McDonald's profits have spiked following a shift to serving breakfast all day long among other changes:
McDonald's profits jumped by 35% in the first three months of the year, boosted by the continued popularity of its all-day breakfast and cut-price offers in the US. The world's biggest restaurant chain saw net income of $1.1bn (£763m), against $811.5 last year. [...] The company's chief executive Steve Easterbrook joined just over a year ago and announced a turnaround programme. This included extending breakfasts beyond 10:30am in the US, in response to customer demand, and simplifying restaurant operations.
Meanwhile, the company is running full-page advertisements in Israel after the country's health minister called for a boycott of McDonald's, and is testing a bigger Big Mac in Ohio and Dallas locations.
But not everything is all rosy under the golden arches. A TIME article reported: Teen Arrested for Felony Robbery After Filling McDonald’s Water Cup With Soda. A local news report provided these details about the incident at a Springdale, Arkansas McDonald's:
The manager told police 3 people went through the drive thru and asked for 3 large waters. Those 3 parked, went into the restaurant, dumped out the water and then filled the cups with soda, the manager told police.
The manager asked the 3 people to return the soda. Two of them did, but one did not, the manager told police.
Then, the manager stood behind the suspect's car and tried to stop them from leaving, according to the report, but the car reversed and hit the manager. The manager tried to get the keys out of the ignition and was hit on the hand and then by the vehicle again, the manager told police.
The police filed a single charge against the teen: felony robbery.
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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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 23 2016, @12:38AM
Breakfast is the only thing I can eat from McDonalds anymore. The burgers past disgusting a long time ago.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by edIII on Saturday April 23 2016, @12:54AM
The Sausage Egg McMuffin, with a hashbrown inside, is the food of the devil! :)
I got over my addiction to the tasty little bastards in part because I'm not a morning person and I couldn't get to McDonald's before 10:30am. Now it's all day long and I'm reformed....
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by darnkitten on Sunday April 24 2016, @12:48AM
Yeah, the burgers became cardboard-flavoured when the company went to clamshell grilling back in the 90s to decrease cooking time--they never cared that if you press out the fat, you lose the flavour. And now that they pre-cook the patties and store them before serving, they are even worse. I even vaguely recall seeing them reheating patties in a microwave, though that was long enough ago, that I could be mis-remembering.
---and now I am craving a real burger. Good thing my tiny rural town has two diners and no fast food chains. Can't get a good biscuit and sausage (or bacon) with egg sandwich, though, or a sausage biscuit. I really miss those.
(Score: 2) by tibman on Monday April 25 2016, @03:13AM
I worked at McD's in highschool and experienced plenty of burns on those old clamshells. If i remember right, 30 seconds makes 12 normal patties per clamshell. I could drop two sets at once while doing nuggets or something else. The patties were like air-hokey pucks and came in frozen stacks. I would slam the stacks side-down on the grill to break the patties apart. They did not look pre-cooked, still very pink/red. When thawed they were like goo and fell apart. The thawed consistency was nothing like real ground beef though.
My burned-in McD institutional knowledge tells me that microwaving a sandwich is wrong. They can sit for 20 minutes in the ready area and then go straight into the trash (and tally the waste). The only thing i remember being legal to microwave was hotcakes (pancakes in McD language).
Oh god, i wish i could purge such useless memories and fill them with physics and math formulas from the same highschool timeframe.
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 2, Informative) by ncc74656 on Monday April 25 2016, @09:16PM
10 minutes, not 20...and for fries, it was just 7 minutes.
They've also used microwaves from time to time (in the time I was there, they called them "Q-ing ovens"), but then I guess someone reminded the PHBs that the public didn't really care for microwaved everything and either removed them or drastically cut back on their use.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by darnkitten on Wednesday April 27 2016, @12:32AM
I was working there when they installed the clamshells--before that, we had little hand presses--break the stack, pull the paper, lay the patties, fry--i forget how many seconds (I guess that's what the timers were for), press, flip, press again, fry and remove with the spat, pass to dress crew, scrape grill, rinse, repeat...
