What do you think about McDonald's? Do you attend this.. restaurant?

I suggest you reading the history of McDonald's, because it is very remarkable for understanding one's values. Also there's a movie, "Founder", 2016. I think it describes this story without judgements, and everyone decides for themselves.

The moral is in the position of brothers.

"Years after the brothers sold to Mr. Kroc, someone asked Richard McDonald if he had any regrets. None, Mr. Halberstam relates.

''I would have wound up in some skyscraper somewhere with about four ulcers and eight tax attorneys trying to figure out how to pay all my income tax,'' Mr. McDonald replied."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_and_Maurice_McDonald

https://archive.ph/20210921134515/https://www.nytimes.com/1998/07/16/business/richard-mcdonald-89-fast-food-revolutionary.html

I, for one, don’t care much about the origin story of most businesses. Values isn’t part of the equation. I haven’t been to a McDonald’s in years because it’s not particularly healthy food, and when I’ve had fast food other options have been more convenient.

1 hour ago, m_m said:

What do you think about McDonald's? Do you attend this.. restaurant?

I suggest you reading the history of McDonald's, because it is very remarkable for understanding one's values. Also there's a movie, "Founder", 2016. I think it describes this story without judgements, and everyone decides for themselves.

The moral is in the position of brothers.

"Years after the brothers sold to Mr. Kroc, someone asked Richard McDonald if he had any regrets. None, Mr. Halberstam relates.

''I would have wound up in some skyscraper somewhere with about four ulcers and eight tax attorneys trying to figure out how to pay all my income tax,'' Mr. McDonald replied."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_and_Maurice_McDonald

https://archive.ph/20210921134515/https://www.nytimes.com/1998/07/16/business/richard-mcdonald-89-fast-food-revolutionary.html

My last visit to McDs would have been in 1999-2000, when I was working in Houston TX and on a road trip with colleagues. I married a French woman, you see. 😄

Regarding the story about the original Mr. MacDonald, I’m not surprised. Plenty of people don’t have the energy, or the drive, or the greed, and don’t want the aggro. We should value such people more, I feel. They have something valuable to teach us.

22 minutes ago, swansont said:

I, for one, don’t care much about the origin story of most businesses.

And I insist that you read this story, or watch the movie.

24 minutes ago, swansont said:

Values isn’t part of the equation.

Why? Because in business "rat eat rat"?(This is a citation from the movie)

5 minutes ago, exchemist said:

They have something valuable to teach us.

In my opinion, brothers turned another cheek. It's a very bright example.

Though in modern society they are considered to be losers, I think, survival of the fittest and so on. - Their idea, a matter of a lifetime were stolen, and they didn't even fight. Even didn't want to.

Edited May 18May 18 by m_m

1 hour ago, m_m said:

And I insist that you read this story, or watch the movie.

Not a compelling argument that it’s worth my time.

Haven't been to McDonald's in many years.
If you're in a hurry, and it's the only 'fast food' outlet nearby, it is 'convenient, but it is also convenient to pick up a pre-cooked chicken thigh or breast, with some potatoes and a small salad ( for about the same price as a Big Mac meal ), from your local grocery store.

And if about once a year I feel the need for a fast food burger, I go with a Double Whopper with cheese.
You can't beat the meat to bun ratio.

5 hours ago, m_m said:

What do you think about McDonald's? Do you attend this.. restaurant?

Execrable.

No.

My street food takeaway tonight is four sticks of barbecued kidney; salad of raw cabbage, onion, tomatoes, and cucumber seasoned with suya pepper.

Delicious, healthy, and enough to see me through tomorrow.

Cost me all of $2.

29 minutes ago, swansont said:

Not a compelling argument that it’s worth my time.

This story is beyond good and evil; there's no imposed morality and everyone decides what to think. It's a possibility for you to think about what justice is and where it lives. It can give you a more profound understanding of yourself.

5 minutes ago, MigL said:

for about the same price as a Big Mac meal

So, would you visit Mcdonald's, if prices were cheaper?

My kids like it. They’re still at the happy meal age and their mother is lazy so enables it. I find that no matter how much I eat I always still feel hungry and deeply unsatisfied when done. I like chick-fil-a better but hate their politics so don’t go there often either. Whataburger was better.

I haven't eaten McDonald's food for a few years now. I quite like it, but around the time of COVID-19, the shop at the shopping centre I normally go to closed their business, and the only McDonald's restaurants in my area would require me to make a special journey to McDonald's, which lacks the spur-of-the-moment convenience of the shopping centre. Actually, I haven't even been to Hungry Jack's (Burger King) much since COVID-19, and they are quite conveniently located for me. Why this is I can't really explain, although I did go there about four times in a row over a period of about a year to buy a thick shake, and each time, the machine was out of service (I did wonder if they ever had thick shakes during this period).

10 hours ago, sethoflagos said:

enough to see me through tomorrow.

Honestly, now I also think that one shouldn't think much about food for tomorrow. Because we literally don't know what tomorrow will happen, what we will be doing and thinking.

8 hours ago, KJW said:

Why this is I can't really explain

It's about the name - McDonald's, how it sounds. It symbolizes everything.

