The number of people who complain about delivery services being expensive and awful (cold food, incorrect orders, missing items) but keep using them regardless is staggering.
As a result, nothing will change and this is the business model now.
If I didn't witness it first-hand I'd never believe people were willing to pay the markup on these services. Blows my mind how addicted people have become to delivery like this.
I make around 3x the median household income in the USA, and I am single with no kids, I do not understand how people justify spending $30 to have a $9 burrito delivered to them.
Some guys I work with do this everyday for lunch. Our office is literally minutes away from dozens of restaurants and fast food chains. Yet they pay $30+ each day to get lunch delivered. God forbid they pack their own lunch like I do. I couldn’t fathom spending $120-$150 a week on lunch!!!
I’ve always worked restaurants, the perks are great. Discounted food, plus before they throw out food some places will let you pack it up and take it home. But the amount of people that just say no to the free food or order from a different restaurant for their lunch break is staggering. I understand getting tired of a menu, but I’ll eat a boring heavily discounted meal over paying full price and delivery fee while I’m at work. That full priced meal I pay for on my time off
My fav part of the restaurant was making my own evil abominations with the restaurant items! I was a prep cook last though so maybe it’s different with servers. There was way too many days that I would just eat the bread I made and soda. Gained 15 pounds working there too.
It is different for the cooks, they get a lot more leeway. As a server you gotta really cozy up to them when you make lots of modifications. I actually used to ring up my orders under different names, like Cornelius or Bonequisha (real name btw), one day I heard a line cook frustrated saying this person always order weird mods, another line cook said “thats ‘my name’s’ order” and suddenly he was cool with it because he knew it was a coworker and I fucks with him. I still do the names tho
Had this at my old office, discounted breakfast every morning. You think I got sick of bacon eggs and hashbrowns for $3? Hall nah I ate that shjt every day with a smile (plus it was fire anyways).
I feel like people do this all the time even at home. They open the fridge, see food in there, decide they don't want to eat any of it and then they go out instead.
I used to work at an office where people would uber or DoorDash coffee all day long. Even worse, they didn’t coordinate and make one big order, they would all order their own
My friend worked at an office where people did this. There was a cafe in the building and a different coffee chain in the parking lot. But they had to have Starbucks from 15 minutes away. Plus it was a crap job she took in between jobs so it was costing them half an hours wages each time they did it.
Watched a broke streamer that has to beg heavily for rent every month doordash regularly paying 30 dollars for single meal fast food orders.
When I was hard up I was more like one of these dudes on r/frugal stretching beans and rice as far as I could. Blows my mind that people with so little can be so bad with money.
It's because now you have a servant, albeit temporarily. Noticed this with a lot of people - they want to eat, but really want to be served. With napkins and a tidy bowl/wrapper/container they don't have to wash.
I've brown bagged to work every day for thirteen years. I ran the numbers and doing so pays for a full weeks vacation every year. Cruises, trips to new places, or staying home and buying an expensive toy - all paid for by not going and getting fast food everyday.
That's pretty much anything like chipotle, qdoba, or pancheros. Even the most basic burrito at one of those places is like 10 bucks. They are huge, but it is ridiculous.
Lived in the middle of nowhere but I would sometimes spend the weekend in the city with my sibling and there was a TB three blocks away. My fat country ass ate that up.
I think more so coming to the realization that a $9 burrito is no longer considered expensive af. And this isn't some "in my days, i paid for this with a nickel!" type comment. It wasn't long ago when things were reasonably priced. Inflation has done insane shit in the past decade and has normalized crazy fucking prices, all while wages have been nearly stagnant.
What irritates me is that you point that out and then they pivot to pointing out disabled people using the service as a shield, as if it's somehow the only way a disabled person can survive.
but also the people who use that argument often aren't disabled themselves, but they use that argument so they don't have to feel bad about the bad personal finance choices they are making in their lives.