Right after I left, they introduced the warming/steam cabinets, so you could stack the patties for a while after cooking ahead before assembling the sandwiches to go in the bin. Managers were adamant that they would never use microwaves; but that was a long time ago, and I could swear I've seen crew pulling patties out of the warming cabinet and nuking them before assembling the sandwiches, on the rare occasions I've gone into a McD's.
I did come away with a few positives: the skill of cracking four eggs simultaneously; a deep and abiding distrust of corporations, both as employer, and as provider of goods and services; and the ability to tell how many days since a soda fountain has been cleaned, by the taste of the bacterial buildup.
...and a collection of creepy/scary Ronald pictures--I honestly don't know how some of them got approved for distribution.
(Score: 4, Informative) by MostCynical on Saturday April 23 2016, @12:41AM
http://www.smh.com.au/business/workplace-relations/it-sucks-mcdonalds-workers-criticise-new-allday-breakfast-menu-20160316-gnkq9w.html [smh.com.au]
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3492355/McDonald-s-workers-reveal-struggling-cope-demands-new-menu-customers-complain-crap-food.html [dailymail.co.uk]
http://www.businessinsider.com.au/mcdonalds-franchisees-say-all-day-breakfast-is-a-nightmare-2015-10 [businessinsider.com.au]
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 23 2016, @05:10AM
One employee said on Reddit that a lack of grills saw the same plates being used for burger patties, eggs and sausage patties, and that "sausage and 10-1 regularly go down on the same grill one after the other without a steam clean".
As long as the stuff you're putting on the grill is _food_, that's not really a hygiene problem, it's only a consistency and quality problem (but hey it's McDonalds). If you had severe food allergies you shouldn't be eating in fastfood outlets unless they don't have anything you're allergic to.
Plus sometimes you get lazy c---s that just cook a bunch of egg and then use that for the next 5 hours, IMO do NOT order all-day breakfast after 3 because you don't know what you're going to get, some of my co-workers disgust me.
Now that could be a problem.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday April 23 2016, @01:04AM
Blame martyb!
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Snotnose on Saturday April 23 2016, @01:20AM
So a teenager asks for a water cup, fills it with soda, hits a McDee's employee with his car while trying to escape. And the headline is "felony for putting soda in a water cup".
Um, no. How 'bout "felony for running over someone while trying to escape a misdemeanor". Except the truth isn't as click baity as the story.
My ducks are not in a row. I don't know where some of them are, and I'm pretty sure one of them is a turkey.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 23 2016, @01:36AM
But the felon was black. So we have to try to make it seem like the white man is being unfair to the black man. Don't you get it yet?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 23 2016, @02:18AM
Doesn't make any difference. Running down someone is the problem here.
Control of a car engine does not give one the right to use it to force someone else out of his way.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 23 2016, @02:27PM
Sure it does. If you suspect that person may be, in fact, a lizard person in a woman suit, you'll decry anybody who even suggest that the lizard person in a woman suit didn't deserve to get run over. Won't somebody think of the cisfemale hunnies!
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday April 23 2016, @06:26PM
Cut it out, Kurenai, or I'm going to start modding you Troll/Flamebait. Cis people are not the devil, and just because a few whackadoo TERFs who spell "woman" with a Y in it in Michigan gave you shit, you do NOT have the right to tar almost 50% of the human race with the same brush. You're becoming a twisted mirror image of the very thing you hate.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2, Insightful) by anubi on Saturday April 23 2016, @02:28AM
What kinda glasses you got on, bro? [wkrn.com]
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 23 2016, @08:59AM
But the alleged felon's hair was black. So we have to try to make it seem like the white-haired man is being unfair to the black-haired man. Don't you get it yet?
(Score: 4, Informative) by CirclesInSand on Saturday April 23 2016, @06:16AM
[Citation] [translegal.com]
Theft - synonymous with larceny
Larceny - the simple taking of anything of value with an intent to permanently deprive the owner
Burglary - Larceny plus trespassing
Robbery - Larceny plus a perceived threat to another person, such as a large person intimidating a smaller one (strong arm robbery) for the sake of theft
Stealing the drink was larceny, but it wasn't burglary because the person wasn't trespassing. Hitting the employee with the car when he tried to leave was what turned the charges into robbery, since the employee then believed that he would be injured unless he permitted the larceny.
