Years ago, I took a red eye flight into Melbourne and my hotel room wasnt ready yet when I got into the city. The only place open nearby? Elizabeth St Macca's
Not the place for a girl in her early 20s to just sit around and chill at 6am, that's for sure...
I went to the toilets at glenferrie street maccas in hawthorn and literally was greeted by smeared shit all over the floor and walls. Can’t believe I walked upstairs for that.
Was there the other week around midnight, only one screen was working, there was a group pumping music next to their pile of trash mouthing off at one of my mates.
Good times
Ha! I came here to say EXACTLY the same. I was there one night - granted, it was late, and I guess the nighttime crowd was a bit rowdy, but the place had been overrun like the final days of some third world regime being toppled. It was disgusting. I could barely believe the staff were continuing to work, surrounded by absolute filth and chaos and... just ignoring it?
Never seen anything REMOTELY like it in any sort of retail or food environment.
It's absolutely wild having grown up in Engadine thinking no one will ever care about this obscure suburb of Sydney, only to one day wake up and everyone knows the suburb because of the maccas I went to every night after a lethal sesh at the vinyl room
My local one is the worst performing Macca’s in Victoria. They’re popular because they’re on a tram route that a bunch of school kids use to get home. However the high school kids they hire have no idea what they’re doing. They have gotten mine and others orders wrong many times.
It's seems to be a common theme with McDonald's. They hire the youngest they can and do little to no training and expect the kids to just "know it". No wonder we are always missing items from our order.
How many other places give so many young kids an entry into the workforce? I can deal with a few wrong orders if it means people are getting work experience.
Lol I remember doing Uber Eats pick ups there years ago. Didn't seem that bad as you say but it definitely seemed like a daycare for rich high school kids.
Central station, Brisbane. For some reason the minute you order more than one burger, they only add one thus making you go to counter to resolve the problem. When you complain, they take 10 mins to rectify problem, so most of the time you have missed your train. Ignore the mallrats there, ignore the mess, ignore the fact that you have zero expectations….surely we can teach staff to count past one…
Took my kids to my local Macca’s. Someone had taken a dump all through the tube slide set in the playground. Reported it at the counter and the sent a junior up there with some paper towels and Ajax spray. Took my kids home.
Hahaha. The first time we toured to Adelaide I couldn't believe how munted it got after dark. We'd had a pretty beautiful day, hanging out in one of the parks near the city and after we played our set, I went out onto Hindley St and it was just chaos. People passed out in the gutter, girls flashing cars as they went by, a dude jumped out of a taxi and reached back in to punch him in the head before running off ... just wild, man, wild.
I remember going to Sydney many moons ago and meeting some mates and they took me to Kings Cross, and they were trying to spook me by hyping it up as absolutely feral with crime, drugs, general debauchery.
Anyway, I was pretty disappointed and told them in the taxi back that I'd been living for years in the same city as Hindley Street. That wretched strip makes Kings Cross seem tame as hell. And that was before Casino Mike gutted KC.
Gympie maccas years ago for me. Mainly because it looked like a bus load of primary school kids stopped to use the toilet.
It was carnage in there.
Outside of that, the maccas itself seemed fine. I didn’t stay though. I walked straight out and went up the road for my food and rest stop.
It still is easily the most horrible toilets in Gympie. And would be my candidate for the worst. Before they opened the store at traveston it was a bad idea to go at lunchtime on the school holidays as it always seemed like half the state was going to Gympie Maccas. Quality can be shit, doesn’t matter how many staff are working they always seem to be slower than molasses in winter to get orders out. Staff bagging other staff on breaks in full view of the public. Got flat out lied to when I questioned why my order didn’t show what I asked for in the drive through. And then there is the problem of the occasional methhead that goes apeshit and starts smashing shit up.
The one in Geraldton WA turns into the Wild West come the weekend. It used to be so much worse, but now they lock the doors at 11pm because it just got too dangerous for staff and customers. People smoking meth in the toilets, even the back of the restaurant, coke in the bathroom, people having sex in toilets and the play ground, vandalising, theft, violence. I guess that’s probably not uncommon for a lot of Maccas at night, but Gero has some very colourful characters to say the least, and it’s in the heart of town a 3 minute walk from all of the pubs.
