There are some things that improve with technology and revamps, and some things that don’t.
Today’s visit doesn’t, didn’t, isn’t.
Whatever.
It sucked.
Hubby and I were in town getting Maggie’s new lead, and decided to treat ourselves to some fast food rather than me cook today (read not really in the mood, didn’t know what we wanted/fancied, didn’t want to shop).
McD has had a revamp, and there are less tables now because they had to make room for the two ‘self order’ billboards inside which actually provide four service ‘stations’.
There were two people on the counter, one taking manual orders and the other handing out meals.
Like something out of a catalogue shop, your receipt had a number on it which was displayed on a screen either under the heading of ‘Preparing’ or ‘Collect’.
People waiting had already placed their orders, most from the self service stations, and there were about 10 in the preparing list, including mine. Collect was empty.
My manual order was ready before the lady in front of me in the queue who had also placed hers manually with the same guy, but wanted a Happy Meal for her daughter.
Once seated, I took a slurp of my banana milkshake which tasted of nothing, so I took it back, asked for another flavour just in case that chamber was empty and got a large replacement with an apology and a smile.
Hubby had since discovered his burger was cold (as in almost still frozen), as was my chicken sandwich, so they too went back, and were replaced with piping hot food as we’d originally expected. Hubby declined the complimentary extra fries (pity, but we have to show willing somewhere I suppose).
At least his coffee was hot (and coffee).
The queue was now almost to the door, and the lady who had been in front of me had just taken her seat with her order.
Let us just say the drive thru would have been quicker, and even the queue for that stretched beyond the car park!
Note:
They have a similar system (but no drive thru) in Stratford, but the kitchen is much bigger and manned by at least twice as many staff , so it works. Today, we had more (older generation) staff on clean up duty than food assistants.
pensitivity101 
Great Post
Glad you liked it. 🙂
Sounds like that particular McD’s needs to be re-revamped. Gives a whole new meaning to the term “fast food” doesn’t it?
Maybe just give it a vamp!
I’m surprised they were so slow – as the whole point is Fast food!
I treat myself about once a year to a MacD – Think I’m due one soon! 🙂
Hope you go armed with a book! The service today was dreadful, and for the meal to be cold as well was unacceptable. It could of course be teething troubles with a new system, so we’ll give it a wide berth for a couple of months or so and maybe it’ll be better next time.
Yes, good to give them a second chance later on 🙂
We don’t know how long this system has been operational as it’s months since we last went, so we’ll give them another chance, especially as the service at Stratford was really good.
🙂
I don’t understand why people wait so long for fast food especially at MacDonalds. Was it the only fast food aroind.
Sadly they take your money first, so you have no choice but to wait. KFC is just down the road but we tend to ‘rent’ that and you only get half a dozen fries anyway. We have been known to walk out of a restaurant whilst waiting for our order to be taken.
That is why they take your money first. I would hard press to eat out at fast foods there as both ains food are not GF. MacDonald make astab at it but KFC does not.
You’ve mentioned your diet issues to me previously, so I guess it would be very difficult for you to have take outs or fast foods like us. One of our local chippies have a GF menu, all they ask is 20 minutes notice, and by all accounts they are very good. A boating colleague has such problems and fuming because she has to stop having all the things she loves. However, she has tried their food and been very impressed with no after effects.
Things have improved since I had to go on a diet. Bob went to Pizza Hut today and mine was GF and it look as histhe same
That’s great Betty. Hope you enjoyed it. We have a Dominos here and love their pizzas. Their bases are the best we’ve tasted.
I hate when we decide to go out for a quick bite and it turns out we should’ve just stayed home. I haven’t experienced the new self-serve yet, but I imagine they’ll be everywhere soon.
Can’t win I think. Self service is the way to go and cheaper than hiring a person.
Hate to admit it but I still love McDonalds. I’ve very rarely had to wait long inside, the drive throughs can take forever so I almost always just go inside to order. Maybe it’s they’re not used to the new system yet?
I hate waiting in line too, especially when the whole point of it is FAST food! I do always bring a book to read, just in case. It helps to keep me calm.
I’ve seen on the news that some places are putting in robots, where the employees got a $15/hour pay, they eliminated the people and replaced them with robots. Not sure how far it’s gone, but makes sense from the business owners side. I’m not sure I’d want to go there to eat.
Haven’t seen anything over here about robot servers, but I suppose the self service counters aren’t that far away from it. As far as value for money goes, it’s still good, and yesterday was the first time we really had any complaint. Gives a whole new concept to the nut McFlurry then. 🙂
I haven’t seen any yet here. I heard in the news that Washington state was raising the minimum wage to $15/hour and so some of the fast food restaurants replaced their workers with robots (including McD’s). Our minimum wage here is still $7.75 or something so we have no robots yet.
personally I never touch MacDonalds or KFC, fast food is just fast rubbish, the box it comes in probably tastes better than the “food” it contains.
Sometimes you’re right. We’ve bought food, and not just fast food but our basic shopping, and it’s been tasteless. My uncle has never had a McD and he’s almost 90!