
McDonald's Real Estate: How They Really Make Their Money (2015) - neop
http://blog.wallstreetsurvivor.com/2015/10/08/mcdonalds-beyond-the-burger/
======
fraserharris
An important point about owning the franchise real estate: a rental agreement
is far stronger for the landowner than a franchise agreement is for a
franchiser. The McDonald's franchise agreement specifies the address the
franchise must be located. In effect, McDonald's can cancel a franchise
agreement by ending the rental agreement. This gives them enormous power to
enforce company-wide standards on cleanliness and mandate suppliers. Other
chains (eg: Burger King) do not own the majority of their franchise properties
and have had more significant problems with enforcing franchise standards.

Source: McDonald's: Behind The Arches, John F. Love (July 1, 1995)

Edit: changed ie to eg, thanks for the correction all

~~~
mbrookes
> Other chains (ie: Burger King) have had more significant problems with
> enforcing franchise standards.

Why have Burger King in particular had this problem?

~~~
fraserharris
ie -> in example. Burger King is the only example I explicitly recall.

~~~
mbrookes
Ah, right, no. "i.e." is an abbreviation for the Latin "id est", meaning "that
is".

"For example" would be "e.g.", ("exempli gratia" in Latin.)

"E.g." is illustrative, whereas "i.e." is exhaustive.

I hadn't heard "i.e." expanded to "in example" before - that explains one
source of misunderstanding (despite being grammatically incorrect in its own
right).

Edit: It seems you've since been unfairly downvoted for explaining what you
meant. Please folks, don't do that. _I_ asked the question, and @fraserharris
answered honestly.

~~~
xenophonf
I forget where I picked this up, but I use the following to keep them
straight:

i.e. == in essence

e.g. == example given

------
elevensies
What impresses me most about McDonald's is the highly effective and efficient
incentive structure. You have the franchise owner who is very committed
financially and can make a high income, plus lots of low cost labor following
a very precise process. And they seem to be able to replicate it at almost any
scale.

What impresses me least about McDonald's is their ruthless child-targeted
advertising.

EDIT: in sort of a quaint way the incentive structure is reminiscent of the
manorial system.

~~~
JohnJamesRambo
What is wrong with advertising to children? They don't have any money, the
parents can always say no or the kids can learn quickly how to determine if
they should do what ads tell them to do. They will greatly need that skill in
modern America. Teach them early haha.

~~~
lightbyte
>the kids can learn quickly how to determine if they should do what ads tell
them to do.

The problem is they can not do this at all. Children are extremely easy to
manipulate, and that is pretty much what advertising is.

~~~
ruleabidinguser
As a kid I quickly learnt to distrust ads, so I'm not sure why you think kids
can't do this. They may not be adults, but they're not robots either.

~~~
wolco
I remember at that age understanding that ads are not truthful at a deep level
and filtering them. I find it's much harder for me now. Everything seems like
an ad now a days and I may not believe the message but having the money to pay
for so many ads on expensive platforms gives me a different message. If a
company can afford a superbowl ad it gives me the impression the product has
resources behind it and I can assign a level of trust.

Kids are better at filtering in some ways.

~~~
emodendroket
You're talking about the demographic who believes in Santa Claus, right?

~~~
sqeaky
In a Country that largely believes virgin birth and one very specific zombie.

One crazy belief is not sign of universal insanity. Perhaps though it is a
sign of susceptibility, which is what we seem to be talking about.

~~~
emodendroket
I just knew some smartass was going to liken Santa Claus to God.

~~~
MarkSweep
Both make a list of the naughty and nice boys and girls. One substitutes
brimstone for coal, nebulous "eternal happiness" for toys, but they seem
pretty similar to me.

~~~
emodendroket
I think that's excessively reductive and there are other differences, like
incontrovertible proof there is no Santa (as opposed to merely a lack of
evidence), the fact that Santa often has the exact same handwriting as Mom and
Dad, the fact that no supernatural powers are attributed to him and yet he
would need them to do what he supposedly does, etc. Besides that a debate
about Christian apologetics kind of takes us away from the point I was making.

~~~
sqeaky
Santa Claus is Saint Nicholas, in order to become a Saint you have to
performed miracles in the eyes of the Catholic church. He certainly does have
super power, at least the ability to resurrect childre, if he is real.

~~~
emodendroket
I think we can safely say that Santa Claus the children's character is almost
completely divorced from the guy who punched Arius at the Council of Nicea.

------
kjhughes
Watch _The Founder_ ,

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4276820/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4276820/)

for an entertaining and educational dramatization of the McDonald's story,
including the franchising and real estate leasing aspects.

