Does Mickey Ds really want you inside now?

[prairie_girl]

You learn something new every day. Is the name Mickey Ds a local thing in the US, or is it a common nickname?

You’ve never heard it called that? I definitely have called it that and another name that I can’t post because it will be starred out.

 

[bcla]

You learn something new every day. Is the name Mickey Ds a local thing in the US, or is it a common nickname?

The first time I'd ever heard that was in a McDonald's commercial. Might have been late 80s or early 90s.

 

[Jennasis]

I don't know what THEY want, but I certainly don't want to eat indoors there. It's curbside or drivethru only for us.

 

[G719]

Our local McDonalds is operating as it did pre covid except the employees wear masks now. And has been for quite awhile.

 

[BrianL]

Walk up windows only old school? I do recall these for many years back in the 50's. Two walk up windows only plus there was a ledge on both sides of the restaurant to sit on. You can see those a bit here in this photo.

View attachment 632207

I meant more the 80's style with the swivel seats and such. They just re-did the one near my house that I grew up going to - it was one of the few hold-outs! There was a retro one too that was kind of like what you show above, but it did have indoor seating. It had the big arches that wre built into the building though, but had a lot of the origianl style signage and such.

 

[BrianL]

You learn something new every day. Is the name Mickey Ds a local thing in the US, or is it a common nickname?

It's a pretty common nickname. I know in Australia, they call it "Macca's."

 

[Karin1984]

You’ve never heard it called that? I definitely have called it that and another name that I can’t post because it will be starred out.

I am not from the US I have heard the Big M, the Golden Arches (or something like that).

Here in NL we call it The Mac. (We put 'the' in front of store names, it's a Dutch thing )

 

[luvnwdwgal]

They’ve been renovating our local McDonald’s. It’s completely covered in plastic. You can’t see anything.

 

[bcla]

They’ve been renovating our local McDonald’s. It’s completely covered in plastic. You can’t see anything.

That's been going on for years. The last one (which I didn't visit much) that I recall with a traditional McDonald's architecture looks totally different now.

 

[Kennywood]

McDonald's is doing all they can to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Not too long ago, the were the undisputed leader in fast food. About 5-10 years ago, though, things changed.

The stores now look like dull, grey, utilitarian boxes. It's actually depressing to sit inside the store. There's no character, no atmosphere, and nothing that showcases McDonald's or the community in which it does business.

The quality of food has rapidly gone downhill. This is the result of their trying to be "all things to all people." Their current menu is simply too big. You can only make so many things well in a kitchen that has no room to expand. So, the food that was rather fresh is now stored in warming bins to extend the length of time the food can supposedly remain "fresh".

The quality of service has all but disappeared. Sandwiches are now slapped together with no attention to appearance. (Cheese half on a cheeseburger, tartar sauce half out of the Filet-o-Fish sandwich, etc.) The "thumbprint" in the top bun of a sandwich is ever prevalent and incredibly unappealing.

Managers that used to be stationed at the counter and the grill areas are persona non grata. Usually, they can be seen sitting in the back office. They, like the rest of the staff, simply don't care anymore.

Pricing is insulting. For the price of a "fast food" meal, you can easily pay for a meal at a "sit down" restaurant. The quality of food, the speed of service, and the lack of care surely do not warrant the enormous increase in pricing. To be fair, though, people did want $15.00/hr wages, so prices had to increase somewhat to cover that.

I used to be an assistant manager at McDonald's 30+ years ago. I simply do not see any of the quality that was so important to us back then. If we had been sitting in the office during any of the rush times, we would have been promptly fired. The crew people that we hired were taught to care about what they did and how they dealt with the guests. If we screwed up, we owned it because we cared.

We've stopped going to McDonald's for all of the above reasons.

 

[thanxfornoticin]

It seems the fast food places like McDonalds, BK, Wendy's, TB, etc learned some lessons through the pandemic the past 2 years. These places have grown comfortable with the lesser staffing required for drive-thru and curbside. For some of them, it was out of necessity, in my opinion. But I can see the focus on drive-thru remaining for many years to come - no need for these places to focus on pulling people into a dining room area. Some of the changes we've seen with local Mickey D's (and yes, we use that term!!), include putting in a second lane for drive-thru traffic. Americans seem to really like the idea of not getting out of their cars for a number of things now.