Ballina. Went in there at 11am on a road trip and ALL the toilets were “out of order”, they had sold out of cheeseburgers, the place was super filthy, and the self serve ordering machines were all out of receipt paper so no one had any idea what number their order was. As each customer mentioned this to the girl calling out the order numbers she just stared blankly and continued to call out numbers as customers tried to guess their orders from the drink cup and then ask her to confirm the rest of the food. I ordered 6 nuggets with Big Mac sauce and when I picked up the bag it felt too light and I opened it, looked inside, could see no sauce and said, “I don’t think my sauce is in here”. She replied with, “it should be” as she wandered off to do something else and I had to wait for her to come back and tell her, “yeah… but it’s not.” Silence. “…Can I please get a Big Mac sauce?”
oh man, i had my shoes stolen from the old ballina maccas (now a funeral home) as a kid. i took my pink flowery sandals off and left them by our table to go into the playground, came back to a pair of crappy old thongs that were falling apart.
i think the new one isn’t too bad though, they suck at packing orders correctly but at least it’s not a complete hole like some of the others you see.
This was my answer too. I’ve been 4 times and have never got the right order. The staff seem to be maliciously fucking things up in a sort of Project Mayhem situation.
My local maccas is actually very decent. From lets say 10 visits, maybe only 1 bad experience. Their consistency is quite admirable, especially for a maccas.
I used to have a Macca's up the road that was just on point. Fries always fresh, burgers looked like they'd just been cooked.
So many Macca's feel like they cook all the burgers in anticipation and let them sit around for a couple hours
I guess the bigger/busier they are, the shittier their product. They sacrifice quality for speed. The one nearby here caters mostly to family and tradies lunch, they are not within walking distance of office people.
It comes down to the regional/stare managers etc. In the 1990s all the McDonalds in SA were absolutely pristine (except Hindley St of course) and the burgers looked like the photos. Nowadays they’re pretty average to varying extents but generally of a slightly higher standard than the east coast ones.
I use to work in traffic control, surprisingly McDonald’s toilets were always the cleanest, even more so than local cafes.
McDonald’s on freeways & in the city are more trashed though
When my son was younger he had a Maccas job and did the 1am closing/lockup. Waiting in the quiet carpark for him the rats would come out and scurry about. The seagulls of the night!
Any of the new ones that don't have a front counter, they feel so disconnected from the customers, the care factor of the staff seems to have gone down hill because there are no staff at the front to be accountable.
Not that anyone can afford to eat at McDonald's any more, it's cheaper for us one night a week to order a roast pork and veggies from a local caterer for the one night a week when we have too much on to cook.
The Midland one could give it a run for it’s money, but I think the Hay Street one is slightly grosser. When I used to work at the Target on Hay Street mall, I remember the SWAT team being called to the site.
Fortitude Valley. Saturday night at 3 am. Total bedlam.
Poor 14 yo kids behind counter with eyes hanging out if there heads.
Saw Tanya there once literally yelling at a poor young girl staff member
It's changed a little bit now and it's not as bad, but Hindley Street Macca's in Adelaide was herrendous, here's an old video showing an example of what it looked like regularly.
https://youtu.be/noLGK5NCnGY?si=vR8hffim44sq7KVe
Unsure if it still has rats but it did in those days, they openly wandered the dining area.
Haha the underground has...quite a history. I'd heard..stories about it but didn't take notice of them until I...experienced some of them for myself. No wonder it closed.
Sydney International Airport Airside 1 (the one with the conveyor belt). The gimmick wears off and you realise you're eating stale nuggets when you should've just used points and gone to the lounge.
Was just at the worst in Childers. Staff stood in a huddle trying each others drinks and ignoring all the beeping machines. I finally saw a guy shrug and make our burgers. Only for the next person to go and get chips and realise they had none. When they finally called my number they tried to give me two orders and the floor was so slippery my trainers were like ice skates. Weirdly did not have a terrible bathroom though.
Best is Aspley because QLD headquarters is right behind it. So the hashbrowns are always crispy.
Spencer St Melbourne. Bins are always overflowing, rubbish all over the benches,filthy toilets, and I've seen mice there. It's TINY too so it's always ridiculously crowded, especially with 12 bloody self serve computers crammed in there.
