fast(er) food in so-cal.

January 28, 2000 1:30 PM

fast(er) food in so-cal. looks like we'll all be able to get our big macs a whopping 15 seconds faster at orange county drive throughs. why haven't they done this *inside* their stores, where it usually takes the cashier at least a minute to do the math, after the people in front of me spend 3 minutes digging through their pockets/wallets/purses to find their money and change.(disclosure: i was once a mcdonald's cashier)
posted by mmanning (10 comments total)

(sorry matt, just noticed your post on this from a few days ago; my bad)
posted by mmanning at 1:33 PM on January 28, 2000

no biggie on the double post. You bring up an interesting point. Inside the store is the real time snarl. Outside, people are waiting in drive thru lines for the food, not for the cashier. This will shave seconds off a person's payment time, but they will still have to sit at the window and wait for their food.
posted by mathowie at 1:48 PM on January 28, 2000

tHAT WAS MY THOUGHT TOO... i WAS WATCHING THE NEWS STORY LAST NIGHT WHERE THE mCdONALDS REP WAS TALKING ABOUT THE 10-15 SECONDS THEY WOULD SAVE, AND ALL i COULD THINK OF WAS THE EXTRA 3 MINUTES i ALWAYS HAVE TO WAIT BECAUSE THE MINIVAN FULL OF SOCCER KIDS 3 CARS UP HAS TAKEN ALL THE FRIES. i THINK THIS IS PART OF THEIR PLAN TO MOVE mCdONALDS DIRECTLY ONTO THE FREEWAY. yOU PUNCH YOUR ORDER INTO THE mCdASHBOARD, WHICH AUTOMATICALLY CHARGES YOU AND CALCULATES THE NEXT AVAILABLE mCdONALDS, WHERE THEY PREPARE YOUR FOOD AND FLING IT AT YOUR CAR AS YOU WHIZ BY. tHANKS TO THE NEW mCoLESTRA mEAL, THE TOTAL TIME FROM mCcRAVING TO mCcRAPPING WILL BE REDUCED TO 12.2 SECONDS.

aFTER ALL, YOU DESERVE A BREAK TODAY.
posted by CrazyUncleJoe at 1:53 PM on January 28, 2000

Did I mention that I had some font problems on this machine?
posted by CrazyUncleJoe at 1:53 PM on January 28, 2000

Joe, I added "verdana, arial" to the forms font list, does that help?
posted by mathowie at 2:26 PM on January 28, 2000

i'd say this "McInnovation" is analogous to the "SpeedPass" and related products that gas companies have introduced in recent years. does that little wand thingy really save me any time? no. it's the act of filling up my tank that actually takes time. swiping my credit card at the pump (one of my favorite time-saving innovations of recent years--i try to avoid stations that don't offer pay at the pump) takes about .2% of my total "at the pump time".

similarly, at a drive thru, since they already told me the total when i placed my order, i can have my tender ready by the time i get to the window. if, like inside the store, i didn't know the total until i was actually at the register, it might actually make a difference in line lengths and overall transaction times.

basically, they should really offer credit card/atm/private label card payment options *inside* all the stores if they really wanted to speed up order times...
posted by mmanning at 2:30 PM on January 28, 2000

Yup. Either that Or I fixed it while you were fixing this... Now I'll never know. Anybody have an idea where the sans-serif corruption would occur? I know this machine has some registry issues, but I'm supposed to be replacing it so I haven't wanted to do a major overhaul.
posted by CrazyUncleJoe at 2:42 PM on January 28, 2000

mmanning, you bring up an interesting point. Maybe the real value of a SpeedPass and this McInnovation are that the company can track their customers more closely by collecting data themselves. If you pay for gas with your credit card, the gasoline company doesn't know all that much about you or your habits.
posted by mathowie at 3:13 PM on January 28, 2000

that's probably the highest value to the businessese, but you've gotta wonder what's the real value for the customer? how do these things *really* improve your experience?

at least with a ralph's card, i get "virtual coupons" and price discounts for giving them the right to know way too much my shopping habits...

a side note on the mcdonald's thing: not sure how much info they'll actually get, since this effort is based on technology implemented by the transit authority (where it actually makes sense; bypassing toll booths). i'd at least *hope* that the mta is sensitive to privacy issues...
posted by mmanning at 3:37 PM on January 28, 2000

*THEY* probably are, but since this technology has to be able to access your account, it would certainly have the ability to track your movements and/or preferences. I don't see why McDonalds would miss the opportunity to target people who like, say, McRibs for special promotions of other inedible McProducts. A simple disclaimer in the registration form would be all it took for them to track you like the Big Clown-Shoed Brothers that they really are.
posted by CrazyUncleJoe at 4:51 PM on January 28, 2000