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McDonald's is changing up its dollar menus:
The world's largest restaurant chain, facing heavy competition in the U.S., will launch a new value-priced menu nationally next year. The lineup will offer items for $1, $2 and $3, the company said on Tuesday.
[...] But McDonald's is adding the new menu from a position of strength. It has seen U.S. restaurant traffic grow for two consecutive quarters, following years of declines. With the new value lineup, the company is trying to lock in those gains, said Michael Halen, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence.
All-day breakfast, "premium" burger options, McCafes, dollar soft drinks, 2-for-$5 deals, and UberEATS delivery seem to have kept McDonald's strong amid changing consumer attitudes about fast food:
Aggressive U.S. promotions included $1 any-size soft drinks, $2 McCafe smoothies and espresso drinks and McPick 2 offers of two items for $5. The changes, part of a turnaround plan under CEO Easterbrook, came as McDonald's catches up with Chipotle, Wendy's Co and other chains that raised the bar for what consumers can expect from quick-serve restaurants.
McDonald's shares have climbed 65 percent since Easterbrook was named CEO in March 2015, well ahead of Wendy's 37 percent gain and nearly triple the S&P 500's rise over the same period.
Also at NYT.
Previously: All-Day Breakfast Boosts McDonald's Profits
America Gets Even Fatter From 2015-2016
(Score: 4, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday October 25 2017, @02:28PM (1 child)
I can't quite make up my mind whether you're being entirely serious, exaggerating some, or exaggerating quite a lot. Around here, Mickey's employees still include white, black and now Mexican children, still in school. I first noticed "mature" or "middle aged" people in Mickey's (east coast) in late '80's, and that has increased some. The temporarily-out-of-prison crowd you describe hasn't made it here, where I live. The IQ's don't yet seem bizarre. There are some genuine-seeming retards, but there are also average and moderately bright people.
You almost make it sound like you live in a bad area of the country. Are you a Californian?
I will admit that I'm not a Mickey's officionado. I only visit about 4 to 6 times per year. I always feel stupid after having done so. "Damn, couldn't I have just waited until I got home? We have real food at home!'
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by VLM on Wednesday October 25 2017, @03:34PM
CA oh god no. I refuse recruiter calls from CA. Midwest.
I had a (white) girlfriend in my junior year in the 80s who worked at a McD and my sister moved up in McD mgmt in the 90s and its very very unusual to see a white working at a McD, although I saw one just a could years back.
I suppose it varies a lot by area? I think the fundamental problem is housing price vs McD pay. If McD pay is optimistically $20K/yr and local houses are like $300K then no locals could possibly work there, it'll all be poor people taking bus for two hours from somewhere that $20K /yr actually does buy a house. And the midwest is extremely segregated, even more than the confederate south, so those poor people houses are going to be 100% blacks and illegals. In the midwest a movie like "Gran turino" where the poor people are extremely diverse is very unrealistic, we have inner cities with no white people for miles in every direction, for example. Yeah yeah I know "Gran Turino" was set in Detroit or something but that was just for the amusement of coasties who don't know any better, just fiction. Interestingly the inner cities are also segregated, there are areas of exclusively Spanish-speaking or all black but little mixing. If there are two white guys living in the inner city, then given the segregation I'm sure they're neighbors LOL. The burbs are much more integrated / diverse, but not much. Rural areas are 100% white aside from illegal farm laborers. We do have poor white people in the midwest but they are rural where there's no McD to work at anyway, they get into meth and disability fraud, mostly. Disability fraud doesn't exactly mesh with working at a McD anyway even if there is a McD locally. I suppose meth doesn't mesh well with working at McD either.
Some very midwest demographic graphs... the further you are from the city, the whiter the people are. NYC's graph is a little different LOL. The price of housing is very cheap rural and in the city, and it curves up to a max in the burbs, and McD is downscale and can only thrive in high road traffic areas. Crime graphs are a near perfect inverse of the whiteness (plus asian) graph and that means no business (such as McD) can survive in the city for long. So there's a maxima of McD in a ring or donut inside the suburb perimeter thats hollow at the core and drops to nothing in the low road traffic rural areas, at least in the midwest. So in the burbs we're familiar with McD although not that much. I must have driven past dozens of McD on my old commute to downtown. If you can afford to live in the burbs you go to Five Guys or Culvers or take a special trip to Chicago to go to Portillos or whatever, you wouldn't eat at McD. Another weird midwest graph... The amount of nightlife and cultural stuff peaks in the burbs in the midwest... they roll the sidewalks up and put them away around 6pm both downtown and rural. Theres nothing to do downtown after 6pm other than listen to gunshots or get involved yourself LOL.
Much like anywhere there are oddities like the usually college student apartments and associated dive bars that warp the usual average demographic graphs. Also you'll occasionally see weird things in the midwest like little gated communities literally on the other side of the tracks, or maybe river, where there's like two condo buildings with million dollar prices (usually high vacancy rates LOL) next door to poverty aka sometimes gentrification doesn't work LOL. Or a huge hospital or something with like one block wide of civilized residential in the middle of a ghetto. You see this all over the country, my "midwest demographic graphs" are just on average.
Another oddity, maybe important, maybe not, is airports are always part of the city in the midwest. There's been too much growth since air travel was developed. I understand out west its normal to have an airport 20, 30 miles from the city center, which must be weird. And on the coasts they were too overbuilt in the old days such that the airport has to be far away. But in the midwest there's "city" butting right up against airports all over which I guess is very unusual in the USA. Maybe airports make midwest neighborhoods poor because they're loud so our cities are only for the poor whereas you can live in downtown Manhattan and not hear 60 jetliners per hour take off every night all night.
Possibly higher population density or smaller zoning / less sprawl on the coasts masks those effects or something. I would imagine having an ocean harbor in the middle of downtown would have interesting economic and demographic effects.