Plus there's one small detail: you can still enjoy e.g. a pizza that's not hot anymore; other food (Indian, Chinese, ...) can mostly be kept hot without losing its quality. With burgers and fries (especially McDonalds), you have to eat them hot, and trying to keep them warm during delivery results in a soggy mess that's not enjoyable at all anymore IMHO.

There is something about McDonald's fries that gives them the sharpest drop off in quality over time compared to literally any other fast food restaurant. I swear, it's like they are 100% within a couple minutes of being pulled out of the oil, merely okay for the next three, and then literally inedible by six minutes.

It's true— McDonald's will toss any leftover fries from the fry station after seven minutes. Burger King has a similar timeline.

Or at least they are supposed to… I would probably be eating a lot more McDonald's if I could be assured of getting fries that weren't dead every time.

I used to think this with burgers until I found the secret to reheating a fast food burger:

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.

I'd say it's long-term thinking. McD's is a franchise, and paying commercial rents at the levels they're at now is not economically viable in a lot of cities, especially if your walk-in traffic is mostly delivery service workers.

They'd probably make more money if they moved spaces into a ghost kitchen and cut out walk-in traffic entirely.

Where I live, there is tons of empty retail space because of Amazon, eBay, etc. I would assume that would push commercial rents down, but I evidently don’t understand that market at all.

I'm thinking about fast food locations in cities, not suburban strip malls and stuff. We expect Starbucks for example to have nice locations in high-rent downtown areas, but I always see McD's not far away from there too.

The commercial real estate market has been untethered from reality for a while.

Heck, that’s true for all real estate markets. Funny money and overseas wealth has distorted all notions of market efficiency.

What if 80% of your revenue base comes from food delivery services?