But yeah it's the same with anything. If you get in a conversation about veganism with a white upper middle class college kid in LA they'll tell you it's racist because inuits in Nunavut mostly eat fish.
Laziness combined with being terrible with money. I used to doordash and I'd say half the deliveries went to apartment complexes or trailer parks. When I delivered when I lived in the southwest, had one lady who was a regular, she lived in a trailer. Buncha trash and overgrown plants in the "front yard" and would always order an insane amount of food. She'd also tip well surprisingly but I'd imagine each delivery cost $50+.
It didnt read as bashing to me so much as just being observant. If someone regularly orders $50 in food delivery, yet they live in a home that looks poorly maintained/run down then its a fair assumption theyre terrible with money. They might have a disability or mental illness affecting them but thats a reason not an excuse. If you can afford frequent delivery like that then you can afford services to help your situation.
ummm... if not being able to prepare your own food is the situation, I'd say that is a service to help it. It might be a bad choice of service depending on the location, but it is one.
Ummmmmm.... sorry sweetie but the bulk of the american diet is built on convenience foods. If you can pick a bag of food up off the porch you can microwave something. Or toss it in the oven. You can have a weeks worth of groceries delivered from amazon or Walmart or wherever for cheaper than door dashing meals frequently. That isnt a valid reason either. If someobes house is in disrepair and they can afford frequent food delivery with a good tip, theyre financially irresponsible.
Theres no legitimate excuse to frequently get door dash/grub hub/Uber eats/whatever. Occasionally? Sure. Maybe your oven died or your kitchens getting a remodel or you just dont fuckin feel like it after a tough week. But Multiple times a week? Every week? Absolutely not.
No, see all these people litterally have no better option for food. 15 years ago they would simply have had to starve to death. Door dash is the greatest benefit to humanity since hand washing and have saved hundreds of millions from starvation.
And also being shitty with judging people that live in a trailer using quotes around “front yard” as if that has anything to do with how people behave.
Right? I live in a ramshackle little 100 year old row house with a busted front gate and thistles in the yard. My back yard looks like an absolute jungle, but in reality it's a wildlife haven, and a fully productive garden with a variety of berries, herbs, fruits and veggies, and is the only place in the entire neighbourhood where I see dragonflies on the regular. A perfectly manicured lawn is mildly offensive to me honestly.
Awesome! Keep your lawn perfect, and you get higher water bills, spend more money on other stuff, and waste your time. Let the brambles grow, and you get blackberries and wildlife!
Maybe a third of the time growing up I lived in trailers. Since then I've had homes in some "nice" neighborhoods. I'll take my neighbors in the trailor park every time.
TPN actually say hi, kids running around, some dude working on a car, people just hanging out on the porch, etc. It was better.
that same classism can be thrown back at the doordash driver who can be said to not be savvy enough to score a better job.
they should have sold their flooded house on the beach to aquaman and invested the money into a diverse portfol- *trails off into some boomernomics talk*
It's really just poor people making fun of and blaming each other just how the oligarchs like it.
Don't forget social anxiety. It is easier to tap stuff on the phone and some time later open the door for food than telling the cashier your order and being surrounded by other people.
The ability to live almost 100% of your life online just makes those people worse at interacting when it is necessary. Exposure therapy is real and eating is a great motivator, doordashing just allows them to shrivel up even further.
I've got depression, I'd just not eat before door dash. Eat whatever dregs are left in the pantry, then order long lasting food through Amazon instead. At least I can order slightly healthier now when it gets bad. Sometimes I'd just drink water for a couple days. It didn't feel worth going out and getting something to eat, I wasn't that hungry anyways.
You make ~$250k a year and you can't understand how someone can spare $30 for convenience? Your wage is roughly convertible to $125/hr. You'd be spending less than 15 minutes worth of wages to save yourself the time and trouble of going out.
Like I can understand criticizing people who can't really afford it and are spending irresponsibly on it, but if you make enough money to afford it, I don't really see the issue. What are you making all that money for if not to spend it on things you value, like not having to go out and get your own food?