So for the headline I would suggest "Theft of Soft Drink at McDonald's becomes a Robbery".
(Score: 1) by martyb on Saturday April 23 2016, @01:17PM
Thank you for the clear definitions — I often wondered what differentiated those.
While accurately quoting the referenced sources (they wrote what they wrote), I have tried to update that part of the story to better reflect the distinctions you raised.
I followed the link from TIME to a report at a local station which I included in the updated story. Seems that 3 people ordered large waters through the drive thru, parked the vehicle, and then entered the McDonald's where they dumped out the water and filled the cups with soda. Two complied with the request to return the sodas, one did not and attempted to escape in his vehicle. The Manager attempted to block the escape and the driver reportedly backed into him (as well as hit the manager's hand when he attempted to remove the car keys.)
So, having entered the McDonald's and replacing the water with soda, that would make it a Burglary.
And then, when the store manager attempted to block the teen from driving away and the teen backed the car into him, that would elevate the charge to a Robbery.
Is that correct? Not trying to nit-pick, just trying to understand these terms. This is the first time I've seen them so succinctly explained and distinguished from each other. I always got the sense that something was taken that did not belong to the perpetrator, but that is as far as I'd ever seen it explained.
Thanks for the info!
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 2) by CirclesInSand on Saturday April 23 2016, @05:43PM
I don't know if there was ever "burglary". Does entering the premises of a store with the intent to commit larceny count as trespassing? Sounds like one of those weird kind of EULA things. I really don't know, maybe a lawyer does, it might even depend on the jurisdiction. Everything sounds right though.
(Score: 2) by martyb on Sunday April 24 2016, @02:49AM
Isn't it amazing how something that is so simply worded can be so complicated? Maybe that is one of the reasons that lawyers get paid so much. Laws, written by lawyers cannot be understood unless you are a lawyer! Strange that we have so many thousands of laws to enforce the ten commandments! =)
I am saddened to think that an 18-year-old teen who started with the 'bright idea' of getting a soda for free, is now facing a possible felony conviction on his record. Over his whole lifetime, I wonder how much that 'free' soda is going to cost him?
Going back to law and lawyers, I sense a parallel to computers and computer programming. Your average Joe Sixpack has no clue as to what a computer is made of, how the parts work together, and how it is programmed. Yet his life has become, whether directly or indirectly, deeply affected by the behavior of these 'magic boxes.' "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." And, having no clue how a computer works, there is a lack of understanding of what they do in addition to what you asked of it. Want to share what happened in your day with your friends? Just post it on your FB wall. And, oh-by-the-way, assist FB in building up a dossier on you and all the people you are 'friends' with. Maybe willful ignorance is the only feasible way for the average person to deal with the onslaught of technology? And, in so doing, become sheep to the wolves.
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 2) by CirclesInSand on Monday April 25 2016, @06:29PM
One main difference is that you won't be put in jail for not knowing about the workings of a computer. Another difference is that computer/circuit hardware takes a long time to learn by necessity, laws/regulations on the other hand are purposefully designed to be difficult to understand and ambiguous to keep lawyers employed and to increase the amount and deniability of gov't agency's powers.
Totally agree that it is sad that someone made a bad decision turning a minor offense into a felony. On the other hand, this teenager wasn't threatening someone like the violent police with his car, he was trying to run over a peaceful store manager who was only protecting his own property. Fuck that teenager and his shitty parents too.
(Score: 2) by martyb on Tuesday April 26 2016, @09:05PM
I agree that these are not identical; I was just noting that there are certain similarities that until now I had not noticed — thought others might find it interesting, that's all.
I sense that all too often, what seemed like 'a good idea at the time' ends up spinning out of control and people react badly. I count myself fortunate that my mistakes did not escalate to this level. A simple, hasty, poor decision at any time and my life might have turned out very differently.
As attributed to John Bradford: There, but for the grace of God, goes John Bradford. [wikipedia.org]
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 23 2016, @04:40PM
Why was this story edited to have this part in it?
It is two different things with the same company.
It is like a bug report. Put one thing in it please not everything that ever goes wrong with that thing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 23 2016, @01:30AM
big mac is pretty good, but I love me sausage biscuit.
god, i miss me hardees.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 23 2016, @01:44AM
Carefull with the bigger burgers.
