McDonald's "30 Minute Time Limit While Consuming Food"

[jsr]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/28/nyregion/the-food-may-be-fast-but-these-customers-wont-be-rushed.html

The Food May Be Fast, but These Customers Won’t Be Rushed
By SARAH MASLIN NIR | JAN. 27, 2014



With its low coffee prices, plentiful tables and available bathrooms, McDonald’s restaurants all over the country, and even all over the world, have been adopted by a cost-conscious set as a coffeehouse for the people, a sort of everyman’s Starbucks.

Behind the Golden Arches, older people seeking company, schoolchildren putting off homework time and homeless people escaping the cold have transformed the banquettes into headquarters for the kind of laid-back socializing once carried out on a park bench or brownstone stoop.

But patrons have also brought the mores of cafe culture, where often a single purchase is permission to camp out with a laptop. Increasingly, they seem to linger over McCafe Lattes, sometimes spending a lot of time but little money in outlets of this chain, which rose to prominence on a very different business model: food that is always fast. And so restaurant managers and franchise owners are often frustrated by these, their most loyal customers. Such regulars hurt business, some say, and leave little room for other customers. Tensions can sometimes erupt.

In the past month, those tensions came to a boil in New York City. When management at a McDonald’s in Flushing, Queens, called the police on a group of older Koreans, prompting outrage at the company’s perceived rudeness, calls for a worldwide boycott and a truce mediated by a local politician, it became a famous case of a struggle that happens daily at McDonald’s outlets in the city and beyond.

[geomon666]

1. Unless there's like no seating available

Leave them the fuck alone.

[pipi_k]

6. My

sentiments exactly!!!

I have never been in a McD's where every seat was filled.


Plus...I don't, can't, and will not, wolf down any meal. I don't care if it's fast food or whatever.

I have dentures and it's not easy to chew, for one thing. And for another, eating fast upsets my stomach. And one last reason...I actually like to TASTE what I'm eating...not just cramming it into my mouth.

There's nothing more disgusting, food-wise, than to see someone wolfing down a meal without, apparently, caring what it tastes like.

Yech. Reminds me of pigs at a trough.


Anyway, screw you, McD's!!! Kick my ass out if I'm there one second longer than 30 minutes, and my visits will become even MORE infrequent than what they are now.

[HappyMe]

2. The few times I have seen this done

was to curtail rowdy teens and mostly gang activity. They were scaring off the elderly people and families.

[MineralMan]

3. Mickey D says:

Buy your damned food, eat it fast, and get the hell out!
We don't want your lazy-assed, sit-around-for-hours kind here.
Even better, go through the drive-through and don't come in here at all.
What do you think this place is, anyhow, a restaurant?

[VanillaRhapsody]

4. They wanted to compete with the coffee shops....well now they know the rest of what

those coffee shops offer and WHY their coffee is so expensive....

[Major Nikon]

11. Coffee is a social drink

People invite friends and neighbors over for coffee. People invite perspective mates out for coffee. People exchange ideas over coffee, discuss the social condition, plan community efforts, expand their minds.

[VanillaRhapsody]

18. Exactly....people do not expect to wolf down a fancy coffee....

like they would a burger and fries....

[vinny9698]

5. Convenience Store had the same problem, teenagers hanging around the store.

The manager started playing classical music on loud speakers, it drove the hooligans away.

[Whisp]

25. I'm not sure if it's fair to call teenagers hooligans like that...

[BlueStreak]

7. I might just park in the drive-thru for 29 minutes.

[pipi_k]

12. Oh come on...

go wild...make it 29 minutes and 59.5 seconds...

[BlueStreak]

14. I don't like to take risks.

Come to think of it, the last time I went to a MacD drive-thru, they didn't have my food and they made me pull up to the corral, and it felt like I was there 29 minutes and 59.5 seconds.

I mean, if they don't have a hamburger and fries ready, then what is the point of moving on to the next customer?

[ConcernedCanuk]

8. Personally - 30 minutes to down a burger and fries seems reasonable.

.
.
.

McDonalds is run by franchise - usually local people run each store. I doubt very much they are going to enforce this 30 minute thing unless it is necessary - just plain bad for business.

It DOES however give them a tool to remove people that abuse the premises.

I don't see a big deal here.

oh - of note: posted notice says "30 MINUTE TIME LIMIT WHILE CONSUMING FOOD".

I'd say something like "I spent 10 minutes in the shitter - I wasn't "consuming food"! Does THAT count??".

or

"Look - I'm DONE "eating"!"