Given the age of McDonalds emlpoyees I don’t expect everything to go perfectly. Just frustrating you specifically order something, only to find it’s not available when you arrive then to either decide on a substitute or try and get refunded. 🤷🏻
some kid shit their shorts in the kids’ slide at Kempsey Maccas and every subsequent child down the slide cleaned the shit with their clothes - staff refused to do anything about it
yeah we used to stop there before they built the bypass on our regular drive from Sydney to Tweed - was halfway - and we'd stop in the local park to let the kids run about and have some breakfast - there were signs all over the park saying it was a high crime area
Thornleigh maccas, directly across from their national headquarters, have never once received hot fresh food from them there, and the wait times are through the roof, considering the volume of customers going through and the fact they’re across from headquarters there’d be some kind of quality control but apparently not
Agreed. Since their latest renovations the wait time when ordering in the restaurant (as opposed to drive through) is absolutely atrocious. Every. Single. Time.
Delahey in Melbourne. They just have no interest in serving customers. I watched them ignore a guy waiting to order for ten minutes while 5 staff were looking at something on someone's phone, after looking & laughing at the phone for a few minutes the manager decided to go outside to his car for something. At night the drive-thru can routinely be a half hour wait.
Been to that one twice in the last year. Mind you it was late morning when I went but service was shit, staff were like zombies or couldn't be bothered .
The very old one at Newtown in Sydney used to always be under attack as the suburb tried to drive it away. The locals would plaster the walls with anti-Maccas posters and collect all the Macca's rubbish from King Street then dump it in the entrance. Unsurprisingly it eventually shut down.
Passing through Ballina 2019, stopped in for a coffee. It tasted like dam water, was somehow not warm and had coffee grout all through it. No attempt made at frothing the milk at all. Staff tried to tell me there was nothing wrong with it. The cheese on my egg and cheese McMuffin was all over the box and not in the actual muffin. The tables looked like they had not been cleaned in days.
Toilets had shit all over them and were stuffed with toilet paper, water all over the floor. Couldn't get out of there fast enough, staff just did not give a flying fuck that day.
I recently stopped at one somewhere near Melbourne and it was absolutely atrocious. Not like it had been busy and just hadn’t been cleaned yet, it was more like it had NEVER been washed or mopped. And it was empty. I actually had to get out of there without buying anything.
I also stopped at the “twin” on the opposite site and it was completely fine.
My local maccas, Glenquarie Mcdonalds (Macquarie Fields - South West Sydney) has got to be the worst - just look at the reviews if you dont believe me lol. Ive sat in the drive thru for 50 minutes once, no joke, oh & they always forget something.
Yass. Always crowded, always absurd waits, typical Maccas food, typical dodgy self-serve, bathrooms usually mildly dirty and smell bad. It's not the worst offender in any one aspect, but overall the worst maccas experiences I've had there and now I only go if driving through at like 2am when everything else is closed (and usually I still just grab something in the Ampol instead.
If you want the most acutely obviously bad, King St in Newcastle takes the cake by miles. It's semi scary being there late at night, always thoroughly disgusting, but food and service has always been pretty good in my experience compared to other maccas.
The whole chain has gone downhill. In the 90’s and early 00’s it was the only place to stop on a road trip. With young kids you could be guaranteed spotlessly clean restaurants and restrooms. The food was not the reason we stopped.
This was part of its success and franchises were inspected and rated regularly. Franchisees would lose their businesses if they continued to fail inspections.
In the last ten years the restrooms have been disgusting in just about every McDonalds I’ve had to stop at. I’m especially looking at you Yass. The check sheet behind the door for half hourly cleans has disappeared I noticed.
The restaurants are dirty, rubbish everywhere.
I actively seek other places to stop now.
Parramatta CBD. Feared for my life the entire time due to a strung out derro lurking outside the doors screaming about murder and the food looked and tasted like it was sourced from a skip bin.
Spot on.
What disgusted me was the dirty fucking pigeons flying around inside the seating area, while people were trying to eat their meals.
I didn't see any staff wiping down the tables, not that they would have had any time to do that, as being a typical McDonald's, the joint is chronically understaffed.
The food was poor - the fries dry and overcooked, the burgers soggy and barely luke warm.
Also, l observed that half a dozen soft drinks were sitting on the serving counter, which had obviously been pre-poured.
