McDonald’s general discussion

Lima said:
My wife said to me about a year ago that McDonald’s have stopped salting their chips, which she said she assumed was due to nanny state health nonsense. I was like no way…. But the next time we went the chips had no salt?!?! I went another couple of times to same branch and still no salt. I therefore made her correct.

Weirdly though, we went to a different one and it was completely different experience. Really well assembled meal and the chips were old skool salty goodness. So now I’m confused as it seems some places don’t salt and some do!?!
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That is down to lazy staff.
I've witnessed it, salter is there on the rack, but they just put fries in the salter, don't salt, put in bags.

Just laziness.
 
I had a double quarter pounder with cheese yesterday, it was pretty decent. Stayed together reasonably well during eating, didn't splay apart like the double big mac I had did, and was just the right meat ratio. The double big mac actually came pre-splayed n the box as it happens. Rather than being stacked vertically like an impossible Shaggy sandwich from Scooby Doo, it was a horizontally scattered mess straight out of the box.
 
Very strange going’s on at my local today, whilst I expect to have a wait (and I did have to wait in the drive through queue) given I’d ordered a fillet of fish I was absolutely gob smacked when they handed it to me at the window rather than make me wait half an hour in the car park.

Then I remembered…

I’d ordered one a couple of weeks ago and am guessing they cooked off two at that time and kept it nearby on the off chance somebody would order one!!
 
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Half hour?!? They only take 3.5 mins to fry from frozen. Give them a very generous 1.5 mins to shove it in the fryer in the first place, slap it in a bun, bag it and walk it to your car. You really shouldn’t be waiting any more than 5 minutes for them to cook it from scratch.
 
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GarethSouthgate said:
Unless there's a queue of orders?
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Well that’s why you put it in the fryer first and then make those other orders while it’s cooking ;) You can make a hell of a lot of ordered in 3:30 and if it’s that busy there would be more than one person working in that station.

If there was a queue of orders that long, the place would be gridlocked with people. That said, now they do delivery have have all the customer self order points/app, it’s impossible to control incoming orders.

‘Back in the day’ when I worked there, none of that existed and you could effectively balance your staff between the kitchen and service to make sure the kitchen couldn’t get overwhelmed. Sure if you didn’t have the staff to meet demand, people had to queue but at least once they ordered, they got their food right away.
 
b0rn2sk8 said:
Half hour?!? They only take 3.5 mins to fry from frozen. Give them a very generous 1.5 mins to shove it in the fryer in the first place, slap it in a bun, bag it and walk it to your car. You really shouldn’t be waiting any more than 5 minutes for them to cook it from scratch.
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Perhaps my local is just ‘special’ but yeah half hour is their sweet spot for a fillet of fish. I’ve said before it’s ordered so infrequently it sends them into a flummox!
 
To be fair, it was usually cook to order where I worked outside of a Fri/Sat/Sun peak lunch/dinner periods. We still got it out in 4 minutes usually, 5 max.

I always thought the fish bit was decent be the rest of the sandwich was a bit ‘meh’.

They steamed the bun so it’s a bit soft and squishy, a bit like how you’d expect to find vegetables cooked at a care home - good for false teeth. It lacked a satisfying crunch.

My ‘employees special’ custom filet consisted of a toasted bun, the usual tartar sauce, lettuce, tomato, fish patty and a whole slice of cheese (rather than the half you usually get), with a few pickle slices on the side for after. It’s so much better than the thing they actually sell.
 
b0rn2sk8 said:
To be fair, it was usually cook to order where I worked outside of a Fri/Sat/Sun peak lunch/dinner periods. We still got it out in 4 minutes usually, 5 max.

I always thought the fish bit was decent be the rest of the sandwich was a bit ‘meh’.

They steamed the bun so it’s a bit soft and squishy, a bit like how you’d expect to find vegetables cooked at a care home - good for false teeth. It lacked a satisfying crunch.

My ‘employees special’ custom filet consisted of a toasted bun, the usual tartar sauce, lettuce, tomato, fish patty and a whole slice of cheese (rather than the half you usually get), with a few pickle slices on the side for after. It’s so much better than the thing they actually sell.
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I’ll be honest I’ve never had one nor do I intend to. It’s the wife who orders it!
 
cheesefest said:
Have these in many European countries. Look at the menus abroad and you sigh as wish they have some of the stuff on our menus. Spain do McRibs and this which looks very good https://mcdonalds.es/productos/sandwiches-principales/double-mcextreme-bacon (you can have website translated in English)

Only times I have been to McDs abroad is grab a coffee or drink to use their loos. As one McDs in Riga I had to scan the QR code on receipt to gain access to the loo. Unsure if they know if a receipt was reused if found one on a table.
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That is a very nice burger, or was when I had one in Majorca.
b0rn2sk8 said:
They should be salted everywhere.

Lazy staff, broken salt shaker, ran out of salt. Pick one.

To explain the broken salt shaker, they use a bespoke salt skater that dispenses a specific amount of salt and spreads it out over all the chips. You just have to flip it over and it does its thing but it’s made of hard plastic. If you drop it on a hard tiled floor too many times, it will break.
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Back in the day (talking upto about 2000) the salt was just in a normal shaker and you just added how much you deemed appropriate.
b0rn2sk8 said:
Well that’s why you put it in the fryer first and then make those other orders while it’s cooking ;) You can make a hell of a lot of ordered in 3:30 and if it’s that busy there would be more than one person working in that station.

If there was a queue of orders that long, the place would be gridlocked with people. That said, now they do delivery have have all the customer self order points/app, it’s impossible to control incoming orders.

