McDonald's Food

McDonald's food is not healthy.

McDonald's food is not particularly tasty.

But it is fast and convenient. As a professional performer I often find myself eating meals at fast food establishments out of necessity. I have to eat. I have to get where I am going quickly. And so I eat at fast food places because they are built on the premise of selling speed and convenience.

So why do places like McDonald's allow systems and employees who CONSISTENTLY forget to put syrup in with the pancakes? Why do they regularly fail to put spoons in with yogurt? Why do they refuse to put ketchup in the bag with the french fries unless YOU remember to ask them to?

I'm more than a little bit ticked off this morning after eating cold, crappy pancakes that contain NO nutritional value but pack in an entire day's worth of fat calories and they would have at least tasted good if I could have eaten them with syrup when they were hot. Instead, I was 3 miles down the road from the morons at the drive thru window in Meridian, Mississippi before I noticed that they didn't think syrup was something people might want to eat with an order of pancakes.

So I had to decide what to do: Turn around and go back and ask for my syrup (an extra 10 minutes and at gas prices another $2.50 added to the cost of my breakfast) or keep going and hope there is another McDonald's at the next exit. Either way this is neither fast, nor convenient. This is torture.

And as luck would have it, there wasn't another McDonald's for many, many miles. So I would up eating my pancakes cold.

The sad thing is, this isn't limited to the McDonald's in Meridian, Mississippi. This happens at the McDonald's right by my house. It happens at McDonald's all over the country and it happens to me at least 40% of the time. It also happens at other fast food places. McDonald's has perfected ruining breakfast, but they don't have a monopoly on it. I've learned to sit and double check every single thing in the bag before I drive off and if I ever fail to do so (like today) then I pay for it.

Part of the price of a fast food meal is realizing that YOU have to do the work of the drive through person. You pay less than a sit down restaurant because YOU are doing the important work of a manager. You have to make sure that the employee is doing their job.

Otherwise, you don't get what you are paying for. You are paying for speed and convenience. If you aren't getting it, you might as well order a real breakfast from a sit down restaurant.

--Julian Franklin

P.S. We ate at Subway for lunch. Not as fast, but when you watch them make it, there are NO mistakes and the food is healthier, too.