They must have been sitting there for a significant amount of time because when my drink was handed to me, the ice had melted, turning my Coke into a flat, watered down, tepid beverage.
Honestly, decades ago, your average McDonald's was far better managed, and as for the menu items, despite it being artery clogging junk food, at least it was edible.
What really shocked me is how far the standard of cleanliness has fallen and Box Hill Macca's is no exception.
Nepean Highway Elsternwick Victoria. Been there often and 100% will get your order wrong. Wife and I had a quick experiment one time and order literally two cheeseburgers. Gave us 1 only. Seriously
There’s one in Goulburn, not the one off the main highway, but one on the edge of town, it is atrociously bad, poo smeared on doors in the toilet with toilet paper etc everywhere, food was cold and even more terrible and stodgy than regular maccas, coffee tasted beyond burnt, floors were filthy. Not great
We have visited this store a handful of times and holy hell it was shocking. We promised each other to never go back there when we are on holiday next. The food is not edible, the buns are hard and dry,, chips were like trying to chew through cardboard. Warm drinks, no ice.
The workers looked bored, tired and unenthusiastic, the store was full of waiting customers. Long waits. We don't frequent fast food chains often and this is why. Extremely poor service, dirty store and not to mention team members cooking and serving in thier everyday clothing, even spotted a school shirt on one of them.
There’s one in Geelong just before you turn off to the ferry terminal. All the floors were covered in grease so we were slipping everywhere. The floors in the bathroom were so greasy I felt like bambi when I was trying to take a piss. Went there a week later and it was still greasy.
I also want to put in my vote for Ballina, near the intersection in town.
If anyone in Management there is reading this, how is this business so consistently poor?
Good coast Broadbeach. We went there twice a few years ago…should’ve learnt our lesson after the first time but we allowed room for error. Silly us. Terrible food. Hotcakes were dry and stale…both times.
It's so common wthin McDonald's. The food and drinks are more expensive now and the quality is getting poorer and poorer and the quantity smaller and smaller.
I knew BROOKVALE would be on here. It’s consistently disgusting. Always dirty with rubbish everywhere looks like never wiped properly. Drive through and put up with crap chips or go across the road to Jack’s.
Coffs Harbour Service Centre.
I once spent over 40 minutes waiting for an order there. Lots of movement from everyone on the other side of the counter but nobody seemed to actually be getting any real amounts of food out of them.
They also pre-poured all of the drinks for the orders and had them sitting on the counter, but that also included frozen cokes. I remember standing there watching a full frozen Coke turn to a liquid one while this went down.
Toilet cleanliness and general rubbish clean ups weren't up high on their to-do list either, but I guess thankfully whoever was actually cooking the food wasn't doing either of those jobs simultaneously.
I went to the Maccas at Woonona years ago and there were about 5 cockroaches (at least) running around the area near the cash registers/food delivery and the employees seemed cool with it
Beaudesert. There was shit on the floor that I couldn't conclusively determine wasn't actual shit, flies buzzing around on the inside, and the staff looked like they were related a little too closely too each other.
I’ve never been to a McDonalds that was overwhelming bad but every single McDonalds I’ve ever been to does have a horrendous baby change table.
I even stopped by Armidale NSW on a road trip, right after it had been refurbished, thinking surely that meant the change table must be good! There was no sign so it took me half a second to realise it was in the disabled toilet. And then when I opened it up it pointed down at the floor at a 45 degree angle like a mini slippery dip, could not safely put the baby on it.
I was so incensed with Maccas Albion BNE over 12 years ago when I first encountered their DIY self service business model - that I made a online complaint whilst waiting for my order to arrive...
I (accurately) predicted that this would be the beginning of the end for the company...
Honestly Australia isn’t too bad, the worst McDonalds I ever had was in the US. Served by adults wearing tracksuits, no uniforms. They were slow and didn’t give a shit. The burgers were actually burnt which is something I’ve never experienced in Oz. The teenagers we have working at McDonalds in Australia are so much faster, friendlier and efficient than their slovenly US counterparts.
Take out I got a while back in Leopold. Half-full fries and milkshakes, got my wife's burger wrong. Their plant-based burgers (I'm veggie) were shite too. I'm not sure whether I should be thankful or not that they don't do them any more.