 

[kdonnel]

those that I see (looking through the windows as I pull in and out) that are open generally have no customers in them.

Very regional. Here any restaurant, fast food or otherwise, is full and has been for at least a year.

People are dying to eat inside.

 

[Imzadi]

Interestingly, the traditional McDonalds dining room was designed to not be very comfortable to encourage people to leave once they had finished their meals and not hang around. Thus you had the hard, plastic seats and somewhat loud acoustics, etc. They wanted to turn tables over more quickly.

Here, in the metro NYC area, McDonalds is mainly a place for the homeless to hang out and in the afternoons, it turns into an afterschool hangout with kids/teens screaming and yelling and running around everywhere. Neither group does McDonalds really want hanging out for long. The first group turns off the customers. With all the kids screaming and yelling and taking over all the tables, no one wants to stay while students are there. And it's a good thing all the furniture is hard plastic. It would be easily destroyed otherwise. And it's not a good environment for bedbugs. fleas or lice to find a home.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Americans seem to really like the idea of not getting out of their cars for a number of things now.

Well they were forced to for just about everything..so yeah and some places may be still doing this by a mandate (or have brought that back).

But grocery pick up was already around it just got a large push during the pandemic. And Walmart decided instead of having to rely on towers to be stocked or an employee to have to be in the store pick up area they can just combine that with the area for grocery pick up.

I think it's more the mandates had the larger influence on behaviors. When your state or local government prohibits you from going in the store companies have to adapt and consumers then adapt.

FWIW I almost always used the mobile pickup option at McDonald's and have been doing that for a few years before the pandemic. When my husband was in CA in 2019 and I was at our house I must admit I did that a lot because it was easy to pull on some decent enough clothes, make an order on my phone, drive, park and have them bring the order out to me. But when it came to Burger King I usually went into do my order (not drive-thru) and for Chick-fil-A I'd go in. Wendy's I would usually use the drive-thru. I think usually it was just learning which locations were better at drive-thru, which ones were better at inside and for McDonald's they were one of the only ones to have an app for a while and their app gave me good deals so they were incentivizing. The local BK had paper coupons.

 

[thanxfornoticin]

People are dying to eat inside.

Not sure I've ever heard a statement like that associated with a fast food restaurant!

 

[prairie_girl]

I am not from the US I have heard the Big M, the Golden Arches (or something like that).

Here in NL we call it The Mac. (We put 'the' in front of store names, it's a Dutch thing )

I'm not from the US either, I'm Canadian. I asked because I assumed Mickey D's was a global nickname.

 

[thanxfornoticin]

Well they were forced to for just about everything..so yeah and some places may be still doing this by a mandate (or have brought that back).

In eastern PA, it hasn't been mandated for quite awhile. But drive-thru lines at fast food joints are quite long most days at lunch and dinner.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

In eastern PA, it hasn't been mandated for quite awhile. But drive-thru lines at fast food joints are quite long most days at lunch and dinner.

I was talking about from the beginning of the pandemic as you said the companies had learned a lot over the past 2 years.

I think I was reading your comment to mean consumers influenced the behaviors but what I was saying is the mandates and such influenced the behaviors by necessity which in turn consumers adapted to those behaviors. Adaptations lead to new behaviors. So maybe we can look at it like chicken/egg thing but I do firmly believe if there was never a push to close inside dining you wouldn't see as much issues. At the same time I do believe in for a while now staffing shortages vs actual covid-19 virus-related concerns (such that were a bigger issue in 2020) are pushing dining room issues. It all sorta seems to be just a continuation here such that there is a blur.

 

[tvguy]

You learn something new every day. Is the name Mickey Ds a local thing in the US, or is it a common nickname?

Very common nickname.

 

[dclpluto]

The one near me my dad talked to the owners son he said because of staffing issues they can only open the inside two days a week. Another one by where I work I see a sign saying lobby open 7-7.