~~~
samsonradu
Really glad you brought this up. It was indeed an interesting movie but I
didn't really have the time to compare it with the facts. How much of what we
saw was actually accurate?

~~~
giarc
I happened to have read the book a month or two before watching the movie.
They were very different. In Ray's biography, he passes himself off as a "My
word is as good as a contract" and "When I say I'll do this, I'll stick to
it." The movie interpretation has him much more ruthless.

~~~
pscoutou
"If any of my competitors were drowning, I'd stick a hose in their mouth and
turn on the water. It is ridiculous to call this an industry. This is not.
This is rat eat rat, dog eat dog. I'll kill 'em, and I'm going to kill 'em
before they kill me. You're talking about the American way - of survival of
the fittest." \- Ray Kroc

~~~
giarc
The language is obviously graphic, but what he's describing is what every
company would do. Why would they help a competitor? They have a responsibility
to the shareholder to grow the business.

~~~
badestrand
Well, entrepreneurs are humans, not robots, and humans have this instinct to
help each other. At least here in Germany I hear from time to time about (SME)
businesses helping their competitors.

------
WalterBright
It was an eye-opener for me when I was a teen and bought a gallon of soft
drink syrup from a McDonald's for use at a party. It worked out to about 5
cents a cup for the drink in a soft drink, which sold for 75 cents (if I
remember correctly). McDonald's doesn't make money selling burgers, they make
money selling the soft drinks and the fries.

The same goes for any restaurant, it's why they ply you for drinks.

~~~
seanalltogether
I've always assumed the costs surrounding a cup of soda (machine, CO2, ice,
cups, lids, straws) are actually much higher then the cost of the syrup
itself.

~~~
cc439
The up front cost of icemaker/dispeners?carbonator is high but the cost of
electricity, water, and CO2 tanks is basically nothing on a per drink basis.
Just think about everything that went into the factory which makes that syrup,
the factory that makes the syrup bag, and all the logistics that deliver the
finished product to the store. Then remember that costs pennies per drink.
Even if all the other costs associated with that soda cost as much on a per
drink basis, we're still talking ~10-20 cents per drink. Assuming every input
cost is on the same scale also makes for a huge overestimate.

------
geophile
The Founder is a movie that tells the story of the birth and growth of
McDonald's
([https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_founder/](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_founder/)),
and it covers much of the ground covered in this article.

In addition to being a very well-done movie, it does a superb job of
describing the relationship between the visionary founders of a startup, and
the sales guys and bean counters who turn it into a successful business. It
doesn't matter that the McDonald brothers were revolutionizing burgers, the
telling of this part of the story captures perfectly the same sort of activity
that goes on at any startup with a new idea, (emphasis on new). It also
captures very well how the suits recognize a good thing when they see it, buy
into the vision (but for very different reasons from the founders), and
finally take over and render the founders obsolete.

Really great movie for anyone involved with startups.

~~~
aaron-lebo
I watched that the other day.

Kroc was just as visionary, if also greedy and manipulative and ready to
succeed at all costs. He's clearly not afraid to steal a business or wife.
He's also somehow easy to relate to (thanks Keaton).

You can see him lying to himself and justifying his actions. Got the feeling
that Kroc wasn't all that different from many SV founders. You don't go to SV
to make a burger stand, you go there to make an empire. There's a reason Kroc
is discussed in business schools.

On a side note, reading about the founding of Twitter there's a lot this kind
of back and forth.

~~~
tripplethrendo
Can you recommend any reading on the founding of Twitter?

~~~
aaron-lebo
I've been listening to:

"Hatching Twitter: A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship, and Betrayal"

[https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CDUVSQ0/](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CDUVSQ0/)

As you can tell, it's the kind of thing meant for the best seller list and
isn't a scholarly work or anything, but the preface stresses it's based on
lots of interviews.

If nothing else, it's a fun read and the background of the founders is pretty
interesting.

------
vuln
Kind of OT but the company I work for has more locations than McDonalds, and
Walmart. Not combined but separate. Which baffles me. When I first started
here I never knew what went into a retail store, from architecture,
construction, store layout, buying, merchandising, it's insane... We call our
headquarters the 'Store Support Center' because our mission is to support all
16,000 if our stores nationwide and a few in Canada.

~~~
lukateake
Starbucks?

~~~
vuln
No. Dollar Tree, we recently acquired Family Dollar which is how our store
count is so high.

