[mitchbert]

There was a time, oh perhaps a couple of decades ago, when a well run McDonald's was a retail operation truly to behold. An "A" or even "B" grade store ran like a watch. Once Kroc moved out of the picture things really started going down hill. The old priorities of fast turnaraound, clean stores and friendly staff working as a tight team stood them head and shoulders above any competition. I still see the odd good one in the Canadian operation, usually ones owned by the same franchisee for a long time, but they've become few and far between.

The biggest mistake they made IMO was to go away from the make-in-advance system in favour of the make-to-order model. The idea may have been to cut down on waste, but frankly this strikes me as a failure to properly analyze traffic patterns, a measure that should be fairly predictable in their business, and staff and cook accordingly. You rarely had to wait for your food and the counter and kitchen were properly staffed. Now customers are waiting three and four deep after paying, the old rules about nearest person to the fryer jumps when the buzzer goes and immediately reloads the fryer seem to have been forgetten. Seating areas are a mess, not only at busy times, and the staff discipline is almost non-existant. Real basic stuff that crushes a business when ignored.

It stuns me that no one in their organization seems to notice the obvious. Their success was their operations formula which was rigid when their competitors were all over the place. They forgot what made them successful and are reaping the results. Too bad.

[cksharks]

I watched the true story of the start of McDonalds on Bio a couple of weeks ago. Very entresting.

[Alberta's Child]

I still see the odd good one in the Canadian operation, usually ones owned by the same franchisee for a long time, but they've become few and far between.

There's a McDonald's up in the town of St. Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec, just north of the border in upstate New York along the Richelieu River. I stopped there once and was amazed at how clean the place was. You could have eaten off the bathroom floor. Every time a table was vacated, two French-speaking girls came out from behind the counter and gave the table and floor around it a thorough cleaning.

[MarkL]

You rarely had to wait for your food and the counter and kitchen were properly staffed. Now customers are waiting three and four deep after paying, the old rules about nearest person to the fryer jumps when the buzzer goes and immediately reloads the fryer seem to have been forgetten.

Does anybody else remember the 60 second timer, where if you didn't get your order in 60 seconds, it was free?

Mark

[Erasmus]

Seating areas are a mess, not only at busy times, and the staff discipline is almost non-existant. Real basic stuff that crushes a business when ignored.

In very many locations, the demographics of the customers--and the available workforce--have changed for the worse.