# There's New Legal Drama Around McDonald’s Soft Serve Machines **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 29, 2021, 11:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theres-new-legal-drama-around-mcdonald-s-soft-serve-machines/941024 "2021-04-29T11:02:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2021, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theres-new-legal-drama-around-mcdonald-s-soft-serve-machines/941024/21 "2021-04-30T21:30:32Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > To be honest, when I saw the topic title, I thought someone actually had a dramatic television series about McDonald’s soft serve machines. I as well. New from Dick Wolf - Law and Order: SSL (Soft Serve Litigation) ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2021, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theres-new-legal-drama-around-mcdonald-s-soft-serve-machines/941024/22 "2021-04-30T22:42:42Z")
> [@jnglmassiv](#): > > This is a good video and I also recommend it Wow. Could not disagree more. That was the most tedious thing I’ve walked out of 1/3 of the way through. They could have wrapped that entire spiel up in 4 minutes. But No! That guy just drones on and on about nothing. Skip! ---
**Author:** ![jnglmassiv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f07891/32.png) [@jnglmassiv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jnglmassiv)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2021, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theres-new-legal-drama-around-mcdonald-s-soft-serve-machines/941024/23 "2021-04-30T23:58:42Z")
> [@Gatopescado](#): > > That was the most tedious thing I’ve walked out of 1/3 of the way through. They could have wrapped that entire spiel up in 4 minutes. You know what? You’re right. I should have said he presented good, well researched information with screenshots, interviews and service manual excerpts but in an inefficient manner. It’s a short video, you don’t need to tell us what you’re going to tell us several times. ---
**Author:** ![amarinth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3be4f8/32.png) [@amarinth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarinth)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2021, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theres-new-legal-drama-around-mcdonald-s-soft-serve-machines/941024/24 "2021-05-01T01:03:14Z")
> [@Gatopescado](#): > > But No! That guy just drones on and on about nothing. Skip! he doesn’t just drone on and on. He also uses c.o.o.l. CAMERA _angles_ `and` **editing** while making his point. But it is a 30 minute video to deliver 3/4ths of a page of information. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2021, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theres-new-legal-drama-around-mcdonald-s-soft-serve-machines/941024/25 "2021-05-01T01:22:58Z")
I was talking to a guy who maintained the coke machines there. He said mcd’s give a bonus if the franchise holders use less syrup than the sales would account for. So according to him, they all tamper with the machines to use less syrup , thus the sodas do not taste right. My friend, who us a coke fanatic, concurs that the sodas taste wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2021, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theres-new-legal-drama-around-mcdonald-s-soft-serve-machines/941024/26 "2021-05-01T01:37:34Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > New from Dick Wolf - Law and Order: SSL (Soft Serve Litigation) And on Fox, it’s Emily Deschanel in **Cones**. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2021, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theres-new-legal-drama-around-mcdonald-s-soft-serve-machines/941024/27 "2021-05-01T03:08:12Z")
If you want to be nice, offer to drive around the store a few times while you wait and lower their drive thru times. I have never had a McDonalds ice cream, so I never really cared about it, but I have heard the meme of them being broken all the time. I thought it was odd, as in my stent with Wendy’s there was exactly one time that the frosty machine broke, and we had a guy (not a taylor guy) out to fix it within an hour. It was a mechanical problem, not software. But the frost machine didn’t have any software, it was just a hopper, a chilling chamber, a lever to let out the ice cream, and a 3 way switch. We cleaned it manually every night, removing any leftover mix, and running hot water with a special chemical that was made specifically for it. Put it back together in the morning, filled it up, and away it went. I think it took a while, probably less than an hour, but not by much, before it was usable, freezing the mix, but that was easy enough to plan for. The only time it would “go down” would be on hot days when we were selling tons of frostys, and it just couldn’t keep up with it. At a certain point, the frosty is coming out too liquidy to serve, and there was nothing for it but to wait a while before you could use it again. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2021, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theres-new-legal-drama-around-mcdonald-s-soft-serve-machines/941024/28 "2021-05-01T03:18:05Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > I was talking to a guy who maintained the coke machines there. He said mcd’s give a bonus if the franchise holders use less syrup than the sales would account for. So according to him, they all tamper with the machines to use less syrup , thus the sodas do not taste right. Not sure that McD’s corporate would be the one driving a financial incentive there, especially not with some sort of backroom kickback deal. The franchise owner is the one who purchases the syrup, and so is the one that would stand to gain directly by putting less syrup in each cup. Even at corporate stores, you get a bonus based on food costs, so there would be incentive for managers to try to cut back on the syrup as well. So, I’m sure it happens, I just don’t think that your friend actually understood the motivation there. Fun thing about the syrup, it really is a syrup. Not quite as viscous as the stuff you put on your pancakes, but fairly close, and just as sticky. Personal experience from having a bag bust on me when I was changing one out. I couldn’t drink Coke for a month, just the smell made me nauseous. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2021, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theres-new-legal-drama-around-mcdonald-s-soft-serve-machines/941024/29 "2021-05-01T03:26:41Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > I’d like to think this was just a problem of people at that franchise being lazy, but my own experience where I work is that some of the people making decisions seem to have little to no knowledge of conditions in the “front lines”. But, if the story is correct, upper management didn’t receive reports or complaints that that particular sandwich created a problem time-wise. What the company received was lies about how the sandwich wasn’t wanted at all. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2021, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theres-new-legal-drama-around-mcdonald-s-soft-serve-machines/941024/30 "2021-05-01T03:37:46Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > Not sure that McD’s corporate would be the one driving a financial incentive there, especially not with some sort of backroom kickback deal. The franchise owner is the one who purchases the syrup, and so is the one that would stand to gain directly by putting less syrup in each cup. > > Even at corporate stores, you get a bonus based on food costs, so there would be incentive for managers to try to cut back on the syrup as well. > > So, I’m sure it happens, I just don’t think that your friend actually understood the motivation there. That could be. He just installed and fixed the machines. He had to always reset to factory settings. He got complaints from Coke HQ when the customers complained to Coke rather than McDs. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2021, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theres-new-legal-drama-around-mcdonald-s-soft-serve-machines/941024/31 "2021-05-01T03:39:25Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > But, if the story is correct, upper management didn’t receive reports or complaints that that particular sandwich created a problem time-wise. What the company received was lies about how the sandwich wasn’t wanted at all. Corporate doesn’t always care about such things. I worked in a restaurant that gave managers bonuses based on food cost. A flat food cost, not marginal food cost. Then corporate would run promotions on steaks, driving up foodcost, and costing the managers their bonuses. There are plenty of policies implemented by the people who work in offices that don’t seem to care about how they will be implemented in the stores that actually make them money. I spend about 2 decades in food service, and I could go on for hours about them. And not just food service, either, most of my other jobs had just absolute bullshit requirements that contradicted eachother. You either had to choose to follow one directive, another directive, or lie about it. I refused to lie about it, which is one of the reasons why I rarely held a job all that long. ---
**Author:** ![Deeg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/deeg/32/2955_2.png) [@Deeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deeg)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2021, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theres-new-legal-drama-around-mcdonald-s-soft-serve-machines/941024/32 "2021-05-01T04:44:53Z")
I have a hard time believing the maintainer. One of McDonald’s important qualities is that the consistency of the food is the same everywhere. Obviously it can’t be exactly the same given the vagaries of humans but I wouldn’t think they would set up an incentive that would result in varying consistency. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2021, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theres-new-legal-drama-around-mcdonald-s-soft-serve-machines/941024/33 "2021-05-01T04:56:01Z")
