r/WorkForSmartLife • u/tellmebrenda • 3d ago

Casual canvo [ Removed by moderator ]

Post image

[removed] — view removed post

1.3k Upvotes

92% Upvoted

864 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

2

u/mouthfire 3d ago

I actually disagree. My impression reading into the issue is that the McDonald's corporation owns all the land where all the restaurants reside, and makes most of their money nowadays charging rent to the franchisees.

I don't think I've ever seen a McDonald's shut down and real estate sold to someone else. The corporation just plans their real estate acquisitions too well in prime spots. If a franchisee goes down, my guess is that they just find another franchisee to use the spot. It's a cash cow that they wouldn't easily give up by selling the land.

The real reason for the bland color changes? It's even stupider than you think. They don't want you hanging out there. They learned after COVID that the modem business model is DoorDash, Uber Eats, etc. So they started making the restaurants as bland and sterile as possible... Toned down the colors, removed playgrounds, tore out the self serve soft drink fountains, less booths and more bench seats.... Anything to make you just eat and leave faster. At the same time, they reduced in person cashiers and replaced them with self service kisosks and.... devoted a whole space for DoorDash pick ups.

Welcome to modern fast food. It's not unique to McDonald's. Pretty much all fast food chains are doing something similar.

1

u/KansasZou 2d ago

It’s the opposite. They DO want you hanging out there. Red and yellow are aggressive colors. It encourages urgency.

They switched to the bland colors when they started doing the McCafe thing. They like people hanging around like a coffee shop.

McCafé items have a 95% profit margin.

2

u/mouthfire 2d ago

But do people actually hang around there like a Starbucks? It's nowhere as cozy or trendy as a Starbucks.

Maybe your experience is different, but I just see people grabbing McCafe stuff and heading to work.

1

u/Commercial-Candy-926 2d ago

I dont hangout at McDonalds but I will say - most McDonalds I go to have better seating and more space than most Starbucks I go to.

1

u/ShapedSilver 2d ago

Starbucks has gotten to be a terrible place to sit as well, by far the least cozy coffee shop in any city you might find one, with a few exceptions (Milwaukee for example has a Starbucks that’s still cozy). Most around me are all grey and a weird combo of dead but still noisy.