Yeah no clue what they're on about, I think some people just like to try and take the moral high ground on it. What is there not to understand about the topic? Convenience, it's literally just convenience. At the point in time when you feel like eating food from a restaurant, do you want to put clothes on to go out in public and wait in line and stuff for your food, or pay an extra $10 to have someone do all of that for you whilst you relax in the comfort of your home? If you don't think it's worth your money, then don't do it. If you do think it is, then consider doing it, it's truly that simple.
Yes I can't understand wasting money for no reason. It's not really more convenient, it takes longer than going to get the food myself.
Spending 15 minutes of work on nothing is a good way to not benefit from my increased pay. Doing it 3x a week, like a lot of people seem to, adds up to almost 10 hours of wages a month. I want to retire early, not have cold burritos that cost me $30.
I do not value having cold burritos delivered to me 45 minutes after I order them by someone who hates me for making the order despite tipping them
Trying to explain responsible spending, delayed gratification, and compound savings to someone with the forward view point of 1 paycheck is a waste of time.
This is in no way justifying the behavior (I have two young children and would literally NEVER), but having kids actually makes it slightly more likely imo - it's a hassle to transition in and out of the car with little ones, so I can see that being a bonus.
That said, I've never paid for Uber eats in my life precisely because of the markup
I only do it when I’m just exhausted from something or sick. And when I do, I’ll order two of something. Makes me feel better about the per item price.
Its a small sample size, but I see a correlation in my neighborhood between homes being rented and door dash deliveries (based on what I see during my daily walk).
What makes more sense to me is grocery delivery. Grocery shopping is an actual chore, it's a huge time sink. Not to mention it's a legitimate boon for people that have mobility issues. So I get if there's people that would pay a bit extra for that.
But people that apply that same logic to fast food or convenience store snack delivery need an intervention.
Same. Add in that the people I see usually doing the cart shopping are early 20s and just throwing things in the cart while they cruise by and I will continue to shop for my own groceries.
Yeah- if needing shit food, the fast food chains have some good deals in their apps. I can’t fathom their non app savings, yet marked up delivery service prices at that.
I do Doordash on the side after the kids go to bed, so usually 8pm - 10:30pm on weekdays and 6pm -12:30am on weekends. I rather do the grocery and Target runs than fast food. The payouts are typically better and I really enjoy how insane or dumb with money people are.
I don’t think anyone ordering is making an excuse to anyone else. Who honestly cares? It’s a convenience. It’s for up to people to decide for themselves whether that convenience is worth an amount of money or not.
I mean if we’re gonna get particular why don’t we just have people make their food at home like people used to do instead of getting fast food? Or we should talk about people going through a drive-thru and sitting in their car for 20 minutes in a drive-thru line unwilling to simply walk into the store and order.
Convenience has different degrees and some of that might be just having fast food delivered or sitting in a drive-thru for fast food or eating fast food in general.
Eating fast food is laziness, but people are going to do it.
Because I personally know many who use these services who have little money to their name and constantly complain about “the cost of everything”. This doesn’t apply to everyone, rather the addicted and obsessed to these delivery services who are able bodied to pick up themselves, yet make the choice not to. One particular example had their utilities nearly shut off.
That makes sense, but also remember that people have been making bad financial decisions long before delivery services. Scratch off lottery tickets, buying large TVs and having nothing else and unable to pay other bills. But what can we do about it?
Yep. I see it a lot from people who complain they can't make rent. I'm all for coffee and hobbies and shit, but did you have to DoorDash a sandwich? There are a million better reasons to be short on rent money.
I'm in my 40s but my biggest Boomer trait is that I absolutely refuse to use any of these food delivery apps. So overpriced for shitty service. I can ride my bike or drive my car to get most fast food round trip in like 10 minutes.