~~~
hncommenter13
Hey, sorry to leave this here, but didn't see any contact info in your
profile.

Would love to chat with you about the dollar store industry, if you'd be so
inclined. I'm particularly curious about Dollarama in Canada, if you're at all
familiar with them. My email is in my profile.

The basic question: why is Dollarama so much more profitable than everyone
else?

~~~
sjg007
Don't they sell seconds and then cheap generic Chinese crap?

------
cperciva
Misleading. Sure, _technically_ McDonald's doesn't make much money from
selling burgers because most of the burgers are sold by franchisees. But by
the same argument, Amazon doesn't make any money from selling EC2 instances --
those are sold by Amazon Web Services Inc.

When people talk about McDonald's "selling burgers", what they mean is
McDonald's _and its franchisees_.

~~~
harryh
Amazon Web Services Inc. is wholly owned by Amazon, Inc.

That is not true of the franchisees. That's a pretty big difference.

------
kaypro
I just watched "The Founder" last night. I had always assumed Ray Kroc was the
genius who pivoted to focusing on real estate for their expanding franchise
model when really it was Harry J. Sonneborn who convinced Ray that was the way
to go. Worth a watch.

~~~
tptacek
That model was only viable because Kroc found a way to scale the franchise,
which the McDonald brothers had previously failed to do. Pretty much everyone
involved in the early days seems to have contributed something to the ultimate
success of the business.

A good startup movie, by the way.

~~~
harryh
One of the things I really liked about the movie is that Kroc didn't actually
come up with many of the ideas at all. He was just very successful at
recognizing good ideas, good talent, and synthesizing them together.

Traits of a good founder.

Plus one on it being a good startup movie.

~~~
WalterBright
Ideas are a dime a dozen. It's implementing them that matters.

------
TheGRS
Well now I'm pretty curious, how does McDonald's operate all of their
distribution channels with the whole franchise/renting model? Most of the
Micky D's I've seen have tons of freezer food that they put through various
machines to make all of the food items quickly. I can't imagine they let
owners get their primary products from anything other than a distribution
center. Do the owners need to buy those products separately? Can they buy from
alternate distributors? Do they franchise their distribution somehow? Maybe
I'm overthinking all of this. But I am genuinely curious how that factors into
the franchise model since that means McDonalds is still very liable for food
production.

~~~
greedo
The owner/operators purchase from approved vendors; I've been out of the game
for awhile, but we bought everything through two distributors; bread products
from an approved vendor, and everything else from a second vendor.

~~~
frankydp
It is all through one distribution vendor with regards to product now. Only
plant(equipment) purchases are outside of the primary distributor now.

~~~
greedo
It's killing me that I can't remember the distributor! Sixteen years of
working through them and my mind is a sieve. This was in SoCal, and they had
the contract for almost all of the region.

~~~
PhantomGremlin
I will guess that it was Golden State Foods. They are a supplier to
McDonald's, and California is The Golden State.

~~~
greedo
Ah yes, Golden State Foods! TYVM.

------
gist
This has been well know for a long time. However the fact is the only reason
that McDonalds is able to collect rent (in the dollar amount that they do) is
if their product and service, the franchise, is able to sell hamburgers to
customers. As such the value of the real estate (if the franchise fails to
operate) is nowhere near what it is with a profitable operating restaurant.
While the locations are valuable if you have ever seen a vacant McDonalds, and
who typically rents those, you will know that the rent received and royalties
is nowhere near what it is with a McDonalds restaurant.

So I think it's a bit misleading and hyperbole to say 'how they really make
money'. The only reason the can make that money is because of the product and
the customer base that patronizes the McDonalds. So in the end it is because
of the product. "How they really make their money" is because of that product.

------
Reason077
McDonald's business model of renting premises to their franchisees sounds
similar to the way many pubs are operated in the UK.

Breweries (and "PubCo's") typically own the premises, which is leased to a
tenant (publican) who is required to purchase the brewery's products.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tied_house](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tied_house)

~~~
johannes1234321
In a pub setting the pub owner is free to select food and furtineture and
such. Breweries will assist, but there's a lot of freedom.

In franchise you have to stick to the branding and menu offers and in practice
you have to follow the prices (legally they can't force independent franchise
companies to sell a burger for the same price, but there are ways) giving very
little freedom.

~~~
sofaofthedamned
There is no freedom in a UK pub franchise that will help you, because if you
do well they will screw you the month after on tied beer prices.

