McDonald's hasn't been fast food for a long, long time -- and this has nothing to do with Doordash/delivery.
In the 80's and 90's at least, all food was made ahead of time. There were rows of burgers sitting under heat lamps, and once you paid the cashier, they would grab your entire order in under 30 seconds and hand it to you. It was fast food.
But as competitors started making better-tasting food freshly prepared (e.g. Wendy's made all hamburgers to-order), McD's had to catch up. So the burgers under heat lamps are long gone, and you have to wait 5-15 minutes for your food to be made. You get a number on your receipt and walk over to a pickup area now.
Also the 7 minutes to have your order taken has nothing to do with DoorDash/delivery -- it's the fact that McD's raised their minimum wage a few years ago, so they can only afford 1 cashier instead of 4-5, and they want you to use a kiosk/app to order using a touchscreen.
McDonald's didn't bork anything. Their hot, fresh quarter pounders are now almost infinitely tastier than the old shriveled ones in dried-up buns baking under a lamp for 30 minutes prior that we ate in the 80's and 90's. But that comes at the cost of waiting for them to make them fresh.
Until very recently I used to be able to get a full meal for ~$4, but now it’s hard to get out for under $12. The only reason to ever eat McDonalds at this point is the “it’s there” factor when I have left the house.
Triple cheeseburgers reheated in the microwave with a brick of extra mature cheddar added between two of the patties first remain one of the most cost effective "my depression is trying to eat me but I really should still actually have food" meals I've figured out though. (the trick is to microwave it just enough to soften the cheddar then cut it in half, stupidbrain finds a whole burger upsetting but half a burger twice acceptable, yes I know how little sense that makes logically but the entire point here is "working around my brain being irrational.")
No more. Why? Because they've stopped selling burgers.
They've switched almost all of their restaurants to a "made to order" model, wherein they assemble your order on demand from warming trays, instead of producing them ahead and storing them in this huge heated cabinet.
Now the result looks exactly like the product shot on the menu, but is so lukewarm that the cheese hasn't even melted. That's not a burger, that's a at best a strange sandwich.
Another way to look at this is that McDonald's is making customers feel like they're getting restaurant quality food for less money. Personally, like you, I miss the cheap fast food.
In the same way the fries seem to be cold from the complexity of all the different menu items messing up their flow.
95% BigMc and fries must have been so much more easy to organize around.
They can cook and assemble a burger in 2 minutes, along with fries... even a dozen burgers.
This was McDonald's specialty! How to keep ahead of the crowd, in sync with demand, and also, how to build a burger fast.
The fact that they don't have 50 big macs on the go, during doordash/dinner peak, is a major problem.
No, it's not difficult, not for them, they've been doing it for 70 years!
There may be some merit to some of what you say, but it just leaves one with more questions.
It was around long before all of the delivery service apps, and before smartphones were a huge thing, even.
Don't know where you're from, but you gotta remember that Macca's is not quite the same all around the world. In Europe as an example, you can notice clear differences between the different countries Macca's. So even though MFY exists for a long time where you live, it's very well possible that the other persons local Macca's only recently-ish changed too.
I guess that change is not only noticeable between countries, I'm pretty sure you'll get a different experience if you either visit a big restaurant in a city vs. a smaller restaurant on the countryside.
About the regional differences - I remember visiting an Amsterdam restaurant in the mid-2000s that still served the food in styrofoam trays, many years after those had been phased out in Germany. And being able to pump my own ketchup and mayo into little waffle cups in another one in Denmark. There are quite a few regional differences.
In Switzerland as well, yes. And I can't remember which burgers or items it were, but I remember seeing items in a german McDonalds which I've never seen in Switzerland.
In Italy you can order a couple of different beers, even from self-service terminals. In Switzerland I remember them only being available when ordering at the counter, and they only offer one kind of beer. Not that I care about beer at McD, just something I noticed.
By prioritizing DoorDash over in-store customers, you're just destroying your long-term value prop and brand.
1: set the veggies aside
2: put the whole burger in the microwave upside-down for half the time it takes to reheat (usually 30 seconds for this step if cold from the fridge)
3: flip it and nuke it the rest of the time
4: restore veggies to rightful place
I was amazed the first time I did this and had a 100% sog-free bun. The burger was indistinguishable from fresh. I don't know exactly what's going on, or what's different from just nuking it all the way on one side, but it works.
They'd probably make more money if they moved spaces into a ghost kitchen and cut out walk-in traffic entirely.
Heck, that’s true for all real estate markets. Funny money and overseas wealth has distorted all notions of market efficiency.
They just moved the assembly process closer to the customers but the ingredients aren't any fresher.
The reason for the slowdown is purely just the delivery apps. Staff doing payments & cooking/assembly are usually different people unless it's like 3am on a weekday.
At the same time they did this they changed to touch-screen ordering and panelled off the 'kitchen'.
Wait times seem much longer to me, I assume they prioritise drive-through.
I first learned about them because I ordered a kebab on Just Eat and my order arrived with a flyer inside saying "please use them next time, they charge us less."
The site is honestly a bit janky and regularly annoys me slightly ... but only slightly, and I'm happy to deal with that to have all the revenue go to a local company and my favourite food places - and the cost is at worst identical to the venture capitalist subsidised companies and sometimes lower.
I have a possibly misplaced hope that they'll survive the collapse of the VC players. I intend to live in hope anyway though because (a) I much prefer my money to stay local (b) they're the easiest way I've found to order from the chinese place with the best prawn toast I've ever had.
If they disappear at some point I'm going to have to go back to phone calls and paying cash on delivery, and while I love the places I order from enough to do that if I have to I'd really rather not.
The cost right now is subsidised by VCs to get everyone to switch.
With the incoming recessions VC will spend less money, especially on a business model which doesn't feel novel anymore.
A centralised "we pick your food for you"? Unlikely
as someone who has managed the front lines recently at a fast food restaurant, companies like Doordash have been a boon for the in-house efficiency
Your point is 100% valid, so don't consider this a disagreement. It is merely that McDonalds has changed, and it annoys me.
I went to the one on El Camino near Oregon, and waited 7 minutes to have my order taken, and 14 minutes more for my food. Why?
Doordash, and others.
https://nypost.com/2022/02/14/doordash-to-penalize-mcdonalds...
This is a pivot too, from restaurant to delivery as a primary business model.
But, just like facebook, mcdonalds borked this. Its whole business model was fast food, and really the only reason I ever went there.
They could have added more cooks, and another cashier, keeping the responsiveness and speed of old, keeping their food fast for walkins.
But instead, drop the old, and now I can go to a real restaurant, order a burger, and get it made and on my table faster.
Good job McDonalds!