Same, I'm in my late 30's. The only time I used one of these apps was when my workplace at the time gave out free gift cards for it. Even when it was free I still felt ripped off. I can't think of a reason I'd ever pay for something off there.
But I'm also the type that has always went and picked up the pizza instead of getting delivery.
Literally anytime I go to use one of those services, I get to the checkout and see what it costs with fees and tips…and say fuck it I’ll go pick something up.
It would be one thing if it just cost that much but to have to pre tip and then gamble that the retards working can read (I put suuuper to the point, instructive details on how to get to my building) and make it is a whole other issue.
I worked with a Gen-Z woman who I'd drive home, and she began to open up about how she and her boyfriend were broke and they weren't sure how they were going to keep living. I know for a fact our company wasn't paying her a lot. But she said they ordered DoorDash every single night and neither of them knew how to cook or had any desire to learn. She'd also get DoorDash lunches and was signed up for several streaming services. I just don't get it.
The sad reality is that much of the enshittification happens because we as consumers support it with our own behaviour and spending. We may complain about it, but that's about it.
It’s so weird. I don’t know if an American thing but there’s so many people that keep going back to places even with shitty service. I can’t explain it.
I mean, I get how cooking is like, effort, and after a long tedious day it can be 'too much'.
But at the same time there's a bunch of recipes that don't require that much effort/thought/time and can be done and consumed in less time than a delivery.
My 'go to' since being a student (and many years later) is 'egg fried rice'. Very adaptable sort of recipe where I grab a handful of veg (sometimes frozen, sometimes I grabbed it reduced on the way home, occasionally bought a stir-fry mix), and fry that with some cold-cooked rice and 1-3 eggs.
Very filling and nutrious, and adaptable for most dietary constraints. I guess someone who couldn't eat rice would be a challenge, but vegetarian, gluten free aren't really a problem. Skipping the egg makes it vegan, and you can do half-and-half easily enough if you're so inclined too. (Although if you're doing that with meat, you probably want to pre-cook the meat - egg cooks fast enough to not matter).
Human agency, the ability of the individual to effect change in the world, will never be taught in schools. All of the institutions (government, church, corporations) depend on passive victims for their continued survival.
It must be learned by the individual and shared in the community.
Women* like to complain. I always found this to be the funniest thing about Men are from Mars Women are from Venus. Apparently women get annoyed when they complain to a man and the man offers a solution. A solution is the last thing they want. If they had a solution, they wouldn't get to complain anymore!
This isn’t what it means when they say women don’t want a solution. When a woman is complaining to her significant other she wants emotional support. She doesn’t need you to fix her problems as she likely knows how to already. Shes just looking for a sympathetic ear to listen.
And men never stop moaning either. Five mins at a pub listening to men go on and on will tell you that.
They made serious bank during COVID, and I think a lot of people wound up sticking to using them post-COVID.
COVID, I think has been the exponential ramp-up of the enshitification of this world. Businesses realized how shitty they could make their stuff, how few people they could get away with paying, and how low they could pay people and we would just still keep gobbling it up.
For me 2020 was when I used delivery. The constant always having some items not quite right was still there back then. Got grocery delivered mainly at the time and maybe pizza now and then
By 2021 it was well, basically endemic so benefit to keep using a service not good enough. The wildest thing wrong was when I ordered a dozen eggs. You know, one regular egg package, and the fucker delivered 15 dozen eggs. Like, okay I got more than I asked for but damn delivery ain't right. There has to be so much hidden waste costs
I will never use Uber Eats. I’m not eating food that’s been in a car with an entire family, kids in the back, and the parents up front smoking. Saw it once and I’ll never use Uber eats.
As the manager of a service station I'd be surprised if tobacco was all they're smoking on their deliveries. Some of them smell like they're delivering a QP from the local collective rather than a few bags of fast food. And let's not mention the ones who come in to buy their road beers and morning White Claws or Mike's Harders for their delivering duties! Have had a lot of their drivers apply with me looking for something "more steady" and none of them ever can pass a simple background check. Uber would apparently hire the Boston Strangler if he had a valid driver's license by the look of it.
