I am grateful to Business Insider via Slate Magazine for the following information:
McDonald's is opening a restaurant in Missouri that's unlike any other McDonald's in the country. The new 6,500-square-foot location in St. Joseph will offer all-you-can-eat french fries, customizable desserts, sandwiches, and burgers, as well as table service, The St. Joseph News-Press reports.
It will have several digital kiosks for customers to order their food—which McDonald's is now adding to restaurants across the country—a “party room” for rent, and modern-looking couches and arm chairs for hanging out.
I am particularly interested in the "all-you-can-eat french fries" option.
Am I Mac enough? What a ridiculous question. As well ask the Chairman of BP if he's got enough money!
Leaving that aside, however, I'm bound to say that most of the features listed above have been part of the McDo scene here in France for quite some time. You will find the "digital kiosk", for example, wherever you go nowadays. In the nine McDos of the Dijon area, I was going to say you punch in your menu, but that is not true; you don't even tap it in, you touch it in. Having completed your order, you then specify where you want to eat it (I personally am very partial to the Zen Room). Almost before I've had time to sit down, my meal arrives at my table. The next thing you know they'll be unpacking it for me. If only they could eat it for me as well.
Although I bow to none in my admiration of McDonalds, I have to admit I sometimes feel rather out of place there. Most customers are early teenage girls, hunting in packs and in what looks like an advanced state of hysteria. One glance at me is enough to send them into paroxysms of laughter. I feel like telling them that the specially widened doors at the entrance to the "restaurant" is for their benefit, but of course such subtle wit would be wasted on them.
lol Barnaby
ReplyDeleteThere was a serious piece on the radio this morning as I was preparing for 7:30am run over Wimbledon Common. Apparently McD's has given £1m to UK farmers whether or not they supply beef to the co, to develop ways of making less pollution in beef production. The BBC commentator was very good in that she made the point that what is a mere £1m for a co with a £37bn(?) annual turnover and what was it doing anyway to discourage beef eating given its harmful effects on the individuals and the planet? Still I was impressed by McD at least braving the storm by agreeing to be interviewed.
Apart from coffee I have not touched McD's since our children grew up.
I don't want you to think that I spend my time in McDonald's Jerry! Anne finds their salads quite good, here in France at any rate.
ReplyDeleteStrangely enough, I thought the McDo I frequented near Clapham Junction (solely for the purposes of research, you understand!) rather old-fashioned compared to the ones here in France: no digital display for odering you meal, etc. I get the impression that in France the chain has gone up market a bit...
Can't compare with Burger King, imo after extensive field trials.
ReplyDeleteBurger king doesn't have a big footprint over here, I'm afraid.
ReplyDeleteYour very great loss, I would say! None of this fancy 21st century "touching" of menus, just a nice young person to take your order and speedily deliver. No Zen rooms or even armchairs, but our choice is for the comfort of our car. And then comes the very great pleasure of eating the burger ....
ReplyDelete"All you can eat" (or its genteel relation, "all you care to eat") is an option whose time should have passed.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, McDonald's itself doesn't call its fries French (at least here in the United States). It's "World Famous Fries," no hyphen.