[FerretFred]

I can only speak for the UK but for quite a while now, McD's has become an uninviting experience, with miserable staff, menu screens that visibly tell you to hurry the f*k up and choose the product. Not to mention customers vying with delivery drivers for orders. I think the problem applies to all-income customers.

[silisili]

At least from my perspective, COVID broke everything. People are more awful, quality is more awful, and prices are way up. I dread even eating out anymore as I fully expect to overpay for bad food and service.

There's an argument to be made that inflation is ultimately the driver of all three complaints, but boy did that all happen seemingly overnight.

[goku12]

> I dread even eating out anymore as I fully expect to overpay for bad food and service.

I don't know if HN is the place to say this. But, it's just infinitely better these days to cook your own meals. With some modest initial investment and planning, you can minimize the average time and cost of doing it, while still having access to a reasonaly healthy and delicious menu, though slightly repetitive. But if you really want to indulge, setting aside a couple of hours will give you dishes that taste way beyond anything you can afford from outside.

Some people are natural born chefs with an intuitive understanding of tastebuds. But if you're like me in that you're clueless about it, there are still some exceptional recipes you can steal online. I treat cooking more like chemistry, insisting follow exact measurements and time. It still works out really well for me. You might even tweak the recipe over 4 or 5 repetitions to your at most satisfaction. Anybody who hasn't given it a try really should, at least once.

[thelock85]

I have a slightly different take that everything was really broken right before, but Covid and its response brought everything to bear.

I see this play out a lot in ed reform politics where leaders conveniently compact decades of prior failure into the “Covid gap”.

To be sure Covid and the response produced a slew of new problems, too, but I think they are massively inflated by prior failures.

[illwrks]

100%. My wife thinks I’m crazy, but every issue she observes my answer tends to have its root in covid. An economy is an ecosystem and it’s been seriously knocked out of balance by covid, annd the fuel issues aa a consequence of Russias war hasn’t helped either. Everything that was, no longer is.

[ta9000]

The secret is to eat out less often and spend more when you do. Service is fantastic still at higher end restaurants.

[LocalH]

COVID isn't the only thing that broke everything, but it was quite the accelerant

[BizarroLand]

I don't think COVID is responsible. I think COVID was the straw that made more people use doordash and then retailers saw that doordash was making profit on their product by bundling a service and they got greedy for that profit.

After all, if you'll pay $8 for a big mac + tip delivered to your door, then you'll pay $8 for a big mac. Then to get it delivered is another $2 or so, so you'll pay $10 for a big mac. Then to get it delivered is another $3 or so, so now you'll pay $13 for a big mac.

The only losers are the customers.

[GOD_Over_Djinn]

Absolutely. I feel bad for young people growing up in this broken world. They will never even know what was taken from them.

I realize that I’m probably going to get dogpiled for saying it, but I think that the response to COVID (ie lockdowns) did far more damage than the disease itself.

[bamboozled]

A packet of crisps is now $4, yes they are fancy gourmet but they were three last year, it’s just insane . Next year they will be $5 I guess?

[conception]

Both are tied together. The stock market didn’t double during Covid because we were making more. The US printed a lot of money. A lot.

[ceejayoz]

The app drives me crazy on the occasions I do have to use it.

Picking fries brings me to a one-item category where I can... pick fries again.

Latency during the order process is insane, and then they add animations and little popup alerts throughout that actively interfere with me getting my all-important order code while I'm sitting like an asshole in the drive-through.

[tzs]

Yeah, the McD app is ridiculous. For some items it gives me an add to order dialog and then an add to bag dialog (I might have the order of those two swapped). I'm not sure what the distinction is between adding to the order and adding to the bag.

It also has some ridiculous restrictions. Nearly every week I take advantage of their in-app deal for free medium fries on Friday if you spend at least $1 on other stuff. I make a sandwich at home, order a couple cookies plus the free fries in the app, then go pick them at the McD that is about half a mile from my home.

Occasionally though instead of making a sandwich I decide I'd like to use my McD reward points to get a free burger. But you can't get both a rewards points item and a deal item on the same order.

I end up doing a rewards points order for a free burger, picking that up at the drive through, parking, then doing a cookies plus free fries deal order, and going through the drive through again to get that.