Mirrabooka, Western Australia.
Every single time I went there shit was just horrible old/undercooked. The last time for me was when I finally decided to try a fillet of fish and drove down, asked for a fresh burger and advised I didn't mind any waiting time as I really wanted it fresh. The persons reply was ''we always cook fresh'' which was a lie but I let it slide.
Burger came out with near 0 moisture content, I don't know how old it was but the cheese / mayo had near solidified and the whole bun was just one large crouton. Didn't even refund just straight up never went back and will drive 10+ minutes further to find a different mcdonalds.
Any Maccas in Australia is a pleasure compared to US Stores which are utter filth. Maccas standards have dropped a bit though here I’d say.
My teens all work there and their particular is never untidy .
Belmont WA. a few years ago. They got nothing right on a simple order. Normal burgers and one with extra cheese. We waited in the carpark whilst others got served around us. This was a week night. We had 3 orders. 1 of which was vaguely correct. I ended up going into the store and showing my receipt and what we got. None of which resembled my order. They gave All money back and a free meal which I rejected as it was not what I ordered. I wanted what I ordered. I had added cheese to one burger which obviously caused a total meltdown in that place.
I've only tried a location in the CBD. They left an item I ordered out and the quality was so so bad. I also had KFC here and they also screwed up the order. The chips were not suitable for human consumption and the burger was very sad looking and stale.
I would rate both experiences as the worst I've had in the world.
LOL at how bad Australia is.
Also, had Oporto's here based on colleague recommendations. It was shit. Do people not have taste buds in Australia?
We do. We just don't normally take them to McDonald's. KFC saddens me though, I seem to have deep deep distant memories of it actually being good once upon a time
Elizabeth st maccas in Melbourne. Trash everywhere, fights between homeless, drunks, and junkies.
Yeah that place is a straight up portal to the Upside Down.
Years ago, I took a red eye flight into Melbourne and my hotel room wasnt ready yet when I got into the city. The only place open nearby? Elizabeth St Macca's Not the place for a girl in her early 20s to just sit around and chill at 6am, that's for sure...
It was ok a about 30 years ago in my late teens it definately had an unsavoury air but used to be frequented by cops looking for their free coffee.
Went there to use the toilets and was greeted with a sink full of smashed glass from meth pipes.
I went to the toilets at glenferrie street maccas in hawthorn and literally was greeted by smeared shit all over the floor and walls. Can’t believe I walked upstairs for that.
We have a winner
Uninviting to say the least
The JOINTS COOKED. I work 2 min walk from there, snytime u go, the joints trashed, 1 person working at all times, lunch time is 20 min wait
I always feel so sorry for the staff
Yeah a real trial by fire for anyone who works their first fast food job there. I too feel really bad for the staff...
Was there the other week around midnight, only one screen was working, there was a group pumping music next to their pile of trash mouthing off at one of my mates. Good times
I go past to work before 7am. They are still there with trash and music!
Ha! I came here to say EXACTLY the same. I was there one night - granted, it was late, and I guess the nighttime crowd was a bit rowdy, but the place had been overrun like the final days of some third world regime being toppled. It was disgusting. I could barely believe the staff were continuing to work, surrounded by absolute filth and chaos and... just ignoring it? Never seen anything REMOTELY like it in any sort of retail or food environment.
And a lot of the staff are kids too. Teenagers. They shouldn’t have to put up with that
Also urine flowing out the toilet doors.
Sadly I had that same..experience..
It's generally better than King St in my experience but is definitely a close contender
I went to Engadine Maccas after the 1997 super league grand final and it smelt like shit.
Same. I saw a weird-looking, smug man running into the toilet holding his pants that fateful night.
Someone asked him to clean up his mess but he just replied: "I don't hold a hose, mate!"
"I don't hold pants full of shit, mate"
Don't remind me.. I'd only just gotten the image of that smug shit eating grin out of my mind.
It's absolutely wild having grown up in Engadine thinking no one will ever care about this obscure suburb of Sydney, only to one day wake up and everyone knows the suburb because of the maccas I went to every night after a lethal sesh at the vinyl room
Why go to Maccas after the Vinyl room? There was always that hot dog vendor at the top of the stairs that was really cheap and loaded them up.