------
resalisbury
One of the core arguments of article is misleading, since it claims McDonald's
is a real estate company based on the share of Net Income coming from owned
versus franchised restaurants. The share of Net Income is a misleading
comparison, because (1)it fails to account for the cost of capital associated
in owning real estate (2) over 85% of McDonalds are franchised, the remaining
15% produce all of that income, so even on this misleading basis of just
considering net income, the profits are more balanced than the article makes
it appear.

\- percent franchised vs owned
[https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/04/03/what-
perce...](https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/04/03/what-percentage-
of-mcdonalds-restaurants-are-owned.aspx)

\- quote from article that is misleading"Of that $18.2 billion generated by
company-operated stores in 2014, the corporation keeps just $2.9 billion. Of
the $9.2 billion coming from franchisees, the corporation keeps $7.6 billion."

------
HenryBemis
I remember watching a documentary a few years back where Ronald was talking to
some uni grads telling them that in reality he's one of the largest real
estate owners globally since the trend is to OWN the space they occupy and not
just rent.

Well, if one thinks of how many of these burger joints..

And yes the burgers also make some good money ;)

~~~
giarc
I assume you mean Ray.

~~~
jon-wood
I prefer the image of Ronald McDonald turning up in full clown gear to give a
hard nosed business lecture.

------
FrankenPC
20 years ago when I did some consulting for the Gap, I saw inside their data
systems and realized they were a large real estate organization. It was the
first time I witnessed the dynamic nature of corporate America.

~~~
sjg007
How does the work with malls?

~~~
afashglaksnhb
At a guess the company owns a long lease on the space in the mall and sub-lets
it to the franchisee.

------
robbrown451
Sure, but the burgers are a critical component of the whole picture.

It's almost like saying that grocery stores are not really in the grocery
business, they are in the business of accepting cash and credit card payments.
True, that's where they "make their money", but that business would dry up
pretty quick if they didn't stock groceries.

~~~
Semiapies
Yes, it's how they "really" make their money in the sense of how _precisely_
the money goes from franchise owners to them, rather than anything surprising
about how the money is made.

------
dboreham
"Retail-as-Real-Estate" plays don't always work. e.g. Sears, KMart.

~~~
tunap
Losses are useful, too! McD's has been renting a lot in my town(85331) for 5+
years now, and yet to break ground. ~6 months ago the local "fish wrapper" ran
a story on this very topic.

As an aside, back when oil was >$100/barrel Exxon/Mobile had numerous boarded
up properties around Phoenix with For Sale/Lease signs that were neither for
sale or lease, as the losses/write downs were valued to dilute the windfall
profits they were raking in at that time(my source was an agent for CBRE).

~~~
matt4077
That makes no sense. Sure, you can make a $1 loss to save 50 cents in taxes.
Or 5 cents, in the US. But why would you?

Also, real estate investments don't actually have a direct impact on profits
when reporting on accrual basis (as all larger companies are required to).
Those costs can only be deducted over time (something like 10 years for
buildings).

~~~
tunap
Forgoing revenues, potential profits and taxes on selling/leasing the
property(@ pre-2008 market highs); writing off loses of rental income;
property depreciation; betting on rising real estate prices(all were still
chanting "buy RE, it will only go up" pre-2008). Those are some some
possibilities I can think of, but IANAL or CBRE agent, but when I asked one
why the blighted corners owned by the biggest earners on Wall Street during
the skyrocketing RE bubble were sitting vacant for years, the answer was there
was no expectation to sell or lease. And it was not a tank problem, the tanks
were removed as the boards went on the windows.

edit: rewording & added last point.

------
temp246810
Off topic: I've trained myself to look for a McDonald's first when in a pinch
and need coffee. This vs looking for a Pete's or a Starbucks.

If all you need is a basic drink, they get it more or less right for several
hundreds of a percent lower.

~~~
tim333
McDonalds is surprisingly not bad at coffee these days. They overtook Costa
and Starbucks in the UK in terms of cups sold.

Also the new self service kiosks make ordering a bit less grim
[http://burgerlad.com/2015/02/mcdonalds-touch-screen-
ordering...](http://burgerlad.com/2015/02/mcdonalds-touch-screen-
ordering.html)

~~~
PhantomGremlin
Ahhh, London. When I spent some time there 30+ years ago, I bought coffee from
the McDonald's across from the Warren Street tube station (still appears to be
there according to Google Maps).