This marketng strategy has failed in the past beause too many people think that because 2 3, the 1/3 pounder was smaller than the 1/4 pounder.
(Score: 3, Funny) by maxwell demon on Saturday April 23 2016, @06:58AM
Well, they can call them 3/9 burgers. Not only is 9 much greater than 4, you get even 3 times that! :-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday April 23 2016, @10:49AM
They should call it the 9/11 burger and th....... ooooohhhh, wait.....
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 24 2016, @01:00AM
Superstitious people would avoid it because it would be 13 ounces.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 23 2016, @02:30AM
try again
Carefull with the bigger burgers.
This marketng strategy has failed in the past beause too many people think that because 4 is a bigger number than 2, the 1/3 pounder was smaller than the 1/4 pounder.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 23 2016, @02:54AM
Breakfast all day? That's fine, but why are there No Chicken Nuggets before 10:30AM!?!? [youtube.com]
"I'm going to eat your fucking face, and I'm going to digest it, and spit it out into the gutter!"
- Unsatisfied Customer deprived of her morning McNuggets.
(Score: 2, Funny) by anubi on Saturday April 23 2016, @03:17AM
Maybe they are waiting for the rooster to crow.
Once they know which one is the rooster, they can go get his nuggets.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by darnkitten on Sunday April 24 2016, @12:32AM
Ugh. Can't eat McNuggets any more--whatever oil they fry them in leaves them with a bitter taste. They used to be so good, though...
Fries, too--when they were fried with a bit of beef tallow, the even tasted good cold, but now they become unpalatable minutes after coming out of the oil--even before serving, at times.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 23 2016, @03:09AM
Boo. There are many places where you can get egg, sausage and cheese on an English muffin, including Dunkin Donuts.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 23 2016, @03:26AM
A few McD employees told me their manager, who always has a bad attitude, spits in the food of problem customers. I've heard this from three people, so it's no BS. They nicknamed him "sperm sample"... fitting title considering what he looks like, and what he does to customers food.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 23 2016, @03:37AM
You know three employees in the same restaurant, yet you never eat there? Riiight.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday April 23 2016, @07:02AM
Maybe he works there. Knowing three of your co-workers isn't unusual, nor is knowing what your manager looks like.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Sunday April 24 2016, @01:08AM
—George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London [adelaide.edu.au]
(Score: 1) by anubi on Saturday April 23 2016, @05:03AM
In this economy, things like "and cut-price offers" go a long way.
Price hiking had driven me from McDonalds. I could no longer afford going there. There are much less expensive alternatives available.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 23 2016, @06:51AM
Yes, it's almost criminal what fast food costs these days. For a few dollars more I can have a chef prepare real food at a restaurant and have it served to me!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 23 2016, @12:43PM
i too do not understand Anubi's comment. Perhaps it's a trolling that is well done, but out of context?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 23 2016, @12:58PM
*looks confused*
Oh right... this isn't the green site
(Score: 4, Interesting) by i286NiNJA on Saturday April 23 2016, @10:32PM
McDonalds has struggled to pull a profit the past few years and had attempted several times to re-invent it's identity. Despite failing to turn the company around the various corporate leaders and CEOs have pulled in thousands of dollars an hour justifying their value to shareholders as being the rare right guys for the job with skills and talents that aren't cheap.
Almost any fucking person in the past 20 years would have told you that McDonalds would do well to just start serving breakfast all day. There are some expenses associated with such a change because their kitchens aren't equipped to handle producing daytime and morning menus simultaneously.
I doubt that shit was any cheaper than gutting interiors to make them resemble starbucks, producing quasi-"artisan" meals intended to appeal to hipsters and other such people who lose social capital with their peers every time they eat anything at mcdonalds or any of the other hairbrained schemes copied off other successful but fundamentally different brands.
I almost wonder if the motivation to do so was driven not by a genuine belief that these things would work but by a selfish desire to turn the company into the sort of company they wished they were running (See failed attempts to turn JCPenny into a libertarian Apple store). It's obvious there is nothing special about the modern CEO other than their willingness to fuck everyone else.