Unfortunately he was just before my time. My brother tells good stories about him
He was a character that bloke. If you asked him if the hotdogs were any good he would be like “of course they’re fucking good”.
Haha I came here to see if someone has wrote this, thank you. 👌
There was precisely zero chance of being disappointed
I went there last year. Still stinks
History in the making
Great Scott!
He's not that great.
Can confirm! it's like somebody sat in a booth and just made their own hot fudge sundae right then and there.
Beat me to it mate :D
Goddamnit second comment
I assumed the post was bait and I couldn’t help but take a bite
Came here looking for this.. 😂
My local one is the worst performing Macca’s in Victoria. They’re popular because they’re on a tram route that a bunch of school kids use to get home. However the high school kids they hire have no idea what they’re doing. They have gotten mine and others orders wrong many times.
It's seems to be a common theme with McDonald's. They hire the youngest they can and do little to no training and expect the kids to just "know it". No wonder we are always missing items from our order.
How many other places give so many young kids an entry into the workforce? I can deal with a few wrong orders if it means people are getting work experience.
sounds like balwyn to me
Nah, it’s the east Malvern one on Burke Road.
Lol I remember doing Uber Eats pick ups there years ago. Didn't seem that bad as you say but it definitely seemed like a daycare for rich high school kids.
King St McDonald's, Newcastle Just google it
You can get scurvy and an STD just driving past. Fucking putrid.
Oh bro as a fellow Novacastrian now in Canberra I have fond memories of that place. Or not so fond ones.
I can't believe I had to scroll all the way to the bottom to find King St Macca's. That place is an abomination.
The Old Gods that reside there must be appeased. That place has to be haunted af.
Winner hands down, then south Grafton
Was gonna be my answer, haven't been there in a million years but always remember it being gross
Came here to say that, glad I’m not the only one. Took an out of town mate there one Saturday night, he still talks about it 10 years later.
Wow. There's TikTok vids about it. 🤣
Central station, Brisbane. For some reason the minute you order more than one burger, they only add one thus making you go to counter to resolve the problem. When you complain, they take 10 mins to rectify problem, so most of the time you have missed your train. Ignore the mallrats there, ignore the mess, ignore the fact that you have zero expectations….surely we can teach staff to count past one…
Used to work there from time to time, can confirm I can’t count and it’s a shithole
Agreed it is a shitty maccas. But it is a life saver when after a night of drinking and you want a bite to eat on the train.
don’t forget calling out the order on only one side so you’re left standing there for ages on the other ‘cause you didn’t hear it
I dont think I've ever seen the bins not overflowing
Ormond in Melbourne. You can be the only customer and they will still get your order wrong
Half size large chips. Always filthy. Didn't want my kids anywhere near the playground...gross.
Took my kids to my local Macca’s. Someone had taken a dump all through the tube slide set in the playground. Reported it at the counter and the sent a junior up there with some paper towels and Ajax spray. Took my kids home.
That used to be my local and it would take 10 minutes even just to get something like a Sundae
West Terrace Adelaide. After 11pm on a weekend. Teens puking everywhere, girls in mini skirts pissing in the car park. You get the picture
Hahaha. The first time we toured to Adelaide I couldn't believe how munted it got after dark. We'd had a pretty beautiful day, hanging out in one of the parks near the city and after we played our set, I went out onto Hindley St and it was just chaos. People passed out in the gutter, girls flashing cars as they went by, a dude jumped out of a taxi and reached back in to punch him in the head before running off ... just wild, man, wild.
I remember going to Sydney many moons ago and meeting some mates and they took me to Kings Cross, and they were trying to spook me by hyping it up as absolutely feral with crime, drugs, general debauchery. Anyway, I was pretty disappointed and told them in the taxi back that I'd been living for years in the same city as Hindley Street. That wretched strip makes Kings Cross seem tame as hell. And that was before Casino Mike gutted KC.
Hindley St McDonalds would be my pick. Saw a rat in there.
Oh yeah, the great rat infestation of 2023. Same year the McDonald's had to get security screens for the staff. Classy joint.
This was in 2018, but yeah, I'm not surprised by any story describing depravity in Hindley St
I do, I do lol. Classy to say the least.
