
McRevolt: The Frustrating Life of the McDonald's Franchisee (2015) - wallflower
https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2015-mcdonalds-franchises/
======
noonespecial
_And it’s not like people are tired of burgers. Smashburger, In-N-Out Burger,
BurgerFi, and Five Guys Burgers & Fries are all expanding. So is Shake
Shack..._

McDonalds problem is the same problem they've always had. The food just isn't
very good. It never was. No amount of spiffing up the storefront or juggling
menu items can help them when competition the likes of the above moves in. All
they're doing is driving their prices higher which helps the competition even
more.

~~~
lr4444lr
You're being charitable. It's downright bad, even compared with various other
franchises on an item by item basis. The last time I ate in one back in 2008
because nothing else was open that early, I had a breakfast that consisted of
scrambled eggs, hash browns, pancakes, and sausage. Everything tasted almost
identical - an oily salty mound - with only different chew textures. (Okay,
maybe the sausage had a little extra zing from the spice mix, but that was
definitely the only tip off). But McDs always was dirt cheap, and their
calorie to dollar ratio for (reasonably freshly) prepared food has been tough
to beat. If they can't hold the line on prices, I don't see what's left to
keep them from losing market share. And I wouldn't miss it one bit.

~~~
resf
No doubt, the food in McDonalds is bad. But it's very _distinctive_. You can
buy a burger and fries at any number of joints, but you can only buy a
_McDonalds_ Big Mac and _McDonalds_ fries at McDonalds.

You could call it Hershey Syndrome. Hershey's chocolate is not very good. In
fact, it tastes like vomit. Yet the entire US has grown up eating Hershey
bars.

Hershey don't compete on quality, they compete on "Hersheyness".

Likewise, McDonalds can't simply improve quality, because they would be losing
their very essence in the process.

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tylercubell
I worked in a franchisee-owned McDonalds circa 2011 and I agree with the
sentiment of this article. At the time they were trying to be all things to
all people. Instead of focusing on their core strength: burgers and fries,
they expanded an already crowded menu by introducing items like the McWrap and
Fish McBites that nobody really wanted. Since then I think they've been trying
to turn things around by trimming the fat from the menu ("getting back to
basics") and actually responding to what customers want by doing things like
introducing all-day breakfast.

Also, I got the sense that they don't have a great relationship with their
franchisees. For example, there's a special salt shaker called AccuSalt[0]
that the McDonald's Corporation requires franchisees to own which costs
hundreds of dollars if I remember correctly. It's a total ripoff because the
thing is a cheap plastic POS that breaks whenever it's dropped and franchisees
aren't allowed to buy a generic one. As a result of this and probably 100
other little things, I once heard that the franchisee I worked for got the
McDonald's Corporation to fly out an HVAC tech across the country to fix a
thermostat out of spite.

[0]:
[https://www.sonoco.com/productsandservices/plastics/accusalt...](https://www.sonoco.com/productsandservices/plastics/accusalt.aspx)

~~~
pgrote
It ensures the proper amount of salt in the proper pattern is dispensed. Are
there generic ones available?

The idea behind tools like this is uniform product preparation. Fries in one
McDonalds are almost identical to fries in another.

~~~
tylercubell
I understand the supposed reasoning, although in my own experience the
uniformity of the fries is very spotty nonetheless. Usually employees don't
spread the salt properly or they don't hold the shaker long enough for all the
salt to properly dispense anyway. This negates any benefit of the AccuSalt.

Instead there are generic shakers that could get a very similar result with
some training, even though they don't have a built-in measure. All commercial
kitchen supply outlets have them.

Better yet, when kitchen staff are ultimately replaced by robots (or the salt
dispenser gets built in to the fry station) this won't be an issue anymore.

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ghiculescu
Behind the Arches is a great book on the topic of McDonalds. The author argues
all their biggest successes came from new product ideas that were forced onto
corporate by franchisees who insisted they knew what customers wanted.
Meanwhile every product invented by HQ flopped (Kroc was notorious for this).

I'd love to know where the new products in this article come from.

