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.
McStressful.
McStressful.
McStressful.
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.