What's the point of not allowing both a rewards item and a deal item on the same order? If the rule was you could only use one reward or deal per day, then it would make some sense.

[mc32]

Seeing pictures of Cardiff McD's afterhours with disheveled, boorish patrons and rubbish strewn about, no-one would want to patronize them: https://hollyhughesgraphics.wordpress.com/2014/02/07/maciej-...

[Nexxxeh]

There's at least two in the Cardiff City Centre, one on St Mary St and one on Queen St.

Having used both at normal and at peak pisshead hours, they're both alright.

Not great, not a disaster. Slightly understaffed, and occasionally short on English language skills, but there's not an issue if you want hot food (inc vegetarian and vegan) or drinks at a daft hour.

[porjo]

Australian here and the sentiment is the same. Drive-through is tolerable but dine-in is not pleasant due to basic cleaning like sweeping, wiping of tables not being done.

[bombcar]

Around here dine-in costs the same or more than the local diner; why would you do it?

The only saving grace is the happy meal and that’s getting too expensive now, also.

[throaway123123]

Canadian who agrees and will add that 95% of the employees are also new immigrants which really rankles us who have had to look hard for any kind of unskilled job!

[bromuro]

Here in Spain i have had only good experiences and i love sometimes going to McDonald!

[SapporoChris]

Here in Japan I have only had good experiences, but I can't say I love going to McDonalds. The breakfast offerings are decent and it's extremely fast service. During peak times seats will be around 95 percent full but the restaurant remains very clean. I think the cleanliness in part is due to the patrons being responsible.

[hexbin010]

Yeah pretty decent in Spain. Give it another 10-20 years when McDonald's realise the customers need them more than they need the customers (ie addiction) and that'll change!

[wkat4242]

Yes here they have the Uber cheap menu4you option too. A double cheeseburger which is pretty much a big Mac (but with nicer sauce), fries and coke for €5

[bombcar]

Spain has McBeer, right? Like Portugal? Different world!

[lewiscollard]

From the UK too, and your experience is matched by mine. The last time I was in one (I mean "the last time" in both senses of the words) I waited over 20 minutes for my food; I do not know how long it would have actually taken because at that point I got bored, wrote it off as a loss and walked out. No sense in complaining to anyone because that would have consumed even more of my time.

McDonalds is not food and it is not even fast anymore.

I cannot blame their staff for any of this anyway; if I was being paid that little to be treated like garbage I wouldn't give a shit either.

[hackable_sand]

It is not apparent that we are ambivalent because of compensation.

I would argue an inverse corollary. I would argue that the most qualified people for the job are applying.

What I am noticing in my own work is fatigue from processing volume.

It's not personal. You are a statistic until you walk up to the front counter and make it personal. Only then we can actually solve your issue because we have a person to relate to.

I am curious about this notion that fast food workers don't care. I see it a lot. We absolutely care.

[lumost]

I do wonder if the US is soon to experience a regression in productivity due to compensation practices.

If all accessible jobs have declining pay, when do you start to reduce effort to match?

[pjmlp]

I only used McDonald's in an emergency, if there is no where else to eat, and having to now use those screens, I must be really desperate.

Better replace the kitchen with cooking robots as well then.

[globular-toast]

I'd rather just skip a meal than resort to McDonald's, but I've noticed in so many places there are more deliveries going out than people eating in. This seems to go for any place that does delivery. It's even hard to read reviews for places as so many of them are rating the delivery when the food in question doesn't transport well.

[Nexxxeh]

I'm in the UK and have McDonalds semi-regularly. A few times a month at least. Get a receipt, fill out the online feedback form, get a code. Put the code in the app, get an offer for £2.99 sandwhich (McPlant, Big Mac, whatever the chicken thing is) and either fries or a salad. £2.99 for a McPlant and fries at 3am is a godsend.

[hexbin010]

Yup. McDonald's in the UK is a truly horrible experience that only "addicts" still put up with

Staff barely even look at you, they're miserable, fries are only 50% full, orders always wrong, no please or thanks or sorry for keeping you waiting 20 mins in the bay for a hamburger etc. Stopped going ages ago

[duxup]

What is strange is McDonalds at one point was by far the most consistent fast food place in the US. Personally it wasn't my thing but it was always a step above all the other chains.