[http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/341643.McDonald_s](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/341643.McDonald_s)

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Clubber
From what I understand, when McDonalds was cratering around when this article
was written, they came up with all day breakfast. I've read several writings
from franchisees complaining about the complexities of that and how it would
cost them in kitchen renovations. Apparently the all day breakfast revitalized
sales and McDonalds is on track for a rebound.

~~~
kbenson
From the number of times in my life I've pulled up to a McDonalds drive
through looking for breakfast only to find I misjudged the time slightly (and
left, because I'm not in the mood for a burger at 10 AM), or the times I
looked and found I couldn't because it was already a bit too late, I can
totally believe this. Jack in the Box became a go-to for me in college for
exactly this reason. Morning classes let out, it's 9:45 or 10, not enough time
to get McDonalds breakfast, but I can always get breakfast at Jack in the Box,
even if I prefer McMuffins.

Largely a moot point now, since I try to eat fast food sparingly, but boy do I
wish they had all day breakfast when I was in my early 20's.

~~~
johansch
I always wondered what kind of reasoning was behind that 10 am cutoff-point.
Who the heck wants to eat a burger before, say, 11 am?

~~~
swang
i believe it was 1030 for mcdonalds and the reasoning was they needed to start
prepping for the 11am/lunch shift and there was only so much grill space for
burgers/buns vs mcmuffins/toast/pancakes. i don't know what changes mcdonalds
enforced to keep it going past 1030 now (just mandate now?)

~~~
johansch
In Sweden the cut-off/switch time is 10:00. It has been this time for a very,
very long time.

~~~
irrational
I feel like only America eats crappy food like McDonalds and everywhere else
they eat fresh wholesome food every day. Hearing that they have McDonalds in
other countries just makes me sad.

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jaclaz
Anyone remembers the scene at the fast food with Michael Douglas ordering
breakfast in Falling Down?

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJs9p-VNORw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJs9p-VNORw)

~~~
sqldba
I love this movie. I don't want to spoil anything but I wish it was happier.

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grecy
An old family friend of my Dad's is a franchisee, he has the only two stores
in the country town I grew up in.

He says it's literally a license to print money, and he is now obscenely rich.

~~~
seibelj
I'm a huge fan of McDonald's, just not a big fan of their food.

> McDonald's exemplifies the role of small businesses in Americans' upward
> mobility. The company is largely a confederation of small businesses: 85
> percent of its U.S. restaurants -- average annual sales, $2.2 million -- are
> owned by franchisees. McDonald's has made more millionaires, and especially
> black and Hispanic millionaires, than any other economic entity ever,
> anywhere.

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2007/12...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2007/12/26/AR2007122601485.html)

~~~
icebraining
Maybe if McDonald's didn't exist, there would be a more competitive franchise
market and those small businesses would have made even more money.

I have no idea if that's likely or not, but without that analysis, it's no
different than saying that Lamy make the book _American Gods_ possible, just
because Gaiman used one of their pens.

~~~
oddlyaromatic
>it's no different than saying that Lamy make the book American Gods possible

I have to say I think this is a pretty big leap. True, you can't do a
controlled experiment with no McDonald's in the market to see what would have
happened. But that doesn't mean you immediately throw up your hands and say
"no useful or meaningful knowledge to be gained here because we can't do an
impossible study." You might not get to 100% certainty but you can definitely
figure some stuff out about how things are probably working, and the magnitude
of the impact of the McDonald's system.

~~~
icebraining
You're agreeing with me :) that's the "without that analysis" part of my post.
I just don't see it in that article.

~~~
oddlyaromatic
I'm not sure. The statement, without analysis, still makes a kind of
independently true point (more millionaires made) and would lend itself to
reasoning through. The statement you compare it with is obviously false and no
amount of analysis could change that. I dunno. Not a huge deal in any case :)

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chiph
The all-day breakfast brought them more of my business. I really like the Egg
McMuffin. But, the burgers are nothing to write home about - they're thin and
not that juicy, and seem to be mostly bun.

Their competition (Wendy's, Burger King) aren't really making good burgers
either. I'm lucky that Austin has a wide choice in burgers from various
independent restaurateurs.

