the main reason i even go to chains like mcdonalds in the first place is the soda fountain. it's (usually) much better than retail product in bottles or cans.
if i have to wait 10 minutes to maybe (they will have zero incentive to wait on you) get a refill, after already waiting 10-30 minutes for my food in the first place (wait times have gotten really bad the last few years.. for "reasons"). i won't even go there anymore at all unless i'm traveling (which i don't really do much of either). the ridiculous and constant price increases already got me down from a once-a-week treat to maybe once every month or two.
it’s actually because they dont want you to go there and buy stuff if you buy stuff then they have to spend money to restock stuff and that hurts profits!
I work in a restaurant and ever since COVID the health inspector has been SUPER cautious about our soda machine. We run a clean ship but it's always the first thing they look at, and they go over it with a fine tooth comb.
This change happened awhile ago at places where I live, in Canada. Barely noticed it.
Now they bring my drink to my table, instead of me having to awkwardly wait around for the cup so I can fill it up while they bring the food out.
I don't mind it at all, you still get a free refill btw, just gotta ask for it.
Now I know some random kid hasnt gotten their sticky popsicle fingers all over my cup lid or tried to drink straight out of the machine end. I am very much in favor of that.
They do indeed, Im in Western Canada. Even when press the to-go button, they ask me if I would prefer table service to check in.
I think its my specific area of my specific city, its a little bit of a nicer corner of the city, and the mcdicks is a little bit more polished and clean. The folks working at them (there's 2 of em) seem to be a bit more engaged.
It might be a franchised chain in this area, so perhaps its the owner of the franchise encouraging it. Either way it works and I enjoy it.
Great so now you get to have your drink prepped from a machine that's never been cleaned by the sweaty, overworked teen behind the counter who's handled everyone's dirty money and cards all day instead of going over to the machine that's never been cleaned and touching the machine that all those same dirty people have touched.
All because McDonald's is worried about saving literally pennies to "food theft" which is just a fancy way of them saying they don't want you getting free refills anymore.
They've operated wonderfully and made billions in the decades before this decision. It'll get to the point where corporations won't even try to sugar coat these moves.
"We're removing food wrappers and packaging because we make more money that way" we'll be seeing this in the headlines in the next 5 years.
It started with defaulting to not putting ketchup packets in your bag without telling you, and even now if you ask at the drive thru 50/50 you get it anyways.
Imagine how much waste was generated giving people ketchup packets they might not want and end up throwing away. This sounds like an example of doing the right thing for the wrong reason.
This. I can't remember walking into a Macca's in my country with self-serve drinks. And contrary to what you would expect from someone describing the place as "Macca's," I live in The Netherlands.
They've been penny-pinching and jacking up prices aggressively. For something called "fast food" it is not really fast anymore. The rare time I've been to mcdonalds since the pandemic, it looks like they keep the number of employees to two people at a time in each location and the drive-thru line takes forever to move. Not going to miss it since it was rare for me to go to mcdonalds even before the pandemic, but the general penny-pinching pisses me off and mcdonalds seems like one of the worst offenders. I think they've been wanting to rebrand as "casual dining" or whatever, but based on their approach it's really just a market segment that doesn't make sense to me. Shitty food, small portions, high prices, and slow service. I have no idea why people still go there.
McDonalds has crashed in quality since the pandemic. During the pandemic everyone was really competing for market share and improving their menus.... Except McDonalds, and now that we're out of the pandemic, everyone is pinching including McDonalds. I'd really rather go anywhere else except maybe BK.
Makes sense. I've watched homeless people bathe in them (using the water dispenser), I've seen people take 8+ refills, I've watched people bring in their own buckets from outside and refill them.
I don't make excuses for shitty corporations, but humans are unhinged these days, and ruin shit for everyone else.
Where do you live? In California it's commonplace that self-serve station refills are free.
The main exceptions are touristy places like Disneyland. But most places have the dispensers on the dining room side (not the cash register side) so you can get free refills.
That's the European thing, most fastfood restaurants in America allow it. The two places in Czech Republic that allow it(KFC and Burger King) have people save their cups and refill them days later so I imagine that kind of theft is why more places don't have it. Also, European restaurants in general monetize drinks a lot more. In the US it is common for sit-down restaurants to refill your drinks for free, and water is always free (to the point where California passed a law requiring a restaurant asks if you want water before bringing it, to conserve water)
The mcdonalds near me removed self serve soda during the pandemic and never brought them back. I can still request free refills but a staff member does it from behind the counter.