.
Also McDonald's is just a real estate company, I'm guessing the franchisees are complaining they aren't going to stick around.
As someone who used to be a daily fast food eater, I'm just proud that these greedy fast food chains have forever lost me as a customer. Ethics aside, after not eating at these places for so long, I now get to compare the experience to the local places around me or my own cooking skills. The only way I'd ever go back to one of these fast food joints I used to frequent daily is if they provide a better value than myself or the local restaurants here. And the local quick service places here give you a ton of good food instantly for under $10, which I know McDonalds et al will never reach again.
I think this will be the long term impact.
Customers have been pushed to discover alternatives and are unlikely to return for reasons beside price and quality.
For example, there are sit down restaurants near me that haven't raised their prices or have barely done so and are now cheaper than McDonald's.
The fact that local one offs haven't needed to raise prices signals to me that a large multinational company did not need to either. This adds a fuck off and die factor to my future purchasing decisions. I am not a price conscious customer but I take being gouged personally.
Their food sucks. 🤷♂️
They should just quadruple the prices and make it an elite experience,
Why not? It worked for Taco Bell.
So, something like shake shack?
In part due to boycotts btw.
My boss at work went to pick up some McDonald's food a few months ago, not particularly because he wanted to eat that, but because he wanted one of those free glasses that came with the meal - honestly, what a strange reason, right?.
He was sick for a solid two weeks due to salmonella. If I have had any desire to go eat there again, it evaporated when he told me that.
Not to try and discredit your or your boss or anything but a lot of people assume that they got salmonella from the last food they ate. Usually it's from food they ate a day or so ago, as the incubation time is between 24 and 48 hours.
If he got sick right after eating McDonald's food then it's probably just a coincidence. Have he got sick 2 or 3 days later then yeah it was probably the McDonald's burger.
Also what free glass?
Honestly, even if it hit him 2-3 days later, it'd be kind of hard to pin it on the McDonald's unless he ate all of his meals there that day or there was an outbreak of salmonella in the area and McDonalds was the common factor between the cases.
He could have just as easily gotten it from his breakfast or dinner, and that may even be more likely. I won't pretend for a moment that McDonald's employees can be 100% trusted to follow their proper food handling procedures and such to the letter, but I'm certain that a corporate outfit like McDonald's probably has so many guidelines in place and has idiot-proofed as much of their equipment as possible that it should be next-to impossible for them to be at fault even if half their rules end up getting ignored.
There's of course cases where things out of their control could happen, like they get a batch of lettuce that's contaminated with salmonella from their supplier, but that's the kind of thing that could happen at literally any restaurant, and there's only so much you can do to mitigate that.
There is a reason why it is almost impossible to sue for food poisoning. It's almost impossible to prove, because generally the person claiming to have had the food poisoning is doing so several weeks after the event, and by the time the court case is heard it would be months after the event, so it's very much a case of he says she says with no real evidence either way. If there has not being an outbreak the courts are not going to believe that the person either had food poisoning, or that they got the food poisoning from the establishment. Innocent until proven otherwise cuts both ways.
Does in America exist small fast food restaurants? In my country those are affordable and most of times better than McDonald's I prefer to spend money there.
I think you kind of need to define a bit what fast food means and what you consider small.
Following the McDonald's model with a drive through, self-seating dining area, no table service, etc. those are mostly going to be chains, although some chains are pretty small, only operating in certain areas with a handful of locations.
And there are exceptions of course, some independent restaurants do have a drive through (often I see this setup when they move into a location that was formerly a corporate fast food place) and there's chains or locations that don't have a drive through, or do have table service, etc. but those tend to be exceptions rather than the rule.
If you expand it a bit to include other small, no-frills restaurants with a heavy emphasis on fast service and take-out, there's a lot of places that could fit the bill. Pretty much every town has some little hole in the wall burger joint, deli, sandwich shop, taqueria, Chinese takeout, pizzeria, bodega, snack bar, etc. that you could potentially argue fits the fast food category.
Most of those places probably don't exactly advertise themselves as fast food and would probably want to avoid that label (although to be fair, the same can probably be said for most fast food restaurants, I've never heard a McDonald's commercial call themselves "fast food")
There's also going to be some overlap with other categories, fast-casual, convenience stores, etc. where the lines get blurred about what can be considered "fast food."
In general though, in America, the term "fast food" is usually going to refer to the larger chains, and the smaller independent restaurants with otherwise similar service will be called something else.
Kinda, but not really. Restaurants are kind of a tough business in the US.
This isn't just McDonalds. I walked into KFC the other day and it's got so darn expensive there, too. Nowadays we don't bother eating out unless we're on the road or something. Just ain't worth it.
KFC isn't even a blip on my radar for this reason
If you want another reason: the food quality is all over the place.
I used to like their non-chicken bucket menu items like the spicy big crunch and chicken bowls.
But I stopped going because getting a chicken bowl from there as a "treat" instead of making one at home has been a disappointment, as was the last spicy big crunch. The ingredients just tasted off, like they had a manager that insisted on ingredients being used after they had started going bad or staff that didn't know how (or care) to recognize that produce was off.