~~~
elandybarr
Have you had any of the never-frozen Wendy's? Vastly improved over the last
few years.

~~~
chipotle_coyote
I'm fairly sure Wendy's has _always_ used fresh beef. "Fresh, not frozen" was
a slogan in their stores when I was growing up in the '70s and '80s. As far as
I know, the only shift a few years ago was to refocus their marketing efforts.

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Spooky23
McDonalds franchisees print money and don't really need to know much. I don't
shed tears for them.

If they wanted to think, they should have kicked a different business.

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Johnny555
_he says one recent morning as he sits in the Hastings McDonald’s, sipping a
skinny vanilla McCafé Latte. Such “foo-foo coffee,” as he calls espresso and
its variants, is partly why he bailed: He loves the taste, but the
complexities of making it came to epitomize his disillusionment with McD’s.
“The service times went up_

If McDonalds didn't sell this hard to prepare "foo-foo coffee" then potential
patrons will just go across the street to Starbucks... and pick up a sandwich
there for lunch too.

I can see why a complex menu creates financial and operational demands on
restaurants, but driving customers to other restaurants does too.

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jumpkickhit
Mcdonalds could really benefit from having robot delivery drivers.

If I could order a burger combo and have it dropped off at work or home, and
be cheaper than an entire pizza plus tip, i'd order from it way more often
than I should.

~~~
ams6110
I've seen a couple business attempts at McDonald's delivery. They never lasted
very long.

~~~
jumpkickhit
Elaborate? I know they deliver in Hong Kong, and New York to great success.
Though they have human delivers.

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dghughes
A woman who managed a McDonalds here in Canada sued:

[http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-
labrador/newfound...](http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-
labrador/newfoundland-woman-wins-mcdonalds-lawsuit-1.4131383)

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microtherion
> The franchise Jarvis bought in 1981 [...] he had to take a Small Business
> Administration loan at the Jimmy Carter-era interest rate of 16 percent.

Oh yeah, I remember that era. 1981, just after Carter's re-election.

~~~
mgkimsal
interest rates didn't come down immediately after reagan's election. interest
rates for mortgages, for example, were still in the mid-teens in the early
80s.

[http://www.freddiemac.com/pmms/pmms30.html](http://www.freddiemac.com/pmms/pmms30.html)

If you look, rates were typically in the 8s up through midway through Carter's
term, then spiked in to 9, 10, 11, then 12-16 in 1980, and it took most of
Reagan's 2 terms to come back down to the 9 range.

Someone in 1981 would still be thinking of Carter's effects on interest rates,
and the rates were "Jimmy Carter-era". They were also "Reagan-era", but not
many people point the finger at him for rates going to 16, since he wasn't
even elected when that happened.

~~~
microtherion
Thanks for the table! I was looking at prime rate tables, but those moved more
or less in parallel. I believe we're more or less agreeing on the facts, but
differ on the interpretation.

The rates in 1977 and 1978 were lower than any in Reagan's two terms.
Conversely, rates in 1981, 1982, and (barely) 1984 were HIGHER than any in
Carter's term.

Sure, Carter's policies had some effect on those interest rates, inasmuch as
he made Paul Volcker Fed Chairman. However, the high interest rates were
necessary to bring down inflation rates, which started spiking under
Nixon/Ford, and Reagan's massive budget deficits did not exactly help either.

So putting the August 1981 interest rate on Carter's doorstep smacks a bit of
partisan bias (hardly unsurprising in a magazine owned by a perennial GOP
presidential candidate), though admittedly with a bit more justification than
e.g. blaming 1992 events on Bill Clinton's presidency.

~~~
mgkimsal
Thanks. I don't think it's out of line to give some blame to Carter for the
rates in Aug 81 - it still would have been on his budget's watch, although I'm
not sure that many people think that deeply about it. It's probably a bit
partisan, but I don't remember my parents blaming Reagan for 16% interest
rates when getting a loan in 1981.

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gm-conspiracy
How times have changed:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Mac#History](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Mac#History)

~~~
hueving
People had trouble pronouncing "the aristocrat"?!

~~~
chipperyman573
McDonald's​ used to have a third pounder burger, but it didn't end up selling
well because people thought it was lighter than a quarter pounder.

~~~
rangibaby
The 1/3 pounder was an A&W and thing not McDonald's. I know because A&W is
huge in Okinawa.

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robotjosh
This article made my chrome tab use 8gb ram and slowed down my computer.
They're doing client side bitcoin mining or something.

