Sometimes I go to burger king and i can get a lunch meal in the morning. Is it possible to do that at McD’s?
Depends on the franchise. The McDonald’s and Burger King down the street are the opposite from your OP. I can get a burger any time at McDonald’s whereas Burger King stops making burgers at 3 AM and switches to breakfast only.
The ones I’ve been are pretty strict about keeping the shifts and their respective menus separate. They wouldn’t allow me to get a burger once even 5 minutes before the switch from breakfast to lunch/dinner.
Once in China, I went to a 24 hour McDonalds outlet at 5:30 AM and wanted breakfast. I was the only person in the entire place. The manager told me that breakfast started at 6 AM but I can get their “dinner menu” (hamburgers, fries etc.) then.
I wish McDonalds sold their breakfast food all day.
This is because the switchover from the breakfast menu to the burger-n-fries menu takes a fair amount of time.
They generally can’t do both at once (except for an occasional single order) – the kitchen needs to be set up differently, different supplies ready, different coating on the grill, even different temperature settings on the grills & fryers. They also need different packages ready for the cooked food. And depending on the type of registers, some need to be set to either the breakfast menu or the lunch menu.
So switching back and forth is not easy.
They could always just not switch. Years and years ago I worked in a McDonald’s. Half of the kitchen wasn’t ever used. That includes the grills, the prep areas, the refrigerators. They’d only have to have added a couple of deep-fryers. Now, of course, it would probably be even easier, because of the heater cabinets that they use to keep supplies of meat hot rather than cooking to order or cooking to fill the queue. And now that they don’t bother toasting buns, there’s more space. All in all, if there were enough profit to be made, they’d take steps to make it work. There’s not, so they don’t.
Buns are still toasted. They only ones that aren’t are for the Filet-O-Fish, which are steamed.
It broke my heart when McDonald’s stopped selling me two cheeseburgers and a chocolate shake for breakfast years ago.
It’s fun when you’re berated by McDonalds’ staff for not knowing their business practices like you know your own. It would help if they had clear signs explaining what arcane times they sell different food products, but apparently it’s weird not to be an expert on a particular restaurant’s menu.
/Guess who went to McDonalds for the first time in years today and dared to not have a qualification in “Times McDonalds chooses to sell different flavours of shit”.
Well, that’s how it used to be historically. Then about 15 years ago, McDonald’s developed a new recipe for their hamburger buns that would prevent the ketchup and mustard from soaking in as much, and they stopped toasting most of their buns.
If you still get toasted buns, then I envy you! That Maillard taste is more important to me than ketchup soaking into the bread! But, alas, I’ve not encountered a toasted bun at a McDonald’s in ages.
I work for McDonald’s Operations, I can guarantee you the very first step for all sandwiches is “toast (or steam) the bun.”
And I just now noticed you live in Mexico. Different countries have different processes. I’m not sure about Mexico, but if you’re getting an untoasted bun in the U.S., they’re making it wrong.
Every McDonalds I have been in has a sign saying “Breakfast served 7am-11am” or whatever. And that’s hardly necessary – they change the whole menu board all the way across the top above the serving counter to show either the breakfast items or the lunch ones. If that big sign has prices & pictures of Egg McMuffins & hotcakes they’re serving breakfast; if it has Big Mac’s & Quarter-pounders they are on the lunch menu.
The switchover time is generally 10am, 10:30, or 11am, depending on the lunchtimes common in the neighborhood.
Oh, I’ll have to try McDonald’s again when I’m back home (in Michigan), then, and see. There was a time when McDonald’s did stop toasting their buns. It was someone from McDonald’s operations that I wrote to, and I got back the explanation above.
(The only reason I go to McDonald’s here in Mexico is when the rest of the gringos get homesick for junk food.)
I never worked at a factory till this year, then I had a temp job on an assembly line. Now that I’ve worked an assembly line I can understand this practice.
Once you set up a line to assemble a product, it really is unique to that particular product. This factory made generic meds. Anyway, if you switch products you have to reassmble the components and on a good day it’d take 15 minutes
Now if you stop and think about this, McDonalds basically is nothing more than food that is assembled for quick distribution. Thus the term “fast food.”
I think what gets people a bit confused is when a certain McDonalds will sell a burger in the morning or a breakfast item at lunchtime.
Then the thinking falls back to “If one place can do it why can’t they all”?
That I don’t know, except to say if the specialty item is made it takes more time and the extra work can’t be justified by the number of requests.
Like most things in life, I would guess if enough people demanded it, the company would find someway to do it.
They all could – for a single burger, or a couple of them in the morning. But not enough of them to supply the full demand. That takes their assembly-line process, and as you noted, that takes time to set up.
All this, and Falling Down hasn’t been posted yet? 
Well, all I know is that if I lived around 80 years ago I would be eating egg sandwishes from the local lunchcounters. The egg got consigned to breakfast by corporate fascism. I could go for a McBagle Meat Patty, with McCheddar Onions, an egg, peckles, and Mustard and Salsa on a Sesame seed Bun. McFrankenstein.
…and an excellent slice of American Cheese. You can say all you want about McDonalds but they got the cheese right and didn’t skimp on that recipe.
And I’m not talking about a poached McMuffin Egg, nor the omelette, folded, egg patty strips and extrusions. I am talking about an over easy, warm, liquid yolked gusher.
I guarantee any McDonald’s Grill or worker on Grill can walk into the walk-in, grab an egg, and fry an egg right nest to the burger