
Lessons From McDonald’s Clash With Older Koreans - protomyth
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/29/arts/design/lessons-from-mcdonalds-clash-with-older-koreans.html
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logfromblammo
I can't help thinking that this problem would have been solved more amenably
by hiring an overly eager teenager to relentlessly advertise to the lingering
customers.

"Can I get you another coffee, ma'am? Would you like to try our french fries
today, sir? How about something off of our value menu?"

If you throw a cop in my face, I'm more inclined to be stubborn, but nothing
makes me want to vacate a place of business quite so much as an annoying
salesman.

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Steko
Who said they didn't try that?

They likely didn't "throw a cop in their face". Instead what likely happened
is after months of the behavior they instituted the time limit and they
probably tried to enforce the time limit unsuccessfully over and over in many
different ways. At that point the police are not an unreasonable option as you
can easily find out by refusing to leave any place of business anywhere -- the
police will be called on you regardless of who you are.

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msie
I'm drawn to this story because of my aging parents. This will become more of
an issue, if not already, because of the aging baby boomers. It's
important/beneficial for seniors to have a meeting place they will willingly
go to.

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theorique
At the opposite extreme, one thing I've noticed is that some cafes in London
have differential pricing for take-out versus stay in. (I'm not sure if this
is true in the rest of the UK)

As in, you pay a little more if you occupy a seat for some time. If you walk
in and walk out, then you pay less.

On the other hand, McDonalds has kind of developed the reputation as a place
where you can just stay and stay after buying something cheap. I've certainly
bought a black coffee for $1 and sat there for a couple of hours with a book
if I had time to pass, and no one seemed to care. But that was off peak hours
and there was no demand for tables.

Not sure there's a perfect solution to this that will satisfy everyone.

~~~
arethuza
"one thing I've noticed is that some cafes in London have differential pricing
for take-out versus stay in"

I think the VAT levels are different - cold take away foods are zero rated.

~~~
DrStalker
It's common in Australia also, and GST applies to any prepared food or drink.
Another common approach is takeaway only specials.

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MichaelGG
OT: Why on earth did they decide that double clicking should change the font
size? Is the NYT a front for some kind of crazy UI study firm? IIRC, they used
to pop-up things when you selected text.

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peterjmag
Doesn't happen for me. Where are you double clicking? (I tried a few different
spots.)

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LandoCalrissian
I can't get it to occur either.

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mikegreen
Humph. Can't see it: " We hope you’ve enjoyed your 10 free articles this
month. " (buy a subscription now)

I'm talking about nyt, not McDonalds vs Koreans...

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teh_klev
Open in Chrome using incognito mode.

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anarchy8
Use this bookmarklet and stop the page before it finishes reloading:

javascript:(function() %7Bvar
s%3Ddocument.createElement(%27script%27)%3Bs.setAttribute(%27src%27,%27[http://toys.euri.ca/nyt.js%27)%3Bdocument.getElementsByTagNa...](http://toys.euri.ca/nyt.js%27\)%3Bdocument.getElementsByTagName\(%27head%27\)%5B0%5D.appendChild\(s\)%3B%7D\)\(\)%3B)

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HarryHirsch
In normal countries neighbourhoods have cafes where people go. In America they
have McDonalds, and after sitting 20 minutes in there management calls the
cops. There's an environment ripe for disruption. Disruption includes attitude
of the locals, who will fight tooth and nail against any new establishment.

~~~
stephencanon
Interesting that you think this. My father eats lunch at McDonalds pretty
frequently, and tends to stay for a couple hours reading the paper or taking
advantage of the free wifi. There are people who go in to use the free wifi
and don’t buy anything; nobody bothers them.

When I was last in France, teenagers could often be found studying in
McDonalds, because unlike the french cafes, they don’t get kicked out of
McDonalds for buying some fries and a coke and then holding the table for a
couple hours.

Personally, I have no fondness for McDonalds at all, but your claim that they
have some sort of corporate policy of not letting people linger seems spurious
to me.

~~~
pickleport
It doesn't say whether it's a corporate policy, but it _is_ in the first line
of the article.

> The kerfuffle started when word spread that the police were repeatedly
> evicting elderly Korean patrons from a McDonald’s in Queens. The Koreans
> have been milking their stays over $1.09 coffees, violating the restaurant’s
> 20-minute dining limit.

~~~
cosmie
It's not a corporate policy. I've personally had hours-long study sessions at
McDonalds restaurants with just a drink purchase.

The article also mentions a group of women taking up an 8-person sitting area
for hours at a time, nursing a single $1 coffee. For a four hour visit, this
averages ~$0.03/seat/hr in revenue. These customers aren't truly dining,
they're just congregating under the pretext of dining (by buying the minimal
amount possible). _This_ is the type of behavior that would drive an
individual store into implementing a 20-minute dining limit. Chances are it's
loosely enforced for actual dining customers, but provides the necessary
pretext for booting these people when the lunch rush begins and actual dining
customers need somewhere to dine. If customers come to eat and can't find
anywhere to sit, they'll start going elsewhere for food and the store will see
a noticeable decline in revenue.

While it sounds harsh, a restaurant is a business that makes money by selling
food. The dining area is meant for dining. Systematically abusing it for
congregating, _while providing marginally little revenue_ , is going to result
in limitations being erected to discourage such behavior. Coffee shops do the
same thing with time limits on wifi, which is a limitation that works well to
discourage their typical customer base. This crowd is just in it for the
space, so the limitation invoked in this case is a time limit on the space
itself.

~~~
10feet
> It's not a corporate policy. I've personally had hours-long study sessions
> at McDonalds restaurants with just a drink purchase.

Just because it is not enforced where you are, does not mean it is not
corporate policy. It can also depend on how busy the McDonalds is, I can
imagine when it is after lunch, and the store is almost empty, they aren't
going to kick anyone out.

~~~
cosmie
> Just because it is not enforced where you are, does not mean it is not
> corporate policy.

While I don't have access to their corporate policies directly, at least one
store owner has claimed he isn't aware of such a policy[1]:

    
    
       Roger Muselman, owner of successful McDonald’s       
       restaurants in Kewanee and Geneseo, 
       said he hasn’t heard about putting time limits on 
       customers and that it will never happen here.
    

[1]
[http://www.starcourier.com/article/20140124/NEWS/140129412](http://www.starcourier.com/article/20140124/NEWS/140129412)

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perlpimp
Is access to Nytimes mandatory? it is blocked from my country and when I
enacted vpn I hit a paywall.

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at-fates-hands
If you clear your cache of their cookies, it should let you in.

If that doesn't work, use these 5 other ways:

[http://betabeat.com/2013/02/5-ways-you-can-still-get-
around-...](http://betabeat.com/2013/02/5-ways-you-can-still-get-around-the-
new-york-times-paywall/)