> [@Gatopescado](#): > > Wow. Could not disagree more. That was the most tedious thing I’ve walked out of 1/3 of the way through I’m with you. This is a TERRIBLE video. six minutes in the guy hasn’t even presented a thesis statement. He’s just saying over and over and over again that McDonald’s ice cream machines are broken a lot. I know. It feels as if he’s adding in words and sentences just to pad the running time. I can’t take this anymore, can someone sum it up? ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2021, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theres-new-legal-drama-around-mcdonald-s-soft-serve-machines/941024/34 "2021-05-01T06:15:08Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > can someone sum it up? Ice cream machines are broken a lot because (1) They are automatic self-cleaning. (2) When the self-cleaning cycle doesn’t complete, the only thing to do is to make a service call. The highly paid service call will interpret the meaningless codes: ‘the lid isn’t closed’. The machine company likes this because service is a major profit center. There is a third party offering diagnostic information. The service company doesn’t like that. The service company is a trusted supplier, and is backed by McDonalds. There is presently a court case running. It’s slightly more complex. To summarize accurately would have taken 10 more words and 10 times as much thought. ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2021, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theres-new-legal-drama-around-mcdonald-s-soft-serve-machines/941024/35 "2021-05-01T06:26:23Z")
Thanks, @Melbourne, for taking one for the team! (I tried watching, at 1.25x speed, and still quit halfway through.) ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2021, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theres-new-legal-drama-around-mcdonald-s-soft-serve-machines/941024/36 "2021-05-01T06:40:09Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > It feels as if he’s adding in words and sentences just to pad the running time. The YouTube promotional algorithm favors length, which creates a perverse incentive to arbitrarily pad videos to the 30 minute mark plus or minus. Here is one of many, many pages about this. > **[Creators are making longer videos to cater to the YouTube algorithm](https://digiday.com/future-of-tv/creators-making-longer-videos-cater-youtube-algorithm/)** > > Digital video creators are posting longer videos that can generate the watch time YouTube craves and the revenue they need. ---
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2021, 11:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theres-new-legal-drama-around-mcdonald-s-soft-serve-machines/941024/37 "2021-05-01T11:12:04Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > I’m with you. This is a TERRIBLE video. six minutes in the guy hasn’t even presented a thesis statement. He’s just saying over and over and over again that McDonald’s ice cream machines are broken a lot. I know. It feels as if he’s adding in words and sentences just to pad the running time. I can’t take this anymore, can someone sum it up? I would think it’s the job of whoever posted it to give a summation. But in this case all we were given was: > [@dougrb](#): > > The long version And a link to a 30 minute video. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2021, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theres-new-legal-drama-around-mcdonald-s-soft-serve-machines/941024/38 "2021-05-01T12:26:26Z")
[Moderating] If I’m not mistaken, nobody in this thread has yet said what the issue here actually is. Neither a link to a news article nor a 30-minute video constitutes “discussion”. I gather, from what I’ve read so far, that McDonalds staff often lie and say the soft-serve machine is broken, because it takes too much time to use it? I think? Some more explanation is definitely in order, here. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2021, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theres-new-legal-drama-around-mcdonald-s-soft-serve-machines/941024/39 "2021-05-01T12:41:48Z")
@Melbourne has it. The machines are down because they are self cleaning, and spit out cryptic error messages when things go wrong, which requires a service call to the manufacturer to resolve. Some new company has created a device that can hack into the system and fix the error without the service call. That’s the new legal drama. Many franchisers would of course like to use these to save money and get the machines back up more quickly. But McDonalds, having a deal with the soft serve manufacturer, is siding against this. They are instead coming out with their own device–and the hackers think they stole their tech. It’s a convoluted mess, seemingly all because McDonalds can’t trust its workers to just clean a normal soft serve machine. ---
**Author:** ![jnglmassiv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f07891/32.png) [@jnglmassiv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jnglmassiv)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2021, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theres-new-legal-drama-around-mcdonald-s-soft-serve-machines/941024/40 "2021-05-01T13:45:05Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > But McDonalds, having a deal with the soft serve manufacturer, is siding against this. It’s also pointed out that none of the (many) other fast food places appear to have this problem, despite using machines from the same manufacturer. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theres-new-legal-drama-around-mcdonald-s-soft-serve-machines/941024.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theres-new-legal-drama-around-mcdonald-s-soft-serve-machines/941024.md?page=3)