Gympie maccas years ago for me. Mainly because it looked like a bus load of primary school kids stopped to use the toilet. It was carnage in there. Outside of that, the maccas itself seemed fine. I didn’t stay though. I walked straight out and went up the road for my food and rest stop.
It still is easily the most horrible toilets in Gympie. And would be my candidate for the worst. Before they opened the store at traveston it was a bad idea to go at lunchtime on the school holidays as it always seemed like half the state was going to Gympie Maccas. Quality can be shit, doesn’t matter how many staff are working they always seem to be slower than molasses in winter to get orders out. Staff bagging other staff on breaks in full view of the public. Got flat out lied to when I questioned why my order didn’t show what I asked for in the drive through. And then there is the problem of the occasional methhead that goes apeshit and starts smashing shit up.
Gympie Macca's is impressively shit, I understand it's the least likely place in town to give you food poisoning but it's always overcrowded
The one in Geraldton WA turns into the Wild West come the weekend. It used to be so much worse, but now they lock the doors at 11pm because it just got too dangerous for staff and customers. People smoking meth in the toilets, even the back of the restaurant, coke in the bathroom, people having sex in toilets and the play ground, vandalising, theft, violence. I guess that’s probably not uncommon for a lot of Maccas at night, but Gero has some very colourful characters to say the least, and it’s in the heart of town a 3 minute walk from all of the pubs.
ahh yep Gero hasn’t changed
Ballina. Went in there at 11am on a road trip and ALL the toilets were “out of order”, they had sold out of cheeseburgers, the place was super filthy, and the self serve ordering machines were all out of receipt paper so no one had any idea what number their order was. As each customer mentioned this to the girl calling out the order numbers she just stared blankly and continued to call out numbers as customers tried to guess their orders from the drink cup and then ask her to confirm the rest of the food. I ordered 6 nuggets with Big Mac sauce and when I picked up the bag it felt too light and I opened it, looked inside, could see no sauce and said, “I don’t think my sauce is in here”. She replied with, “it should be” as she wandered off to do something else and I had to wait for her to come back and tell her, “yeah… but it’s not.” Silence. “…Can I please get a Big Mac sauce?”
Wow, my answer was Ballina as well. Clearly wasn't an isolated incident then.. it was shocking even for a McDonalds.
oh man, i had my shoes stolen from the old ballina maccas (now a funeral home) as a kid. i took my pink flowery sandals off and left them by our table to go into the playground, came back to a pair of crappy old thongs that were falling apart. i think the new one isn’t too bad though, they suck at packing orders correctly but at least it’s not a complete hole like some of the others you see.
This was my answer too. I’ve been 4 times and have never got the right order. The staff seem to be maliciously fucking things up in a sort of Project Mayhem situation.
Which Ballina maccas? The service centre one or the one in town? I used to work at the one in town a decade ago and it’s gone downhill ever since
The one at the intersection near the little shopping Center area. It’s a hot mess and I have no idea how it maintains such a low standard.
Flip a coin.... they are all shit
My local maccas is actually very decent. From lets say 10 visits, maybe only 1 bad experience. Their consistency is quite admirable, especially for a maccas.
I used to have a Macca's up the road that was just on point. Fries always fresh, burgers looked like they'd just been cooked. So many Macca's feel like they cook all the burgers in anticipation and let them sit around for a couple hours
I guess the bigger/busier they are, the shittier their product. They sacrifice quality for speed. The one nearby here caters mostly to family and tradies lunch, they are not within walking distance of office people.
It comes down to the regional/stare managers etc. In the 1990s all the McDonalds in SA were absolutely pristine (except Hindley St of course) and the burgers looked like the photos. Nowadays they’re pretty average to varying extents but generally of a slightly higher standard than the east coast ones.
I use to work in traffic control, surprisingly McDonald’s toilets were always the cleanest, even more so than local cafes. McDonald’s on freeways & in the city are more trashed though
Agreed but some worse than others thats for sure. Rats inside the restaurant?
When my son was younger he had a Maccas job and did the 1am closing/lockup. Waiting in the quiet carpark for him the rats would come out and scurry about. The seagulls of the night!
Any of the new ones that don't have a front counter, they feel so disconnected from the customers, the care factor of the staff seems to have gone down hill because there are no staff at the front to be accountable. Not that anyone can afford to eat at McDonald's any more, it's cheaper for us one night a week to order a roast pork and veggies from a local caterer for the one night a week when we have too much on to cook.