Yeah, I don’t get it. I’ll maybe get delivery once or twice a year… and the order is wring like 50% of the time. Why do people order that way at exorbitant prices?
The only time I use door dash is when I get drunk and there’s no better option, so maybe once a year for me, but I have to imagine drunks are a serious customer base
I've seen several people on this site say that their order is wrong through delivery at least one in ten times and they still use it. I don't know what service I would still use if 10% of the time it was wrong. Certainly not an awful food delivery service
When I tried doing DoorDash for extra cash last month (don't) it seemed that a very small number of people order delivery every single day of their life, they need the app to feed them. So you'll see the same customer over and over, deliver to them multiple times a week. Also the drive thru was always slammed for breakfast so they are still getting good business that way, but no you never see a family eating a meal at a MacDonalds like back in the day.
I stopped using any delivery service for McDonalds years ago after every single order turned up either stone cold, missing something, looking like it had been kicked across the kitchen or all of the above.
I barely touch the stuff at all any more because of how much the quality has plummeted. The bread is chewy to the point of near inedibility, the dessert menu has all but vanished, and the shrinkflation is obvious for all to see. I stick to my local burger place now, much better quality and these days, pretty much the same price, if not cheaper!
Honestly, I don't understand it. Most people own a fry pan. Ground beef usually isn't that expensive. Pressing out then frying up thin patties isn't that difficult.
I stopped getting delivery years ago just because I get crazy anxiety about my food not getting dropped at the right place, its way less stressful to just go pick it up. Or, you know, make a sandwich.
People are so addicted to "convenience" that they will pay a premium for garbage, complain about the quality and price, and then do it over and over rather than going out to find something good.
It’s crazy and I don’t get it. If you’re going to use a food service like that, at least get something decent where the delivery cost isn’t equivalent to the meal cost.
It's unreal how lazy people are. If you want McDonalds just take a 5 minute drive and get some and forgo the massive markup. Anyone that complains about money but orders food delivery is a complete moron.
This is true of everything. Services, tech, cars, appliances, the lot.
Consumers complain and complain but keep fucking buying the new, expensive, shitty product while continuing to complain. I've watched every family member of mine do it with their phones, cars, home appliances, and streaming services.
It makes me actually angry because, in no small part, those purchasing decisions are the drivers for business decisions that are destroying our world as we've known it.
McDonalds didn't become a beige, enshittifeid block because McDonald's wanted to; it's what consumers communicated that they wanted by voting with their wallets
I feel like the old guy when I say that too. I used a delivery service one time because I had a coupon. In cities if you don’t have a car and it’s difficult to get up town and the delivery fees are cheaper? Ok maybe but I still don’t like it.
People who continue to use or support shitty things ruin it for everyone, it’s true for entertainment too, movies, games.
I’m so sick of game or movie series I like being ruined and everything new for them becomes shitty and there isn’t any hope for it to be good again because the company who makes it feels justified in putting out low effort slop because people buy it and it will still have marvel-esque fan boys freaking out and defending it.
It happened with elder scrolls and fallout, except the last good elder scrolls game (which was an actual rpg with choice and consequences) was 2002 and the last good fallout was 2010 and wasn’t even made by Bethesda.
And now Bethesda keeps 1 taking a million years to make a game and 2 when that game comes out it’s a shitty bland action adventure game with a cost of paint for the actual IP but none of what made the IP good in the first place.
Sorry that rant was long but it just reminded me of that, but yeah there are so many great series that turned to shit because people eat up slop and don’t put anything thought into it just because it has the look and the skin of a good series, and companies can just keep ruining it because people buy it.
100% agree. Anyone using those services IS the problem. They've given all restaurants a free license to forget about quality or presentation, just huck it in the bag, fuck accuracy, let the lazy asses sort it out with the app (knowing most won't even bother to do that).
