I did something I haven't done in a long time over the weekend. I stopped at McDonald's for breakfast. I had to get up to Ipswich early to help a mate of mine get his old man out of the nursing home and back to his place for the day. I left early thinking I could get something like a coffee and a bacon-and-egg roll on the way. There’s a place in West End, a greasy spoon I really like, where you can get a ‘tradies breakfast’ for $7.50. An English muffin, a fried egg, a rasher or two of bacon and a cappuccino- a pretty good deal. See below.
But in the way of things, it took me about 10 or 15 minutes longer to get out of the house than I planned for, so I couldn't afford the time to drive all the way over to West End. Then I remembered that the McMuffin was the thing that existed, and I figured that since I was heading out to Ipswich on the freeway there’d have to be at least half a dozen Macca’s between me and Phil's place. (Pretty close; turned out there were five).
I pulled into one on Ipswich Road at about 6:15 in the morning, thinking I could get in and out in less than five minutes. Yeah, nah. Not so much.
There were nearly a dozen cars lined up in the drive-through, and when I got inside the five or six teenage staff were struggling to keep up with it all. I went to the touch screen to order my breakfast, and of course, the first touch screen was broken. The second one was flaky as hell. The third one had a broken printer. I put my order into the third one, and it took my money before telling me I couldn't have a receipt.
I sort of stood there for a while, hoping that the system had taken my order, but not really feeling confident I was about to get fed.
After about five or six minutes, I approached the counter and one of the girls working back in the kitchen fixed up my order on the fly.
The coffee was OK, but just OK. The egg McMuffin was… meh. It hit all my macros, I suppose. and it was a lower-fat option than pretty much anything else on the menu. But to be honest, the whole experience was a hell of a lot more fraught than simply going to my favourite greasy spoon and getting the tradies’ breakfast. I have no idea if this is what McDonald's is like now, or whether I just hit a rough patch. But I reckon it’ll be another five or ten years before I put my head in there again.
I went into one today for the first time in many years because it's next door to where I had to leave my car for an hour's work.
The coffee was so-so - I've had worse, the touch machines were bewildering and it was so noisy - radio blasting and machines beeping. I'm officially old.
That's what it's like now, and I think it's been like that ever since they moved away from the nicely congealed burgers to the system where everything is stacked badly, flung down the bench so that it hits the wall at the end and deconstructs, hipster-like.
I only go if I'm desperate, and the local one has this weird, winding, almost single lane entry road so you can't bail out if you come to your senses.
I live in Hipster Central. Anyone drinking Macca's coffee is sent to a re-education camp on the other side of the Quinoa Curtain. Some don't come back.
Growing up on a ranch in Colo the nearest McDonald’s was 30 miles away when I was a kid. Used to be a huge treat to get a Quarter pounder and fries. Great being a kid and being happy with a cheeseburger. Griping about food is a first world problem. Sometimes we forget how damn lucky we are. I do it all the time too .
The last time I thought about getting a McDonald's breakfast I remembered Subway did a breakfast footlong and was much happier filling my belly with that!
The irony about Macca's is that they are a real estate company, not a fast food Joint, the franchisee is the burger man. All Macca's outlets stand on the land that they own and receive a monthly payment as rent. A nice little earner.
If I need a comfort stop on long trips, they are cleaner than most servo dunnies. Plus the free WiFi is handy.
The ubiquitousness of the arches spawns rumours that a new outlet is opening at the Everest base camp, plus the construction of the new one at the black stump is well on the way, but the delivery drivers can't find it on their sat nav. Macca's has become a career path for the children of the Kalahari bushmen, but the glass coke bottles have been replaced by plastic ones, but still, the elders speak of the big bird in the sky, long ago when the gods were crazy.
If ever you are passing through the Shire, stop off at Paul's Burgers, an Aussie tradition for over sixty years. If ya don't I'll rip ya bloody arms off!
Mrs W, Junior W and I stopped in at a Hungry Jacks between Brisbane and Noosa a few weeks ago, about 20 minutes before the most incredible tacky theme world, which we'd have totally gone for if we'd known that it was coming up.
The food at this Hungry Jacks, or Burger King cos they did some inconsistent rebranding a decade or so back and I don't know which it is now, was ... technically ... food. It had the same touch screen ordering system as you describe. The ambience that they seemed to be aiming for was transient desperation. The best part about it had to be the lacklustre customer service. We watched people's names/numbers being called out, a bag of food plonked onto the counter and the CSO dribbling the phrase "enjoyyourmealhaveagreatday" as she was already 3 paces back into the kitchen area.
I suspect these staff members had been rejected by TackyWorld just up the road.
I went into one today for the first time in many years because it's next door to where I had to leave my car for an hour's work.
The coffee was so-so - I've had worse, the touch machines were bewildering and it was so noisy - radio blasting and machines beeping. I'm officially old.
That's what it's like now, and I think it's been like that ever since they moved away from the nicely congealed burgers to the system where everything is stacked badly, flung down the bench so that it hits the wall at the end and deconstructs, hipster-like.
I only go if I'm desperate, and the local one has this weird, winding, almost single lane entry road so you can't bail out if you come to your senses.
I live in Hipster Central. Anyone drinking Macca's coffee is sent to a re-education camp on the other side of the Quinoa Curtain. Some don't come back.
Growing up on a ranch in Colo the nearest McDonald’s was 30 miles away when I was a kid. Used to be a huge treat to get a Quarter pounder and fries. Great being a kid and being happy with a cheeseburger. Griping about food is a first world problem. Sometimes we forget how damn lucky we are. I do it all the time too .
The last time I thought about getting a McDonald's breakfast I remembered Subway did a breakfast footlong and was much happier filling my belly with that!
As you say, not an eatery in the first rank. Also expensive these days. You might as well have a sit-down at a decent place.
Ive seen those automated machines in the entrance areas of McDonalds, never tried one so hats off to you.
The irony about Macca's is that they are a real estate company, not a fast food Joint, the franchisee is the burger man. All Macca's outlets stand on the land that they own and receive a monthly payment as rent. A nice little earner.
If I need a comfort stop on long trips, they are cleaner than most servo dunnies. Plus the free WiFi is handy.
The ubiquitousness of the arches spawns rumours that a new outlet is opening at the Everest base camp, plus the construction of the new one at the black stump is well on the way, but the delivery drivers can't find it on their sat nav. Macca's has become a career path for the children of the Kalahari bushmen, but the glass coke bottles have been replaced by plastic ones, but still, the elders speak of the big bird in the sky, long ago when the gods were crazy.
If ever you are passing through the Shire, stop off at Paul's Burgers, an Aussie tradition for over sixty years. If ya don't I'll rip ya bloody arms off!
Go for the burger/muffin/fries - stay for the reflux.....
I don't know whether they use canola / rapeseed oil/ recycled diesel, but I'm always left with an aftertaste for the next 24 hours.
Mrs W, Junior W and I stopped in at a Hungry Jacks between Brisbane and Noosa a few weeks ago, about 20 minutes before the most incredible tacky theme world, which we'd have totally gone for if we'd known that it was coming up.
The food at this Hungry Jacks, or Burger King cos they did some inconsistent rebranding a decade or so back and I don't know which it is now, was ... technically ... food. It had the same touch screen ordering system as you describe. The ambience that they seemed to be aiming for was transient desperation. The best part about it had to be the lacklustre customer service. We watched people's names/numbers being called out, a bag of food plonked onto the counter and the CSO dribbling the phrase "enjoyyourmealhaveagreatday" as she was already 3 paces back into the kitchen area.
I suspect these staff members had been rejected by TackyWorld just up the road.