But it was of necessity. It was very difficult to get a good cup of coffee
from other UK fast food outlets. Has coffee caught on in the UK? At the time,
coffee seemed to be mostly an after dinner drink.

------
stcredzero
If you're ever at a meetup, and the presenter dances around the question: "How
does your company make money?" then ask yourself, is it possible that this
company is in marketing/advertising? More generally, ask yourself: Does this
company's operations give it high quality information about a particular
market?

The takeaway: Don't dismiss a useful service that you can't directly monetize.
It's possible that you can gain high-quality information which can be
monetized indirectly. It's all about getting better information about a
particular market than everyone else.

~~~
hectorr
While this is true, it is extremely hard to do in practice. You have to get
good information, make sure it is good information, convince a market that it
is good information, and then prevent your competitors and your clients from
simply replicating your process.

~~~
stcredzero
_You have to get good information, make sure it is good information_

Yes, but often much of this can happen largely as a consequence of your doing
something else, and you may not realize it.

 _convince a market that it is good information_

Which is just basic Marketing.

 _and then prevent your competitors and your clients from simply replicating
your process_

Which is also a common issue with startups in general. Good word of mouth can
keep you ahead of competitors, and you can make it cheaper for clients to just
pay you than it would be to do it themselves. All basic things.

~~~
warcher
Some people have done sorta ok with this as a fallback position when their
business model failed. I think it's a pretty dicey proposition. Foursquare did
it after failing at everything else, and while they're ostensibly 'profitable'
they're deeply in the red with little hope of a return to their investors.
They're surviving to fight another day, but... eh.

~~~
stcredzero
_Some people have done sorta ok with this as a fallback position when their
business model failed. I think it 's a pretty dicey proposition. Foursquare
did it after failing at everything else, and while they're ostensibly
'profitable' they're deeply in the red with little hope of a return to their
investors._

Sounds like they are deeply in the red because they were chasing something
else? What if they realized this much sooner and didn't get so deeply into the
red? Then they'd just have a solid and profitable business. I wouldn't
discount this kind of business model. That kind of "sorta ok" is only a
disappointment if you were hoping to be the next Facebook. Isn't that just
greed clouding people's vision? A goose that lays copper eggs is still pretty
darn nifty.

~~~
warcher
Well, the data comes from a substantial investment, which much be returned, or
the business will be a failure. This is not a public service-- if you did some
cool shit, but ultimately the bottom line is turning a dollar invested into
fifty cents returned, you have explicitly and decisively failed in your work.

------
emiliobumachar
"They used to hold the promise of good fast-food but now the food is neither
fast, nor good. In fact, in 2014, the average drive-thru wait time was over
three minutes (the longest it has ever been in about 15 years)."

Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded.

I know it's a serious worry, but seems like one of those good problems to
have.

~~~
olibhel
> Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded.

Then why is it crowded?

~~~
greedo
It's a Yogi Berra-ism.

------
NicoJuicy
The site is getting slow, so here you go :
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://blog.wallstreetsurvivor.com/2015/10/08/mcdonalds-
beyond-the-burger/)

------
anothercomment
I thought about this recently when a new cafe opened up in a prime location
(replacing another cafe). The rent must be enormous, and it occurred to me
that no matter how good or efficient the cafe operates, the rent will probably
simply rise until the cafe is merely earning at average market rates.

I found that rather depressing. All those people struggling to improve their
business are merely struggling to increase the income of the property owner.
(I guess if I had the money and inspiration to become a property owner it
would be less depressing).

------
Dagwoodie
I heard a professor tell a story about the founder of McDonalds going to a
business class as a guest. He asked the students "What business am I in? Can
anyone tell me?" and they all laughed, "why hamburgers of course". Then he
corrected them. They're not just in real estate but they are very, very good
at selecting franchise locations. The professor also claimed that Burger
King's primary consideration on where to put their stores is the relative
distance to McDonalds.

------
tim333
>During the 2008 recession, McDonald’s leaned heavily on this facet of their
business as they capitalized on an anemic property market – buying up more of
the land and buildings where it operates.

I think a lot of why real estate works for them is that the business is not
affected by recessions - they may even sell more burgers if people can't
afford fancy places. So they can buy real estate cheap when others can't.

------
mathattack
This doesn't preclude McDonalds from holding risk. For a long time people said
"Buy Kmart and Sears because the value of their real estate is more than their
stock values." Then the real estate market tanks.... Real estate is an
illiquid investment.

Also - when people choose to eat less burgers, or there is less innovation in
the menu, the stock price dips.

------
csours
Reminds me of the story of Family Video:
[https://www.forbes.com/sites/noahkirsch/2017/02/21/the-
last-...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/noahkirsch/2017/02/21/the-last-video-
chain-the-inside-story-of-family-video-and-its-400-million-
owner/#2d813359da60)

------
towndrunk
Along similar lines... with Donkin Donuts

[https://www.bostonglobe.com/magazine/2014/09/17/the-
secret-w...](https://www.bostonglobe.com/magazine/2014/09/17/the-secret-world-
dunkin-donuts-franchise-kings/pb2UmxauJrZv08wcBig6CO/story.html)

------
sjg007
Many times I get cold and cardboard crispy chickens. It sucks. And 99% of the
time it's from the drive thru..

I've been to multiple understaffed McDonald's and man does the quality suck.
When they have staff things are decent but now I can predict when a McDonald's
will be bad.

------
lbsnake7
This is somewhat false. McDonalds amassed all of this real estate during the
normal course of doing its main business. It would be like saying Walmart is
in the shelf business because they have a lot of shelves. If amassing large
amounts of real estate is the end goal, selling burgers for 50 years is
probably not the best way to do it. I think McDonalds fears that if it spins
off its real estate holdings, those properties will have no loyalty to
McDonalds and could become a Starbucks or whatever. The value that McDonalds
provides is that it is everywhere and at low prices. If it isn't everywhere,
then it can't provide low prices and the whole thing crumbles.

