McDonalds thinks adding gourmet items will help slow sales,

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JediTricks
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Re: McDonalds thinks adding gourmet items will help slow sal

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Shockwave wrote:Eh McDonald's taste alright to me. In fact, that's what I had for dinner tonight.

Thing is though, it's not high class food. We all know it isn't. That's not why you eat there. Sure, McDonald's and Applebee's both sell burgers. But, they're not really comparable. Applebee's isn't a fast food restaurant, you don't go there for something quick when you're on the run, you go there for the experience of actually sitting down and eating slowly with other humans. That's not McDonald's. McDonald's is just something to eat when you don't really have time for anything else. And the same is true of all fast food places. You're not gonna get sit down food at a fast food place. No, it's not as good, but the reason for that is because of the processing it all has to go through to satiate our ready-on-a-moments-notice lifestyle. It's precooked and reheated which is why it's often dry and not as flavorful as actual restaurant burgers. I do like their fries though. Especially compared to other fries in the fast food industry. Anyway, my point is, complaining that McDonald's sucks is like complaining that the sky is blue and should be some other color. There really isn't anything we can do about it and as long as your food doesn't have something gross in it(like spit or dirt or something), what's the problem?
The problem is that they're hemorrhaging business due to a mindset of being essentially the bottom of the barrel in quality and taste. We don't have to compare McDonalds to Applebees for burgers and find that, we can compare McDonalds to any other national chain and all of them have higher marks in flavor and texture at similar pricepoints.

You yourself highlighted the problem when you said that the mindset of "McDonalds sucks" is as consistent as the mindset of "the sky is blue". They shouldn't have to suck THAT bad, it shouldn't be so ingrained in customers' minds that they're the worst, they could be a little better with minimal effort, but instead they're following the market's choice instead of getting ahead of it. I think they could actually do something about it by fixing the quality of their main, foundation items; they think they can do something by leaving the shitty items shitty and adding more expensive items, as if gourmet ingredients won't be ruined by the same team that already ruins regular ingredients.

And here's a real bitch, McDonalds' burgers aren't pre-cooked! They're cooked only once and that's at the restaurant within minutes of you ordering them. They suck so bad despite being just chopped, pre-formed and frozen before being cooked - I have used frozen beef on the grill and on the bbq, it's always not just fine but quite good that way, the outside cooks a little extra without overcooking the interior (always use a thermometer kids, ground beef is the least-safe way to eat beef due to the outside of the cut that might pick up problems getting mixed into the inside instead of cooked).

BTW, I often go into fast food joints rather than drive-through, not only can they address the screwups in my order that often appear, but the food is hotter and it's not covering my car (I don't allow eating in my car) or my house.
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andersonh1
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Re: McDonalds thinks adding gourmet items will help slow sal

Post by andersonh1 »

My kids always want to go to McDonald's. Maybe that's what they depend on as a business: marketing to kids and then hoping they talk their parents into going. We usually end up elsewhere despite their preferences. Hardees has good hamburgers these days after a long dry spell where their food wasn't worth eating, so maybe McDonald's can pull themselves out of the slump at some point too.
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Re: McDonalds thinks adding gourmet items will help slow sal

Post by Dominic »

When I was a kid, I was lured in by the Happy Meals. (That is not likely unusual.) Eventually, I transitioned to the more "grown-up" burgers like the Big Mac.

But, as kids get older, one or two things happen.

First, at some point, they are going to eat someplace else. The locak sub-shop or pizza place is going to have better food. The cheap burgers at McDonalds are just that, cheap. (And, at this point, 7-11 has comparable food for similar prices. Why would anybody go to a take-out place where the food is comparable to what one could get at....7-11?)

Second, for kids who follow news, McDonalds has an image problem that goes beyond cultural snobbery. Their food is not very good. Their business practices, while much improved, could stand improvement. In market terms, buying from them is rewarding bad behavior. Most consumers will not do that when there are better alternatives.


By the time I was 18, I was not worried about social and green costs. But, I damned well cared about what I ate. Local places had better food. Local places got my money. The only time I ate McDonalds was if I was on a road trip with friends and we were really hungry. (And, that was unlikely, since our more or less weekly trips often began at a truly amazing sub shop that no longer exists.) I only had so much time to eat and so much space in my (admittedly over-sized) gut. Why waste those precious resources on McDonalds?

Their hash browns are good in a pinch. But, even then, if there are local places, odds are that one can get a full breakfast. The one advantage McDonalds has is that their food is *cheap*. Breakfast foods tend to be expensive. (I would guess this is a result of vendors knowing that people buying breakfast did not have time to eat at home that morning and are hungry.) Their nearest constant competitor, Dunkin' Donuts, has somehow made a thing out of over-charging for some really nasty sandwiches on the basis of brand. (It is beyond me how anybody is willing to pay 5 bucks for a "meal" built around a greased sponge that vaguely resembles grilled cheese.)
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Re: McDonalds thinks adding gourmet items will help slow sal

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andersonh1 wrote:My kids always want to go to McDonald's. Maybe that's what they depend on as a business: marketing to kids and then hoping they talk their parents into going. We usually end up elsewhere despite their preferences. Hardees has good hamburgers these days after a long dry spell where their food wasn't worth eating, so maybe McDonald's can pull themselves out of the slump at some point too.
Hardees didn't have the nationally ubiquitous public opinion that they were dogshit on a plate though. Also, didn't Hardees suck until Carl's Jr bought them in '97 and started changing them over to the Carl's way of doing food?