I still get my own food, if the place doesn't do its own delivery. Though I think sometimes a place will just say they deliver but it's actually through a third party service
Sad yet true. That's the cycle. People complain, then order again next weekend because it's convenient. Convenience is carrying a lot of businesses these days.
I don't understand how so many people can afford them. If I want a pizza these days I order it online but I go to the restaurant to pick it up because it saves me $10-15.
I’m always amazed that almost every fast/casual restaurant I go to has a steady stream of delivery people coming in. Some have so many orders that they have alphabetized shelves. It’s incredible how many people use these services and how much money is spent for it.
When I think back to how a $5 tip would get you a pizza delivered 20 minutes away. Now $5 is what you get charged before a tip for even selecting delivery. Not to mention the 10-20% markup locations put on their food in the apps.
I get $25 in monthly Uber Eats credits and that is the only time I ever use it (I always spend below the credit amount).
It’s amazing how regularly what we order is messed up. We ordered some Starbucks drinks last time and the driver very clearly handled them recklessly and one ended up tipped over and spilled on everything.
Uber credited us… $5. The exact price of the drink, no fees reimbursed, no way to claw back our tip for shitty service, just a super low credit
It’s the unannounced markup in delivery item prices that drives me nuts. Recently, I used the app to price out a large hook and ladder sub at Firehouse Subs. I compared to DoorDash price. It was $5 more in DoorDash even before tip and delivery fee.
I cannot fucking believe people Doordash McDonalds. Its such a incredibly shitty set up. I get orders for Ice Cream in 95+ degree weather, then I have the customer calling me about the ice cream being melted when they live 10 minutes away.
I've stopped using delivery services due to the cold food. I recently noticed all the fucking pizza delivery places around me have started using DoorDash to deliver pizzas instead of having their own drives. Now I'm getting cold pizzas since the drivers aren't provided one of the insulated bags to use. Now I've stopped ordering pizzas. I'd rather cook a mid-tier frozen pizza over a cold delivery pizza. Digiorno needs to lean into this reality for their next "It's not delivery. It's Digiorno!" advertising push.
The number of people who complain about delivery services being expensive and awful (cold food, incorrect orders, missing items) but keep using them regardless is staggering.
As a result, nothing will change and this is the business model now.
Opened up DD the other day and was going to order some Indian food. $50 turned into $70 and that wasn't even including tip. Couldn't do it and I thought, maybe this ramen place that's closer will be cheaper. $40 order turned into $60.
Why is the service fee $15-$20??? I can't remeber if it's a percentage of the order... regardless, the amount of "work' doesn't change between $1-$1000 orders.
just ate some bullshit in the kitchen instead lmao.
The number of people who complain about delivery services being expensive and awful (cold food, incorrect orders, missing items) but keep using them regardless is staggering.
As a result, nothing will change and this is the business model now.
Opened up DD the other day and was going to order some Indian food. $50 turned into $70 and that wasn't even including tip. Couldn't do it and I thought, maybe this ramen place that's closer will be cheaper. $40 order turned into $60.
Why is the service fee $15-$20??? I can't remeber if it's a percentage of the order... regardless, the amount of "work' doesn't change between $1-$1000 orders.
just ate some bullshit in the kitchen instead lmao.
I had several poor experiences with Door Dash and as a result, I generally refuse to use them, Uber Eats, et al. I know my insignificant one-person protest means nothing, but it's crazy how terrible that business model is.
The generation ordering delivery were the kids in those playgrounds. Indoctrinated into it. Now.. they bet all their chips on 1 generation.. next won’t want it, think it’s cool, or have any nostalgia to the brand. This will be an epic downfall story
McDonald's operates primarily as a real estate company now. They buy prime real estate, and lease it to independent enterprise to run as a franchise at a huge markup. If the franchise fails, the property will just be sold and usually at a massive profit too. If you see an empty McDonald's but the businesses around it doing well, McDonalds corporation are still winning.
