Here in Toronto there are a lot of hamburger/souvlaki joints. If you start by saying “I’d like a cheeseburger with lettuce and…” The guy will interrupt and say, “Chizbooger!” Then he or someone else will cook it and then say, “What you like?” Then you say what toppings you want. My point is, the only way they will serve it is your way.
I haven’t eaten in a Mcdonalds in many years but I do recall if you asked for a Big Mac with or without something, the people behind the counter got very confused.
Maybe railroads should take the souvlaki joint approach.
It’s an apples to oranges comparison. Railroads… especially the class ones, are more profitable than any food outlet, including McDonalds. Moreover the railroads have a competitive moat… McDonalds has its brand (which is valuable), but they’re constantly facing new fast food competitors and not just burger joints either. Where was Fire House Subs just 20 years ago? Nowhere… and now they’ve got how many thousands of stores competing with the golden arches? And that’s just one chain.But I guess there’s always something one can learn from others. And demographics are also working against MacDonalds as the baby boomers who were mostly responsible for their rapid growth can nolonger process their food so easily.
Well, your just comparing hamburgers to sub sandwiches now.
Baby boomers may not care for McDonald’s as much any more. (But surprisingly, many do.) But their children/grand children do. IMO That’s there real strength. There’s a lot of better fast food chain burgers (and even more mom & pop places) that are much better than McDonald’s, but it seems that’s where the families with children go.
And I will give them credit, the food is usually consistent no matter which restaurant you visit. Mediocre maybe, but consistent.
And that’s part of the secret to their success, they’re a known quantity. You can go to any McDonalds in any part of the country and expect to find the same menu with the same standard of quality. No surprises, you know exactly what you’re going to get. Granted, some McDonalds are going to be better than others, but if there’s a lapse in the standards it’s the fault of the local franchise holder, not the company.
By the way, aside from one location that had incredibly slow and incompetant service I’ve never been to a bad Wendy’s.
That’s too bad, but there’s usually a reason. Either they weren’t doing enough business or they lost the lease on the property.
We had a Burger King nearby that closed, but it didn’t surprise me. The food was good but the service was terrible, so slow you’d have sworn they were working backwards!
We had a Dairy Queen close too, the landlord raised the rent higher than the DQ wanted to pay. Same with a Wendys in a downtown Richmond office building. Man, did they do some business with the lunchtime crowd! They weren’t open seven days a week but didn’t need to be!
I was in NC for some classes. I forget what the chain was, but it was a popular one. Except in that city. That one was dead. Open, but darned few customers.
The BK there wasn’t bad, but it was dirty - I’ve never seen a fast food restaurant that bad.
Many years ago, while I was working as a flight instructor and charter pilot in Connecticut, I had a student who owned a meat distributorship near Hartford. They had a contract to supply McDonald’s with meat for all of southern New England. By happenstance I also had a primary student that owned a McDonalds franchise.
Both of them told me that a McDonald’s contract was lucrative. They also said that McDonald’s was a bit like the Gestapo. They said that they were constantly at risk of losing the contract or franchise for the smallest infractions. The meat guy told me that McDonald’s auditors would show up unannounced in the middle of the night to audit his operations.
It must have been worth it. The meat supplier’s father had started out with a small butcher shop in a Hartford suburb. By the time he showed up to get his instrument rating he owned outright a Beechcraft Bonanza. An expensive bird to say the least!
A lto of the mom and pop places here have the same Sysco or US Foods truck delivering to them. May be an independent - but they are still using chain food.
Sounds pretty damned stupid to me, and I’ll bet those unfrozen fries were sold to an outfit that bought and distributed items like a Canned Foods or other such company, of which there are several that buy what is known as distressed products, usually canned goods but could be anything that is either o
My favourite chain is White Castle. I read an article about them in a men’s magazine many years ago. It’s not a franchise operation, they own every restaurant. All of their food is and always has been packed in cardboard containers and they’ve never used the plastic clamshells that other chains used. Their beef is 100% American wheras Mcdonalds uses beef imported from Brazil amongst other places. Why are they burning down the rain forest? To grow cattle that is sold to Mcdonalds. The article further said that if you showed that you had what it took, you had a lifetime career with them with good promotions, stock options, profit sharing, an excellent retirement and so forth.
