I’ve never worked for McDonalds, but I ran a Jack in the Box for several years, and my expert guess is that McD’s has taken so long to do all-day breakfast is because it kills their speed of service.
One of the biggest metrics that corporate uses to grade individual locations (and, by extension, their managers and employees) is how quickly they can move traffic in the drive-thru. The more complicated the menu becomes, the longer on average it takes to move any individual customer through the queue, both because it takes them longer to make a decision and because it takes longer to prepare and assemble their order once they decide on it. The more items you have on the menu, the less advance-staging you can do in advance, since you have little assurance that you’ll sell any given product during the time between when you can prep it and when it goes stale. Assuming that a given restaurant has one flat-top grill to cook all its raw proteins on (which was the case at Jack), frying eggs and burgers at the same time becomes especially difficult since you don’t want grease from the beef patties contaminating the area the eggs are cooking on.
Compare, for example, Dick’s in Seattle. Their menu hasn’t changed since the early '70s, and they have exactly four sandwiches on their menu (for which they most emphatically do not take special orders): single patty with ketchup and mustard; single patty with ketchup, mustard, and cheese; single patty with mayo, lettuce, and relish; and double patty with mayo, lettuce, relish, and cheese. Dick’s serves up orders almost instantly after the customer places them, because their menu is small and they can make the burgers in advance with confidence that they’ll be able to sell them before they sit so long under the heat lamp that they become unpalatable.
Historically, McDonalds’ has valued speed over all else, but the tastes of the fast-food-buying market have been changing over the past few decades; people want fresher products, a wider menu, and a broader choice of ingredients than they had in the past. McD’s has been one of the few chains to really resist this change, but it looks like they’re finally giving in at this point, and are willing to sacrifice speed of service for food quality. Time will tell if it works out for them.
I love me sausage/egg McMuff. Great sausage and what appears to be a real egg. A yellow circle surrounded by white. Most places prepare “liquid egg product”. Poured out of a plastic bag.
That’s no guarantee. There’s egg-tubes available for restaurants, footlong cylinders of pre hard-boiled egg with yolk center and egg-white surround. If you don’t get any edge pieces in your pre-made sandwhich - that’s why.
In the mid 1980’s McDonald’s is where I learned to crack eggs 1 handed. (Actually it was 2 at a time, one in each hand. We went through LOTS of eggs.) I suppose it could have changed since then.
This is what I’ve been wondering. Isn’t the reason that it hasn’t been this way all along that the kitchens don’t have the capacity to prepare both menus at the same time? Won’t this take a considerable amount of retrofitting (probably not the correct word, sorry)?
I like the idea, in theory. I don’t frequent McDonald’s but every once in a while I get a craving and nothing but their hotcakes and sausage will do. My fear is that service and quality are going to suffer, at least for a while as they try to adapt.
I hear you. A friend of mine owns a local pizza shop. He needed some help with something at home and was about to hand me $20 to cover the materials I used, then decided to be nice and handed me a $40 certificate for pizza instead.
No, it seems that the approach will mainly be to shrink both menus. Not all breakfast items will be available all day, and some other items are being dropped to make room for those that are.
I assume they just won’t be available all day; not eliminated all together?
Crikey. First the only Popeye’s in my area closes without warning (unless one considers the many health code violations and the absolute shite service a warning) and now this.
OK, please prepend a “to my tastes.” I found them awful and I tried all three (?) varieties. Now their new ghost chile wrap thingy they got? Now that’s finally something decent from them. You are correct, though, they are popular items.
This is the exact opposite of what I want. I want the regular menu available at the drive-thru at all times! I want to be able to get a Big Mac at 9am if that fits my travel schedule best.
Oh, well. JitB and Del Taco are all items, all the time, so they’ll get my business instead. Suck it, Ronald!
The local Burger Kings all have hamburgers at breakfast, since the rest of their breakfast items kind of suck. I can imagine a limited “lunch” menu during breakfast times at McDonalds, it can’t be that much extra effort.
Gotta LOVE Google Chrome’s translation - especially the “involuntarily delicious” part.
“Faint scent butter flavor, freshly baked English muffin. Severely been quality management, it is sandwiched two sausage patties feel good salty taste and spice about, its juiciness enough spill involuntarily delicious smile. In addition, smoky taste of bacon accent. Moist and white and soft yolk of egg, it played a mellow, creamy cheese and exquisite harmony. Perfect for the beginning of the energetic day, volume is also a full breakfast menu also taste of harmony.”
Harmonious breakfast sandwiches are a very Good Thing.
I love pizza.