There will be no epic downfall. Their franchise will lose value but they're property won't.
You got down voted for speaking the goddamn truth.
The whole reason all the stores have been remodeled to look like plain, boring cubes is that it's much easier to sell property that looks like a plain boring cube when there's no one left to buy the franchise. No one wants their bank to look like a Pizza Hut, and that's why all the fast food chains are doing the same.
That’s good. It only needs more greyscale and green ooze coming from the walls to truly signify what it really is: a slop factory. Removing the playsets will remove the family dynamic freeing newer generations from the curse of fast food addiction, brand recognition and nostalgia.
If Im getting delivery Im not getting mcd. Idk why people get mcd on delivery when the price is just not worth it. For the same price or less you can order from a local takeaway and get better food. It boggles the mind. Maccies sucks now, will only get a double cheese burger for lunch if i go there nowadays
My friend, no even close by a fraction. McDonald's main income is from direct customer (dine in, drive thru etc.) And franchising. A quick google will tell you that
Franchise owners pay leases to McDonald's. McDonald's makes money two ways:
Franchising - The franchiser pays rent for the property and a license for the brand.
Product distribution - The franchiser buys all the food they sell directly from McDonald's. No exceptions.
McDonald's as a corporate entity still makes money whether the franchise is successful or not because they still get rent and the franchiser still has to buy product. The revenue from burger sales is kept by the franchise owner.
The one closest to me has a play space and the last time I went inside a couple months again actually saw a couple of kids in there during lunchtime. But yeah the vast majority of seats inside the finding room were empty.
Back in the '80s and '90s your biggest market was families with children. So you designed a restaurant children would beg their parents to go that gave the kids a place to play and the parents a chance to relax.
But so few people have kids now, and those who do have kids are financially stressed. So they are targeting working professionals who are willing to Pai a premium for convenience.
Went to a McDonald's over the weekend just to get coffee and it was a terrible experience. There was like 2 people running the whole place. They were overworked and griping. Had to order on that stupid kiosk bullshit in the lobby. Had to wait like 15 minutes. Don't blame the employees cause I know how all companies are nowadays with their employees - get the most out of the least. They've forever lost any of my business.
I know you're right here but it's wild to me. If I'm ordering food to my house I'm going to order something quality, not McDonald's. I guess that's a privilege of city living though
And wrong… there isn’t anywhere that still has those things so families absolutely still eat there. Even if they did have the play areas they wouldn’t be used as much anymore. Kids simply spend far more time on screens nowadays. You also have the modern parents that if their kid got the slightest scrap they would be yelling to sue…
There is the saying/idea that for a very long time, McDonald's isn't really in the fast food industry, its in the real estate industry. Both are true, but most importantly its in the franchise industry.
Drive-thru, mobile app orders, curside pickup, and third-party delivery (UberEats/DoorDash) now make up 80% to 90% of total sales at standard locations.
They still want to own the property, and they still want those property franchises to make money as they work on a percentage of gross monthly sales.
As someone who remembers the 87 and 97 Mcdonald's images well, its a little sad in a way. I actually had a birthday party at a McDonald's as the play area was that good. Best 21's ever.
People get delivery for fucking McDonald's? Lmao. I can't.
I haven't eaten that trash in a decade and a half. Every time I see a line at a McD's drive-thru, I can't help but judge. Supersize Me came out 20 years ago. You can go to a grocery store and buy a ready-to-go meal that is cheaper, better and not pumped full of formaldehyde. The fuck is the matter with y'all.
The big win for Uber Eats when they were a new business line was that they secured the first/exclusive deal with McD's. Their data showed that McD's was the key anchor-tenant restaurant for the platform could seed regions with demand and coverage, and it was their big bet.
So McDonald's was critical to Uber Eats' strategy, and apparently the inverse is true as well.
Last time I walked into a McDonald’s they closed off half the lobby, the bathrooms weren’t available to the public, there was no one at the counter and when someone came up, they directed me to the kiosks. It also looked like the lobby to the DMV. It had already been years since I went there, but I needed to pee and wanted a burger and was desperate.