~~~
yodon
When Starbucks went public, they explicitly told the investment community
"don't invest in us because of coffee, invest in us because of real estate, we
are a real estate company that happens to sell coffee"

~~~
fuckemem
Perhaps that explains why their coffee tastes awful.

~~~
arkades
Their coffee tastes awful for the same reason that McD's makes awful food:
it's optimized for standardization/consistency.

Starbucks roasts all their coffee to relatively exorbitant degrees to cover up
the inconsistency brought about by their very-multi-origin sourcing.

Some Starbucks locations sell "single origin" coffee which tastes quite a bit
better, if only because they don't have to hide the variance in taste and can
afford not to roast it to hell.

~~~
omegaham
That consistency is worth a _lot_.

I can grab a coffee and sit down with my laptop in Portland, Boston, or Yuma,
and I will have the exact same mediocre experience. I don't care about having
a transcendent coffee journey; I care about getting a predictable cup of
coffee, a kinda-comfortable space, and wifi to check my email. That's it.

I can hunt for some coffeeshop that might be great or might be awful, or I can
head into the local Starbucks and know exactly what I'm going to get.

~~~
dvtv75
So, instead of taking the 50/50 chance of something being great, you'll accept
downright poor instead.

I'm not actually poking fun of you, one of my friends has the same attitude -
something that I just can't understand. I'd rather try and find something that
was decent than something that's not.

~~~
fuckemem
Sounds like for the OP the coffee isn't the product, but rather a space to
work and think.

Having to choose a coffee show, see if they have wifi, charging, not to noisy
etc. is an inconvenience if you want to just get started on something quickly.
You might only have an hour before a meeting if you are travelling for
example.

------
djulius
Already seen in "rich dad poor dad" 20 years ago !

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pjc50
Same was true for Tesco for a while - they did very well on land speculation.

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djrogers
This has nothing to do with land speculation.

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ThomaszKrueger
Another one is Wawa. They seem to be everywhere now.

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noer
I wish this were true and not hyperbole. It's the part of the mid-atlantic
that I miss most in the midwest.

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hiroshid
There is a danger here. McDonald's system = Windows

Franchisees = OEMs

Franchisees not doing their best = laptop filled with crapware

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marricks
I wonder why this is sitting at the stop when the MS critique with less votes
in less time in at the bottom of the page?

Hacker News story placement can be confusing at times. I would understand if
they have some tech centric metric somehow, but this isn't even tech?

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omegaham
From the rules:

> On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes
> more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the
> answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.

Personally, anything that is counterintuitive or surprising gratifies my
intellectual curiosity. "You thought that X was important for this business,
but you've been bamboozled this whole time! It's actually Y!"

The discussion has introduced a couple of great documentaries as well as
anecdotes from people who have worked in similar circumstances in retail,
(i.e. the business is important, but the valuable real estate that they're
sitting on is even more important) so I don't have a problem with this sort of
submission.

~~~
marricks
Makes sense, more curious about the opaqueness of voting and what shows at the
top!