McDonalds' breakfasts are pretty good items, although I don't care for the poached "fried" egg portion (I just don't like eggs in general that much), but the hash browns are great and the sausage mcmuffin is something I strove to emulate at home for a decade until finding Walmart's "Great Value" pre-cooked turkey sausage patties and spicy pork sausage patties (the turkey ones are healthier but not as spicy, so I alternate). There is something unique to McDonalds, they just don't realize what works and what needs addressing. TV chef Julia Child used to say her one of her favorite foods was a McDonalds hamburger - just reconnect with that, find that simple quality that the cheap food used to have.
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Re: McDonalds thinks adding gourmet items will help slow sal

Post by Onslaught Six »

Sausage McMuffins were a godsend for a good 1 1/2 year long stretch where I was being dropped off at my work at around 5:30am, where we didn't open until 8am and I had no key...but we were next to a McD's. Subsequently, I would usually go in and order usually one of the cheapest thing on the menu (either that or the burrito, which is also pretty good) and maybe a small drink that I would periodically refill over the next 2 hours while I caught up on Twitter, listened to music and played Contra 4 trying to get good enough to beat it using only 3 lives. After so long though, it became unbearable and to this day I can't eat a plain Sausage McMuffin without my body almost rejecting it. Need to have egg in there now, or something, and they usually aren't very consistent with not burning the bread part, unfortunately. With my night shift job, I get off at 6:30am, so it's not uncommon to grab something and eat it when I get home--at this point I've taken to a sausage biscuit and a hash brown, which I throw into the middle of the biscuit, which is pretty satisfying for something that only costs $2.

As far as the rest of the menu, though...well, it's what you pay for. I feel like if I spent more than $5 I'm definitely getting ripped off. Did you know you can put Big Mac sauce on literally any sandwich for an extra 30 cents? Grab a double cheeseburger with that and you'll never waste the $3-4 on a Big Mac again. The fries are absolutely not worth getting if you're not going to eat them literally as soon as you get the food; if there's ANY amount of travel involved, they're going to cool off and become crap. I'm glad they took some kind of stand and all drinks are $1 now; it's like they realized people have caught on to the fact that the huge cup of Coke they get costs McD's literally pennies. Even $1 is too much, really.
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Re: McDonalds thinks adding gourmet items will help slow sal

Post by andersonh1 »

I do have to say, those sausage McMuffins are mighty tasty. :mrgreen:
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Re: McDonalds thinks adding gourmet items will help slow sal

Post by Shockwave »

I actually like McDonald's. I know I said earlier that it was not that great, and yeah, in the grander scheme of various eating out options, it's not. But it's not terrible. At least not to me. I've always enjoyed the food I got there and the only problems I've had were the occasional incorrect order. And I do like their fries. Probably because I do eat them right away. I dunno, I guess what I'm saying is that if this is the worst there is, that's really not that bad. All things considered, we have it pretty good.

Also, they have RID15 toys there right now. So far I've got Sideswipe, Clampdown, Fixit and Underbite.
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Re: McDonalds thinks adding gourmet items will help slow sal

Post by JediTricks »

Onslaught Six wrote:Sausage McMuffins were a godsend for a good 1 1/2 year long stretch where I was being dropped off at my work at around 5:30am, where we didn't open until 8am and I had no key...but we were next to a McD's. Subsequently, I would usually go in and order usually one of the cheapest thing on the menu (either that or the burrito, which is also pretty good) and maybe a small drink that I would periodically refill over the next 2 hours while I caught up on Twitter, listened to music and played Contra 4 trying to get good enough to beat it using only 3 lives. After so long though, it became unbearable and to this day I can't eat a plain Sausage McMuffin without my body almost rejecting it. Need to have egg in there now, or something, and they usually aren't very consistent with not burning the bread part, unfortunately. With my night shift job, I get off at 6:30am, so it's not uncommon to grab something and eat it when I get home--at this point I've taken to a sausage biscuit and a hash brown, which I throw into the middle of the biscuit, which is pretty satisfying for something that only costs $2.

As far as the rest of the menu, though...well, it's what you pay for. I feel like if I spent more than $5 I'm definitely getting ripped off. Did you know you can put Big Mac sauce on literally any sandwich for an extra 30 cents? Grab a double cheeseburger with that and you'll never waste the $3-4 on a Big Mac again. The fries are absolutely not worth getting if you're not going to eat them literally as soon as you get the food; if there's ANY amount of travel involved, they're going to cool off and become crap. I'm glad they took some kind of stand and all drinks are $1 now; it's like they realized people have caught on to the fact that the huge cup of Coke they get costs McD's literally pennies. Even $1 is too much, really.
Ooh, having them that often would/should burn anyone out. There was a period where I couldn't stand them, then I stopped for a few years and they became a pleasant treat again. They are probably salty as hell though, the ones I make at home (including today) are much more controlled, around 500 mg of sodium.

Here's the thing about "it's what you pay for", nearly every other fast food competitor has similar pricing and better quality.

I miss the Mac Wrap, where they put a burger cut in half in a tortilla with lettuce, cheese, and Big Mac sauce, that was great. 30 cents isn't bad, but I think the lettuce is vital to a big mac flavor.
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