That hasn't been the case in a long time, quality control and customer service has fallen to be just as bad as any other place.

[detritus]

Also, £4.20 for a Double Bacon & Egg McMuffin is just ... no. Why?

I could swear it wasn't that long ago it was under £3.

For a fiver I can get a better 'real' Bacon & Egg bap from an independent.

[walthamstow]

I paid £5.09 for a sausage and egg mcmuffin meal with coffee and a hash brown this morning. I think that's pretty reasonable, especially for London.

[pixl97]

You sure it's still a fiver and not up to 7.

Even going to the grocer the price for raw goods is way up.

[ta12653421]

...well, wait: At McDonalds this is a high price for bad quality - in a good restaurant it may be cheap :-)

[f1shy]

My experience is that quality in McD is rapidly declining. We may agree was never a Michelin star restaurant. But I remember being more or leas enjoying the food. Now I just can’t. Maybe I’m getting older. But I would swear the quality is much worse now than say 5 or 10 years ago.

[tiew9Vii]

> My experience is that quality in McD is rapidly declining. We may agree was never a Michelin star restaurant

That's the thing with McDonalds.

You could go in to any store no matter where you was and know you got a consistent level of hygiene, cleanliness, good fast efficient service and while not gourmet food you knew the food you was going to get was a consistent standard. It was the reliable, dependable safe option in a list of unknown options. McDonalds was McDonalds know matter where you was.

Now it's no longer clean as they got rid of all the staff replacing them with screens. Stores are generally filthy with mess everywhere.

There is no consistent service as they got rid of all the staff and replaced them with screens that sometime work, sometimes don't, often out of paper for receipts/order numbers.

It's no longer fast as you need to mess about with broken screens, and repeatedly declining up sell options each step of the way vs giving a order at the counter and being done.

The quality now varies from store to store

It's no longer cheap. For the price of a McDonalds, in Australia I can go in to a Pub/Hotel and get a better meal if i get a special.

[im3w1l]

For me it's the competition. So many competing chains and independent burger joints have sprung up and spoilt me. For 20%-30% more than mcd prices I can get something way way better.

[lisbbb]

My family and I ate at one this evening. My son wanted to try to the McRib. I'm not sure he loved it, but it looked fine. My wife and I both had the $5 McValue meal, and we got a free medium fry because it was Friday. We shared one of the drinks because I'm not supposed to be eating lots of sugar. Some McD's don't have a drink station in the public seating area anymore, but the one we go to does. All in all, it was not a bad meal for like $15. I don't see any degradation in their quality at all. I think that quality is highly dependent on which one you visit and how well it is managed.

[quickthrowman]

McDonalds tastes the same as it always has. Food consistency is what they excel at, along with owning valuable real estate.

Also, the quality of a fast food restaurant (cleanliness and service) is directly correlated to the median income of the area it is in. Wealthy suburbs will have much cleaner restaurants than inner city restaurants from the same chain.

[globular-toast]

I'd say you've just grown up and experienced decent food now. McDonald's is marketed to children and caters for the child-like palate: sweet, salty and acidic, like tomato ketchup.

When I grew up in the UK in the 80s/90s we ate typical British food. Potatoes every day, boiled veg, baked beans, beige protein things. Back then it was possible to have "Chinese" or "Indian", but it's all total shit: overly sweet, not spicy, greasy as fuck bastardised rubbish. Nowadays I can actually find real Indian, French, Italian etc. that is actually delicious. It's difficult to imagine going back to beige stuff I grew up on.

[esseph]

Seems to be exactly the same quality at least here in the US, that it has always been.

[fellowniusmonk]

"They're poor, they don't care a about basic human dignity." - McDonald's CEO probably.

It truly is the most "Shove this in your slop hole you wretch" experience in all of fast food.

[silisili]

It's pretty hilarious because your comment is exactly their goal.

McDonald's is laser focused on low income customers. They do not want to compete in the middle income space, as they don't visit as often and there's ton more(and better) competition.

Their CEO has been blunt about this recently, and trying to find ways to get low-income customers back. Dire straits ahead for them, they've priced themselves into a place they don't want to be nor will they be able to succeed in.