9 hours ago, iNow said:

My kids like it. They’re still at the happy meal age and their mother is lazy so enables it. I find that no matter how much I eat I always still feel hungry and deeply unsatisfied when done. I like chick-fil-a better but hate their politics so don’t go there often either. Whataburger was better.

Well, do you know the story of McDonald's?

zapatos, I feel it was your minus. But.. aren't you agree with my point of view? Brothers lost their revolutionary and brilliant idea, and what is more - they lost their name. Who are they, in your opinion? And where is the justice?

Edited May 19May 19 by m_m

19 hours ago, m_m said:

What do you think about McDonald's?

I don't think about it.

19 hours ago, m_m said:

Do you attend this.. restaurant?

No. I don't like standing in line; we rarely go to restaurants, but then it's for a special occasion: good food, good ambiance and good service.

In the past decade, I've been in a McDonald's twice, several years apart, in need of a restroom and I always feel obliged to buy something in return for using their facility. (Tim Horton's is better) Between those visits, the portions diminished by about 25%. It's not particularly good, fast or cheap. Back in the 80's, we took the kids once in a while, or we might stop at either one of those or a Wendy's on long trips. Now, we stop at a grocery store instead and have a wholesome picnic.

The story does nothing for me, btw.

Edited May 19May 19 by Peterkin

McD is the bottom of the FF barrel. On the rare travel occasion when we can't picnic from storage dishes, Subway is okay, with a couple veg options. Wendy's used to have a tolerable chili. I used to have hope that some FF chain would figure out how to make hash browns, but they're usually too greasy or just mushy and flavorless. Many trips, it's just some nuts, sections of orange and banana, handfuls of oat granola. When you're seated in a car for nine hours, fiber is your friend. FF places tend to minimize fiber, unless it's one of the high-end chains that is more serious about salads.

On 5/19/2025 at 5:48 PM, Peterkin said:

The story does nothing for me, btw.

Ok, good for you.

On 5/19/2025 at 11:52 PM, TheVat said:

McD is the bottom of the FF barrel.

So sad to read this, because the McDonald brothers are inventors of the fast food system. They thought of this idea of preparing food in 30 seconds, and they ordered equipment and kitchen for their first restaurant in San Bernardino.

Edited May 24May 24 by m_m

12 hours ago, m_m said:

So sad to read this, because the McDonald brothers are inventors of the fast food system.

Why was that a good thing to do? How does rushing everything, including meals, benefit anybody? Their food may be fast, but it's neither good nor wholesome - so why eat it?

Edited May 24May 24 by Peterkin

18 hours ago, m_m said:

So sad to read this, because the McDonald brothers are inventors of the fast food system. They thought of this idea of preparing food in 30 seconds, and they ordered equipment and kitchen for their first restaurant in San Bernardino.

Edward Teller, Richard Garwin and Stanislaw Ulam were inventors of the H Bomb. It's so sad that so many people hate H Bombs and want to dismantle all of them!

Edited May 25May 25 by TheVat

12 hours ago, Peterkin said:

Why was that a good thing to do? How does rushing everything, including meals, benefit anybody? Their food may be fast, but it's neither good nor wholesome - so why eat it?

Brothers didn't want to extend their idea, they were OK with their restaurant in San Bernardino. They didn't want to open other restaurants because of the problem of keeping standards.

Why was that a good thing to do?

You are asking because nowadays everything is quickly, and you don't have to wait. In their days, drivers had to wait 30 minutes (not seconds) for food.

7 hours ago, TheVat said:

Edward Teller, Richard Garwin and Stanislaw Ulam were inventors of the H Bomb. It's so sad that so many people hate H Bombs and want to dismantle all of them!

It's a clear straw man. I'm talking about the idea of fast food and it's invention. And Ray Kroc made it his idea.

28 minutes ago, m_m said:

Brothers didn't want to extend their idea, they were OK with their restaurant in San Bernardino. They didn't want to open other restaurants because of the problem of keeping standards.

You are asking because nowadays everything is quickly, and you don't have to wait. In their days, drivers had to wait 30 minutes (not seconds) for food.

It's a clear straw man. I'm talking about the idea of fast food and it's invention. And Ray Kroc made it his idea.

Hi m_m

The idea was probably useful at the time but now we have obesity problems in the UK and US.

Mac D and other FF outlets are not the only reason but they certainly do not help.

I recommend the documentary, " Super size me."

1 hour ago, m_m said:

You are asking because nowadays everything is quickly, and you don't have to wait. In their days, drivers had to wait 30 minutes (not seconds) for food.

Why is everything quickly? Does it make people happy and healthy to rush through life? We still have to wait for all kinds of things: checkouts, weekends, test results, medical appointments, car repairs.... Hurry-up-and-wait is pretty much the urban way of life. But not a good way of life.

Drivers? Surely drivers are people who live someplace and work or go to school someplace else. Why were they not eating at home, in peace and quiet, or in the cafeteria, where foods have been prepared ahead of time? Why eat in a rush between places? If you're on a long trip, you need to stop sometimes for rest, relief and refreshment. If you can't spare half an hour, you can pack sandwiches and fruit for the road: no waiting. You still have to stand in line at MacDonald's, to place your order and and pay, then to pick up your paper package of inferior food, then have to stand in line to pick up plastic sacs of condiment to give it some flavour.

