The final days of McDonald's?

According to a survey of franchisees, the all-day breakfast is a disaster, the company is in a "deep depression" and sinking fast.

McDonald's franchisees say the brand is in a 'deep depression' and 'facing its final days'

McDonald's All-Day Breakfast Is a Nightmare, Franchise Owners Say

 

I've said this before on here: There is no way McDonald's survives the next decade or two without an overhaul in which it is no longer McDonald's as we recognize it. Someone told me recently that the one in Chicago's Loop does a fairly thriving African-American business, but that's about it. (Same with Wendy's.) Too many people are too health-conscience now, and millennials are driven by foodie culture and wouldn't be caught dead in the place.

 

Everybody I talk to loves the idea of all day breakfast. Nobody I've talked to has actually gone to get it.

 

Grab bag of random McDonald's thoughts:

Only time I eat fast food breakfast is when I'm on the road, so I'm totally NOT the person they should cater to, but, I wish they'd gone the other way. Would rather have their lunch fare at 9 am than their breakfast food, which is intolerable at any time of day.

When's the last time McDonald's franchisees have been happy? Seems like there's always a story about them unhappy over one thing or another.

I live in a fairly small town off the free way (6000 people-ish). Every time I drive past the McDonald's the parking lot is full. I can't tell if it's the off-the-freeway crowd, or if McDonald's in general still does good business in my neck of the woods....

 

Wait until Millenials have kids and they will be going to McDonalds. The problem with the company is growth. There will always be a market for the junk.

 

I doubt it.

One of the linked pieces notes that same-store sales have gone down seven quarters in a row.

I don't think my kids have ever eaten at McDonald's. Or Wendy's or Burger King or Taco Bell. One is 6 and one is almost 3.

 

The next decade or two? You're not really going out on a limb there. Name a company that isn't very different from what it was 10 to 20 years ago.

Even if you look at their basic lunch/dinner menu -- burgers, fries, etc. -- McDonald's is radically different operationally from what they were 15 to 20 years ago. They took their base processes from what people like me call "make to stock" and switched them over to what's called "assemble to order." In the former setup, completed items are made according to a forecast, with safety stock built in, and demand is satisfied from finished goods inventory. In the latter, only components are prepared in advance; items are assembled, often to customer specifications, only when ordered.

For those of you old enough to remember, you might recall the days when you went to McDonald's and ordered a Big Mac (or pretty much anything else other than the drink) and your cashier plucked your food from a bin behind the counter. That's a make-to-stock approach, and that's how McDonald's operated even into the late 90s. After the turn of the century, though, the whole of McDonald's was reworked such that when you order your Big Mac, only then is it assembled, from components that were produced according to a schedule. This was a helluva thing to pull off.

People also lose sight of (or are ignorant of) the fact that McDonald's is unique among fast-food firms in that it is really at least as much a real estate firm as it is a fast food franchiser. Those McDonald's locations sit, typically, on very juicy pieces of property, lots of which are owned by the corporation. Those properties are valuable, and they can be made to hold their value.

I predict McDonalds going back to a much more streamlined menu in general, with room for breadth in more urban areas in which competition is fiercer. But if I owned a bunch of McDonalds stock I wouldn't be losing much sleep over that investment.

 

Clickbait.

 

A few days ago, I happened near a McDonald's and decided to get a breakfast for dinner. I wanted a bacon, egg and cheese bagel, only, I wasn't able to because they only were making five or six of their breakfast items for the all-day breakfast. I ordered a double cheeseburger instead.

 

That was one of the complaints -- the menu items available for the all-day breakfast vary according to location, which has left customers confused and often disappointed when they want an Egg McMuffin at 2 p.m. but can only get a sausage biscuit.

 

I'm curious .... are kids still inundated with McDonald's advertising in a digital world? Are they still watching commercials in an era of Netflix?

 

They don't seem to advertise too much at kids. My kid never talks about McDonald's. Or any food commercials, actually.