‘Back in the day’ when I worked there, none of that existed and you could effectively balance your staff between the kitchen and service to make sure the kitchen couldn’t get overwhelmed. Sure if you didn’t have the staff to meet demand, people had to queue but at least once they ordered, they got their food right away.
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Back in the day you could walk in and ask for a cheeseburger or a single drink and the till person would turn around and grab the burger or make the drink and then give it to you, in and out in 30 seconds. Now that same single item does go into a queue and you have to wait for the 17 orders before you to be made before they get to your single item and finally "make" it for you.
 
pepp77 said:
Back in the day (talking upto about 2000) the salt was just in a normal shaker and you just added how much you deemed appropriate.
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I was there when they made the switch, the idea is to get a more consistent salting of the chips and to reduce waste.

There always one numpty who took the ‘YOLO’ approach with the salt and resulted in everyone bring them back because you have chips on your salt, rather than salt on your chips.

pepp77 said:
Back in the day you could walk in and ask for a cheeseburger or a single drink and the till person would turn around and grab the burger or make the drink and then give it to you, in and out in 30 seconds. Now that same single item does go into a queue and you have to wait for the 17 orders before you to be made before they get to your single item and finally "make" it for you.
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Indeed, that’s how it was when I worked there too. Generally speaking the person who took your order also fetched it for you. They swapped to the ‘cook’ (assemble) to order approached for chicken stuff while I worked there but the beef was all still mass produced and held ready to go

I think the idea behind the assembly to order approach is to increase quality and reduce waste/cost but boy is it slow these days. That said, the table service is generally better than having to queue.

pepp77 said:
Even when i worked there over 20 years ago the filet of fish were kept in a drawer for a period of time and then it was just waiting for the bun to steam and the burger to be assembled.
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It depends on how many they sell ultimately. If no one orders it, they aren’t going to keep one ready.

A family member of mine used to work in an inner city branch with a pretty diverse surrounding population and they sold like my store sold Big Macs. I covered there once and yeh, I can confirm they sold a lot. They also sold a lot of veggies which are very underrated IMO.
 
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b0rn2sk8 said:
I was there when they made the switch, the idea is to get a more consistent salting of the chips and to reduce waste.

There always one numpty who took the ‘YOLO’ approach with the salt and resulted in everyone bring them back because you have chips on your salt, rather than salt on your chips.


Indeed, that’s how it was when I worked there too. Generally speaking the person who took your order also fetched it for you. They swapped to the ‘cook’ (assemble) to order approached for chicken stuff while I worked there but the beef was all still mass produced and held ready to go

I think the idea behind the assembly to order approach is to increase quality and reduce waste/cost but boy is it slow these days. That said, the table service is generally better than having to queue.


It depends on how many they sell ultimately. If no one orders it, they aren’t going to keep one ready.

A family member of mine used to work in an inner city branch with a pretty diverse surrounding population and they sold like my store sold Big Macs. I covered there once and yeh, I can confirm they sold a lot. They also sold a lot of veggies which are very underrated IMO.
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I worked on Clumber Street in Nottingham when at University, that store was madness on Saturday lunch times, we would have 18 tills on, each with a till person and a runner, we'd have one person on shakes, two on drinks, two on fries, just to ensure that we could serve 100 people an hour per till. I didn't work till that often as I was a shift manager and was classed as the production king at the time, so I worked one of two areas on a Saturday, either Wrap and Call or I would work the grill in a real emergency as I was one of the few people who could "catwalk" meat patties and keep up with a 12-6-6.

Dont get me started on the Saturday night shifts though where we closed at 3AM, they were not fun in the slightest.
 
pepp77 said:
I worked on Clumber Street in Nottingham when at University, that store was madness on Saturday lunch times, we would have 18 tills on, each with a till person and a runner, we'd have one person on shakes, two on drinks, two on fries, just to ensure that we could serve 100 people an hour per till. I didn't work till that often as I was a shift manager and was classed as the production king at the time, so I worked one of two areas on a Saturday, either Wrap and Call or I would work the grill in a real emergency as I was one of the few people who could "catwalk" meat patties and keep up with a 12-6-6.

Dont get me started on the Saturday night shifts though where we closed at 3AM, they were not fun in the slightest.
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I went to Uni in Nottingham and I’m glad I never worked in a store like that. They always looked like bedlam.

I was also a shift manager but at a busy drive thru which has its own challenges like 24 hour opening, no thanks. I could do every station in my sleep but I’d say like you, a bit of a reg grill specialist. I was also a bit of a ninja with the hand held drive thru order tapering machine and faster than anyone else.

It was always fun when the local travelers would come and blockade your drive though to try and bully free food out of you. We would tell them in no uncertain terms to <not forum friendly> but it wouldn’t stop them trying again the next day.

The other classic is when some numpty decides the roof of your restaurant would make a good van roof removal tool. At least when the person who can’t drive their oversized SUV only uses the bollards to re-shape the bodywork on their car rather than the building itself.
 
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pepp77 said:
Even when i worked there over 20 years ago the filet of fish were kept in a drawer for a period of time and then it was just waiting for the bun to steam and the burger to be assembled.
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They go off to Brixton now to catch the fish before driving back and cooking.
 
Smokes said:
Any idea why the milkshake machines are always broken? Does my nut in :mad:
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I will find out for you. I work, not at McDonalds, but for someone who owns a load of McDonalds and I know a maintenance chap so will ask him. Will let you know Tuesday.
 
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