We may go to a real restaurant, where we are shown to a table right away, sip wine and chat while waiting for our order; there is a tablecloth and flowers and maybe a candle between us and we eat with metal cutlery from china plates and drink from glass vessels, like civilized adults. Such a meal is for pleasure and celebration. For daily nourishment of body and soul, we cook our own meal, combining ingredients in an infinite variety of options, according to our own taste. We gather with family around our own table, relax and recount the events of our day, laugh, argue, learn things, bond. What is a MacDonald meal for? Children like it because they can be little savages, eat with their hands, enjoy the playground if there is one maybe even get a toy that becomes plastic garbage in ten minutes. But they're not in a hurry, are they?

1 hour ago, m_m said:

I'm talking about the idea of fast food and it's invention.

Then you're talking - reverently - about a bad idea. It was only one of many bad ideas to speed up everything in modern life. Faster cars, wider roads, vending machines, pre-packaged everything, bar codes, bank machines, drive-throughs, air travel, automation, instant soup and coffee... ulcers, hypertension, heart disease, insomnia, chronic anxiety, income insecurity, sleeping pills, alcoholism...

Edited May 25May 25 by Peterkin
I only found two typos!

3 hours ago, pinball1970 said:

I recommend the documentary, " Super size me."

Good docu. And the title underscores the unfortunate trajectory of the original McD business model - escalation in portion and drink sizes. Your sugary soda, in the early sixties, was something like 8-12 ounces. Then a sort of sugar/gluttony arms race ensued between FF vendors, with doubling and tripling of drink sizes. Customers end up drinking a lot of their calories, and taking a kick in the pancreas with all the corn syrup. I hate that these places spread globally so that America was exporting its worst cultural habits.

4 hours ago, m_m said:

It's a clear straw man. I'm talking about the idea of fast food and it's invention. And Ray Kroc made it his idea.

It was an analogy, making the point that it's just normal reality when some ideas don't work out very well in the real world. The inventors of the bomb thought they would keep America safe. Instead we've lived on the brink of global annihilation for seventy years, with a huge Sword of Damocles over everyone's head.

38 minutes ago, TheVat said:

Good docu. And the title underscores the unfortunate trajectory of the original McD business model - escalation in portion and drink sizes. Your sugary soda, in the early sixties, was something like 8-12 ounces. Then a sort of sugar/gluttony arms race ensued between FF vendors, with doubling and tripling of drink sizes. Customers end up drinking a lot of their calories, and taking a kick in the pancreas with all the corn syrup. I hate that these places spread globally so that America was exporting its worst cultural habits.

It was an analogy, making the point that it's just normal reality when some ideas don't work out very well in the real world. The inventors of the bomb thought they would keep America safe. Instead we've lived on the brink of global annihilation for seventy years, with a huge Sword of Damocles over everyone's head.

On the other hand the US has been kept free from military attack throughout that time. As has just about every nuclear-armed power, I think?

But yeah the problem is commercialisation of food: industrialisation of the food itself, and marketing of the experience via soulless corporate chains. I wonder if there is a synergy with TV - and now IT - you don’t eat at table en famille any more but in front of a screen, so you eat with your hands and don’t care what you shove into your face. And on the screen….they advertise fast food to you.

2 hours ago, TheVat said:

I hate that these places spread globally so that America was exporting its worst cultural habits.

If they let you! France doesn't give up good food so easily. Nor does China.

As for the sugary drinks, not necessarily!

If they can make fast food outlets conform to local expectations, so can we. If I remember correctly, the Canadian MacDonald's franchises are most like the American ones in terms of menu, presentation and premises. (Though I wouldn't be surprised to see that change in the near future.) I wonder why Americans don't demand better.

On 5/25/2025 at 4:18 PM, Peterkin said:

Then you're talking - reverently - about a bad idea. It was only one of many bad ideas to speed up everything in modern life. Faster cars, wider roads, vending machines, pre-packaged everything, bar codes, bank machines, drive-throughs, air travel, automation, instant soup and coffee... ulcers, hypertension, heart disease, insomnia, chronic anxiety, income insecurity, sleeping pills, alcoholism...

I didn't say it was a good or bad idea. It was an idea, appropriated by another person. And nobody forces anyone to attend McDonald's. It is people's free choice to buy fast food at this place or not. It is free will. We are not robots, we are free to choose.

Edited June 7Jun 7 by m_m

37 minutes ago, m_m said:

I didn't say it was a good or bad idea. It was an idea, appropriated by another person. And nobody forces anyone to attend McDonald's. It is people's free choice to buy fast food at this place or not. It is free will. We are not robots, we are free to choose.

But we are not immune from cultural influences, advertising, etc. One example is that in France it is bad manners to drink soft drinks at table with food. In the USA it is the norm, at least in fast food joints. The practice is promoted by the fast food chains. I suspect that be one cause of obesity.

1 hour ago, m_m said:

It was an idea, appropriated by another person.

I do not care.