Last night, I went to the drive-through at a local McDonalds (I live in Northern California, just south of the Bay Area).
I ordered a “plain quarter pounder.” (“Plain” because I don’t like condiments.)
When I got to the drive-through window, I got handed a plain quarter pounder with cheese on it.
The lady at the window fixed me a new QP, without the cheese, but she said that a quarter pounder normally comes with cheese on it, and that even though I’d said “plain”, that still didn’t exclude the cheese. She said that if I really wanted a plain quarter pounder without cheese, I should have asked for a “quarter ham.” (“Ham,” presumably, is their shorthand abbreviation for hamburger, not the stuff that comes out of a pig.)
Perplexed, I looked up the menu items on the McDonalds USA website. But they listed a “Quarter Pounder” and a “Quarter Pounder with Cheese” by those names as separate menu items!
So … was the lady at the drive-through window clueless, or does McDonalds actually have a policy that “quarter pounder” automatically means “quarter pounder with cheese”? Is there anyone here who’s actually worked at the McEmpire (or who knows somebody that does) who can tell me?
Tracer, I have been told the same thing by some MacDonalds, and probably not in the Bay Area. It’s illogical, and it seems they have invented some new fast-food terminology, but I have resorted to saying “one quarter-pounder WITHOUT cheese” just to be sure. Works every time.
I like my QPs w/out cheese also. In high school, my best friend worked at McD’s and he said that “quarter ham” was kitchen-speak for a QP w/out cheese, and that “quarter pounder” assumed cheese.
The menus at the restaurants don’t even list QP without cheese - I’ve always had to specifically say “without cheese.”
I guess you could say “quarter ham” but they might look at you funny – they don’t expect customers to use their own backroom lingo. I tried it once and the cashier got all confused, so I had to say ‘quarter pounder without cheese’ anyway.
At one time, McDonald’s had both a Quarter Pounder and a Quater Pounder with Cheese on the menu–as recently as 10-12 years ago.
Since most people actually wanted cheese on their burgers, the name Quarter Pounder pretty much came to mean that they wanted cheese included. I assume that officially McDonald’s has not changed it’s menu at the corporate level but most stores I have been in do not list both.
Just to make sure you get your the way you want it, ask for a Quarter Ponder, no cheese. Seems stupid but it’s the best way.
When I worked there, the Quarter Cheese was a regular and popular menu item, the Quarter Ham was a “grill”, or special order. The Quarter Cheese were piled up in the bin, whereas a Quarter Ham had to be made when ordered.
“Processed cheese” and “Processed cheese product” are two different things. Processed cheese contains only cheese and emulsifying salts. Processed cheese product contains less than 51% cheese ingredients and a maximum moisture content of 60%.
The cheese on McDonald’s hamburgers is processed cheese, not processed cheese product.
I work at McDonald’s, and I have to be honest, there are few things less annoying than customers who don’t know how to order. That includes asking for a “Quarter Pounder, plain” or a “cheeseburger, plain” and expecting just meat and a bun, or a “McChicken with catsup” and expecting it to be “only catsup.” It seems like it’s typically older customers who make the mistake, ones who refer to every sandwich on the menu as a “burger.” I can understand how they wouldn’t know that a Quarter Pounder w/ Cheese plain comes with cheese, but it still drives most of us nuts when a customer orders that, gets upset when they find out they didn’t order correctly, and we have to remake it in the middle of a busy lunch rush. I’ve always said there should be precise instructions on how to special order a sandwich, to avoid the hassles.
In any event, she was right, a Quarter Pounder (short for Quarter Pounder w/ Cheese) by definition has cheese and it’s not excluded from a “plain” sandwich. Same thing for Cheeseburger, and a Double Quarter w/ Cheese and a Big N Tasty w/ Cheese. Big Macs are usually a gray area and the order-taker is supposed to ask. Filet o Fishes don’t come with cheese when ordered plain. It may sound kooky to outsiders (I’ve forgotten what it’s like to be one), but to this McD’s veteran it makes sense.
So if I order a Quarter Pounder, I expect NO Cheese. That’s what the menu says. I don’t care what the “inside lingo” is or what the “convention” is for those behind the counter. If there is the possibility of confusion, the order-taker should ask “Do you want cheese or not?”
If “QP” really means “QP w/C” then what does “QP w/C” mean? Why is McDonalds, or it’s franchisees, maintaining a redundant menu?
It’s bad enough that the changed the drink sizes from:
Small - Medium - Large, to
Medium - Large - Extra Large, to
Large - Extra Large - OMGItsABucketOfCoke
BCE (Burger, Cheese, Everything?)
At my college near Philadelphia, I tried ordering a “Steak Sandwich”, which is what was on their menu, right next to “Cheesesteak”. Not only was the guy perplexed by what I called it, he seemed perplexed by the very concept of a “cheesesteak, but without cheese”. I don’t think they had a term for such an item, despite what their menu said.
I don’t know why McDonald’s has such a reputation for using imitation stuff. Watching a McDonald’s breakfast commercial, my friend wondered, “How do they get away with saying they use eggs? They don’t use real eggs.” So I looked it up. Here’s the ingredients in McDonald’s eggs:
Just because it’s not that great doesn’t mean it’s synthetic! There are lots of mediocre-quality real products.
I have the same problem at McDonalds. The one near work had on the menu both a double cheesburger and a double hamburger. After enough times of getting cheese on my double hamburger, I finally started ordering it “double hamburger – no cheese please.” It is kind of silly, but I just go with the flow eventually. It must be the way they train their customers.
Question for you, Skwerl – I assume I must be in the minority if I have to specifically mention “no cheese.” I figured a lot of people don’t like the square of semi-solid yellow cheese-like paste on the burgers, but this must not be the case. What % of people would you estimate order without cheese?