CC

[TheKentuckian]

10. It is "reasonable" for me to pay you for food and for you to tell me how quick to woof it down?

I don't see it.

[Major Nikon]

13. They have that tool anyway

Provided no violations of civil rights laws occur, any business owner has the right to demand any person leave their premises for any reason. Basically what these businesses are saying is that we want your communities' money, but we don't want to contribute to the fellowship of the community like similar businesses do.

This is certainly their right to do so, but it doesn't mean it's not assholery.

[HockeyMom]

9. Do they still have playgrounds?

15 minutes for eating and 15 minutes for kids to play?

[1000words]

15. So McD's markets coffee shop type items like McCafe Lattes ...

and then bitch when folks adopt a coffee shop attitude? Can't have it both ways.
And those playgrounds ... shut 'em down. After all, their business is food, not leisure activity.

[Marr]

16. Meh.

I have a friend who was working as a waiter, and dreaded seeing large groups of young Persian men come in. They'd occupy his biggest two tables for 4-5 hours at a time and order about $5 worth of coffee, according to him. It really impacted his income as a waiter, so I can only imagine what it was doing to the restaurant's income.

I don't envy the manager who has to enforce such an abrasive rule, but sometimes you do have a draw a line.

[Chan790]

17. I'm with McDonalds on this...and that's a first.

If you want to camp with your coffee...go someplace that encourages that behavior.

I'm tired of never being able to get a seat because there's some assnozzle who has been camped in a banquette for 3 hours with his laptop and a $1 order of fries.

[VanillaRhapsody]

19. If McD doesn't want Coffee Shop activity...it shouldn't have tried to compete with them...

simple...stop selling fancy coffee shop coffees if you don't want to be treated like a coffee shop. THAT is why Starbucks charges so much for the beverage....

They should stick to what they know....

[davidn3600]

21. Then why are they competing for Starbucks-type clientele

They are remodeling their restaurants so they are a cafe type of feel instead of the typical fast-food type of feel. But yet they shoo you out the door as fast as they can.

Sounds like a bit of a confusion among the higher-ups over what type of business they want to be.

[hatrack]

28. Yes, and I'm sure that's the only McDonald's within a day's drive . . .

[Eleanors38]

20. Begs the question.

[WatermelonRat]

22. There were a couple of old men who always spent mornings at the McDonalds I worked at

They knew the names of all the employees and always greeted us when arrived. I'd hate to have had this rule in effect when I worked there.

[Lifelong Protester]

23. So remind me, didn't McDonald's make in the BILLIONS

in profit last year?


I agree with the folks that have mentioned the fact that if McD's wants the coffee shop clientele (by their offering of coffeeshop drinks) then they should know what they have gotten themselves into. I mean, really? Didn't someone at McD's do any research before they went all McCafe??


But here's an idea. The articles I have been following in the NYTimes talks about 'old people' or seniors, being the 'problem'. Well here's an idea... how about the McD's with the 'hanging out' problem do some research. What age group IS it that hangs out the most? What hours? Do they take up all the restaurant so nobody else can be seated or are they just "there"?

If it is mainly seniors, then the McD's folks can find the nearest senior center-make a hefty donation to it-advertise it to the 'loiterers'-heck, give 'em bus tokens to get to the center, send over a cambro of coffee once in a while-BUY some good will! If there isn't a senior center, find a community group that wants one, but maybe doesn't have the funds. Get behind them! If it's teens, get behind a teen center.

Don't tell me corporate doesn't have the funds! Jeez-o-pete, if this is in the NYTimes, it is giving them BAD press. Get to solving it!

Folks need 'third places'-1st being home, 2nd being work. 3rd is a gathering place, usually a senior or teen center or a cafe.

[Nye Bevan]

24. I've never felt the need to spend more than 30 minutes in a MacDonalds.

So I don't really care (unlike several DUers, apparently).

[tabbycat31]

26. McD's also offers free internet

Because of this, I am guilty of camping out there with my laptop while only buying a small fries (I don't like their coffee because they use fake creamer) if that.

It was their decision to offer the internet, and frankly that's the only reason I step foot into one to start out with. Take away my ability to work out of one and they lose me as a customer.

[dembotoz]

27. i stop there for lunch BECAUSE i can work due to the internet

always see other laptops open.

30 minutes is bs.

i take an hour for lunch because

folks just do not want to see a sales rep tween 12 and 1

[1000words]

29. Good for you

"... folks just do not want to see a sales rep tween 12 and 1"

You'd be amazed how many folks just don't get it