Like it wasn't at a "makes you sick" level, but it was gross and disappointing.
I remember when their Fried Chicken Pizza came out.. I figured "You do good chicken, and Yum Foods owns Pizza Hut, and I love their pizza.. So... this should be a treat."
Felt like throwing up, only finished the damn thing because I paid so much for it and my mama taught me to never waste food that's edible.
And for the record, I'm someone who regularly ate the Double Down Chicken Sandwich, ya know the one that basically could have been called "This Will Cause A Heart Attack". I'm all about greasy disgusting things that would be considered war crimes if you fed them to enemy soldiers. Fried Chicken Pizza should have knocked it out of the park with my demographic, but... ugh... just tasted like someone threw up on my chicken tendies.
And I've stopped eating at McDonalds as much.. only go there if I'm in a hurry and need to get something on the way into work. A big part of that isn't just me needing to save cash for a con I'm heading to later this month, but.. the taste just isn't there. I used to love these burgers, they were a guilty pleasure for me. Sure they couldn't compare to some spices on a medium rare burger, especially when you lather the meat with a bit of bud light before you cook it (I know that sounds Redneck as fuck, but it's delicious if you do it right)
But fuck at least that was an ideal pick-me-up. But I can't even call them Unhappy Meals because that implies they have an unpleasant flavor instead of... Well none at all.
Learn how to cook the food first.
Finally. Better late than never I guess.
Gradually increasing revenue each year is more sustainable, as it avoids the pressure of constantly surpassing record highs and potentially alienating your customer base. CEOs somehow fail to understand this. Morons.
First sales fall since 2020.
Three years? So what? That's nothing. Now if they said first sales fall since 2002, now that would be something.
No business weathered Covid without a drop in sales, except maybe for the healthcare sector. Good luck finding any customer-facing business that survived Covid without lost sales.
Healthcare definitely lost out during the pandemic. Hospitals were struggling to stay open amidst consumers opting to delay elective procedures.
Yeah basically all business lost money when covid hit.
Good. I used to grab a burger after work sometimes but it barely feels worth it anymore.
At what point are we blaming people who eat there?
Blame them for what? The sales decrease? That makes no sense.
The people that eat there are not tolerating their continued price gouging after the pandemic shortages.
Since day one sir. Since day one.
Many have little choice in the matter.
What? Isn't it cheaper to buy and cook your own meals?
In order to prepare a meal, you need to be able to afford ingredients, have the required skills, and have the time/energy to cook. So yes, it is cheaper to prepare your own meal, but if for example you're working three jobs to make rent while raising a child, you're going to have difficulty finding the time or energy required for cooking. Doubly true if you don't already know how to cook.
There's also people without access to a kitchen. If you have to rely on other people to cook for you, you're extremely limited in options and as a result you'll likely have to spend more money on fast food and takeout.
Another thing to think about: it's cheaper to grow your own food than to buy it. Most of us don't grow our own food - probably because we lack time, knowledge, or land.
All valid points, thank you.
Another aspect to this is our society and culture. Eating out is a special treat, a privileged event that's deep in our subconscious. Have grandparents that take you to a favorite spot? A friend that loves to eat at this one certain place. Just want to have a more relaxing day because of over-stressing? The food joint is our new spa.
I don't enjoy eating out so it's easy for me to avoid it. But, my family has the average addiction and my partner comes from a household that would eat out at any opportunity (I've seen them do all 3 meals in a day when visiting once). You don't realize the amount of money being spent on advertising till you're trying to get someone to cut back. Newspapers, online ads, roadside signs, we even get "coupons" in the mail it feels like several times a week. Kid's programming, sponsored school events from nearby food chains, high schools will have a domino's in it before they get a robotics lab.
It's crazy we allow any of this, we know from past cigarette legislation what this kind of inundation can do to people psychologically.
A homeless person couldn't really do that.
Very true, for some reason that didn't cross my mind.
It probably doesn't cross most people's minds most of the time. That's why people on these forums seem to be changing so much.
Wrong, there are so many fast food places to go to besides McDonald's. There is literally no one on this planet who is forced to eat there.
Alright, so they'll be forced to eat at Greggs or Subway, then, I guess.
I resent the implication that Greggs and Subway are equivalent. Subway is the only place where they ask you 500 questions when you ask for a cheese sandwich.
I'll just take some ketchup with whatever the other hobo is having then, I guess.
But I find mayonnaise quite distasteful.
Subway is the only place *that has decent vegetables even available
Every time a thread like this pops up the sentiment is that their food is awful and you're an idiot for eating there - so I'd say for at least a decade or two.
bubble popping?
We all wish
They largely removed their vegan options. Nuff said.
Because low demand, the demand is low because McDonald's is a burger joint. Also most vegans are ethical vegans and wouldn't support giving business to a huge player in the cattle slaughter game.
Imagine 'McDonald's' being your baseline fur 'decent fast food'
It's descent in some European countries.
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