I once called an 800 number at a White Castle in Detroit. I left my name and address and phone number on a machine. My question was, “Are you ever going to open a place in Canada?” I received a letter from them stating that they had no plans to do that and it also said like the mag article how they do not have a franchise system. I later got a phone call from someone in the company basically repeating what the letter said. Included with the letter they sent me a map of the location of every White Castle restaurant and that hangs to this day on the wall of my garage. I could go for half a dozen right now. With mustard.
White Castle is famous for being an early example of ‘scientific management’ at its best. The burgers are square because the griddles are square. The five little holes equalize cooking time. The onions go on to steam, and the buns are packaged in ‘one piece’ by halves, and go on the top to hold in that steam. Those cardboard boxes are designed to be folded in one hand, as they are picked up from a stack, while the other hand flips the burger up. You have not fully lived until you’ve seen an old-line Castle employee fix a sack of 20 in less than 10 seconds. PSR might learn some valuable things looking at the operational design.
Incidentally, one of the secrets is to get them steamed, even if not made with cheese.
Oh No! This a complete fabrication and is totally false. I hate it when people do that!
In the US McDonalds only uses US raised beef. Periord. I’m pretty damn sure that in Canada McDonalds only uses Canadian raised beef. They insist on using a country’s products in that country’s restaurants whenever possible.
This whole “They import beef from Brazil and destroy the rain forest by doing so” thing is just a flat out bald faced lie.
They were going to import water chestnuts from China when they added salads to their menu. But before the water chesnuts were moved from the distribution centers to the restaurants some cans of water chestnuts began to explode in the DC’s. Water chestnuts were removed from the salad ingredients.
It’s much better if these discussions are kept truthful. Leave out the damn hate monger lies.
Growing p in Memphis in the '50’s and 60’s; It was Krystal Hamburgers was the cheap food of choice for the H.S. crowd… Hamburger was $.10, and a cheeseburger was $.12. So orders by the sackfull were not uncomon. Krystal Hamburgers were pretty much a Southern institution…
White Castles, not down South.[:^)] Never had one’til I was working in Chicago; there they were everywhere; only pricier! $.15 and $.20 each. [swg]
As were neighborhood hot dog stands [IIC they were under the ‘Vienna’ brand, and they were everywhere. Only thing was, no ketchup, only mustard…
My most favored Chicago take-out was a place over in Bridgeport [Ricobeni’s (?)] that served a round steak sandwich cooked in a maranara sauce on a hard roll. [tup][tup] [alien] In that galaxy, far, far, away! [(-D]
Anyone that was hungry in Chicago, was broke, or on a strict diet! [dinner] [:'(]
Ask for a McFlurry only too find out it’s broken. Or when it’s not broken close it at 11pm. I don’t know… The railroads might be modeled after it already!
@Greyhounds- That is a great idea to franchise out local operations to a Shortline. Toss in low volume IM lanes as well for the franchise model.
The fast food industry is a perfect example of smart business… great execution… run it by the numbers… standardization… yet bad for the population as a whole. It really underscores a weakness of capitalism…i.e. give the people what they want even if its bad for them and the environment. People are much fatter now than they were 50 years ago, and the oceans are polluted with plastic trays and straws which will require thousands of years to decompose. A model to emulate? I don’t think so…
So what? If folks want to over-eat, either fast food or snack food or whatever that’s their choice. The last I looked this was a free country where people were allowed and expected to make their own choices without someone looking over their shoulders. Remember, one day the “nanny staters” may come after something near and dear to your heart, and for your own good of course. Wait until they start chasing railfans away from trackside because of “security concerns,” or because you might get yourself run over. Or something.
Don’t any of you infer from this I’m an “Anti-masker,” I’m not, considering the current health emergency I have no problem wearing one and don’t have a lot of sympathy for those who won’t. Wearing a mask won’t kill you and will help everyone’s peace of mind.
All that crap in the ocean? Studies have shown it’s coming from Asia and Africa, not the US or Western Europe, so go talk to the perpetrators. See if they’ll listen.