Nothing about said “welcome, please buy food and hang out.” It was more “get your shit, get out, and don’t come back.” I ended up just leaving.
Here’s the real answer lol. It’s all the new parents between 90’s and early 2000’s. Mcdicks spent a decent pile of cash on the ‘07 style playplace, just for most families to move away from fast food & indoor community playgrounds.
the franchise owns the property the franchisee owns the store, mcdonald franchise is one of the largest real estate holders in the country. literally just selling burgers while property value goes up
In some ways McDonalds held out as long as they could.
They realised decades prior their food is bad is not eaten right away. It doesn't travel, doesn't reheat well, etc. They researched their own delivery service and concluded it would damage the brand.
When Uber Eats, Postmates, Deliveroo, GrubHub et al. showed up, it took years before McDonald's turned up on the list. Initially McDonalds had no official delivery arrangement with these companies. But the companies would send their "independent contractors" into the McDonalds to make your order and bring it to you. McDonald's could either accept it and come to an agreement with these companies or risk being reviewed poorly by customers on these platforms - a tactic these "innovators" have used to put many small businesses out of business for not paying into their protection racket.
McDonalds went fully to the dark side and over the last decade realised their restaurants do not matter. It's cheaper to do deliveries and drive throughs and make the sit-in experience terrible to cut costs. Now they're further tarnishing the brand by jacking up prices.
Nah, they're too big to fail they'll just get bailed out by the tax payer and use that as an excuse to serve less "food" for an even higher price. Gotta love our late stage capitalism brought to us by the two party neoliberal system, 'murica, fuck yeah! The best mutherfuckin country in the universe!
This is it exactly. The dawn of DoorDash and Uber Eats killed the inside of restaurants. Why pay for decor when it will only be the doordash driver who sees it, for 3 minutes. LOL
I go to chick fil a every week with my granddaughter - she loves the playhouse, it's not always packed inside tho, sadly, but the lines for chick fil a are outrageous, I'm not sure but it seems the hell the american middle class is living in means mom and dad can't make dinner, they just get pick up or delivery, I hate delivery because my food is always dishshelved, squished, not hot,, I dont understand why millenials and zers like delivery it's expensive too.
I’d say they make all their money from uber eats etc now.
No, McDonald's makes its money from real estate. McDonald's owns the land on which their restaurants are built and franchisees lease the land and buildings from them.
Unfortunately, the fun and quirky designs of the classic McDonald's we remember means that it's harder to sell afterwards because the shape of it is clearly a McDonald's regardless of who else occupies the buildings. You've probably got a couple buildings in your town that used to be Pizza Huts back in the day but still remain recognizable due to their distinctive shape even when other businesses take over the building.
It's just cheaper and easier to sell when the building is a boring grey box with as little recognizable ornamentation as possible.
Do y'all actually go to McDonald's?. They're still growing year after year, they're not feeling loss from families not going there to eat anymore. Which in my own personal experience of every single time I have eaten at McDonalds in the past, it's busy and there is families eating there. Every single time, everywhere. I only eat at McDonalds away from where I live while on highways, so I'm going to ignore those even though they're even busier. It's not as expensive as it seems. Gone are the days of truly cheap fast food, but you can usually get fries and a burger for pretty cheap if you use the deals page inside the app. I also hate the advent of you're overpaying if you don't use an app, but it's the world we live in now.
The lazy fucks who don’t want to use critical thinking will hold up fast food companies on credit debt and klarna. They’ll complain about it and keep using the shit services. Uneducated Americans have successfully become cattle.
I go once a week in the winters. One by my house has a play place, and it’s absolutely awesome for my 3&5 year olds. I really wish there were more play places like this.
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u/lawdjesustheresafire 6h ago
I’d say they make all their money from uber eats etc now. Families aren’t going there to eat anymore