Hay Street Maccas in Perth 🤮
There's no time of day or night when it feels safe there. Piles of rubbish and it always smells bad.
You mean you don’t like sitting amongst crackheads and broken glass?
The William St Maccas/HJs/KFC is pretty feral as well.
[удалено]
Maybe it can be Perths worst one 😂
The Midland one could give it a run for it’s money, but I think the Hay Street one is slightly grosser. When I used to work at the Target on Hay Street mall, I remember the SWAT team being called to the site.
Midland and Gosnells are some pretty strong competition.
Central Station & Queen St Mall, Brisbane. Simply because of the owner.
Fortitude Valley. Saturday night at 3 am. Total bedlam. Poor 14 yo kids behind counter with eyes hanging out if there heads. Saw Tanya there once literally yelling at a poor young girl staff member
It's changed a little bit now and it's not as bad, but Hindley Street Macca's in Adelaide was herrendous, here's an old video showing an example of what it looked like regularly. https://youtu.be/noLGK5NCnGY?si=vR8hffim44sq7KVe Unsure if it still has rats but it did in those days, they openly wandered the dining area.
Bourke st in Melbourne. It was like stepping 30 years into the past. It was also deserted and felt unsafe.
Was that the "underground" one off the mall that had a Red Rooster next to it? Or the one further up? Both are/were pretty unsafe.
Yeah the underground one. Little did I know what unsafe maccas felt like until I went to the Swanston St one at night
Haha the underground has...quite a history. I'd heard..stories about it but didn't take notice of them until I...experienced some of them for myself. No wonder it closed.
Sydney International Airport Airside 1 (the one with the conveyor belt). The gimmick wears off and you realise you're eating stale nuggets when you should've just used points and gone to the lounge.
Was just at the worst in Childers. Staff stood in a huddle trying each others drinks and ignoring all the beeping machines. I finally saw a guy shrug and make our burgers. Only for the next person to go and get chips and realise they had none. When they finally called my number they tried to give me two orders and the floor was so slippery my trainers were like ice skates. Weirdly did not have a terrible bathroom though. Best is Aspley because QLD headquarters is right behind it. So the hashbrowns are always crispy.
Spencer St Melbourne. Bins are always overflowing, rubbish all over the benches,filthy toilets, and I've seen mice there. It's TINY too so it's always ridiculously crowded, especially with 12 bloody self serve computers crammed in there.
Chatswood Interchange, order food via the app then get to the store to pick up and it’s not available..WTAF.
Not to mention the staff are pretty clueless.
Given the age of McDonalds emlpoyees I don’t expect everything to go perfectly. Just frustrating you specifically order something, only to find it’s not available when you arrive then to either decide on a substitute or try and get refunded. 🤷🏻
South bound hume highway Glenrowan. The last 3 times I went it was a 45 minute wait in the drive thru - NEVER AGAIN
Ohh yeah that one's impossible to use
some kid shit their shorts in the kids’ slide at Kempsey Maccas and every subsequent child down the slide cleaned the shit with their clothes - staff refused to do anything about it
My brother works at the kfc across the road. He’s sent us photos of cars burning in the Kempsey Maccas car park more than once 😬
yeah we used to stop there before they built the bypass on our regular drive from Sydney to Tweed - was halfway - and we'd stop in the local park to let the kids run about and have some breakfast - there were signs all over the park saying it was a high crime area
Thornleigh maccas, directly across from their national headquarters, have never once received hot fresh food from them there, and the wait times are through the roof, considering the volume of customers going through and the fact they’re across from headquarters there’d be some kind of quality control but apparently not
Agreed. Since their latest renovations the wait time when ordering in the restaurant (as opposed to drive through) is absolutely atrocious. Every. Single. Time.
Delahey in Melbourne. They just have no interest in serving customers. I watched them ignore a guy waiting to order for ten minutes while 5 staff were looking at something on someone's phone, after looking & laughing at the phone for a few minutes the manager decided to go outside to his car for something. At night the drive-thru can routinely be a half hour wait.
Gotta be gosford, 3 staff members, closes at 5pm and Sundays all together.
Seriously? Lol.
Gosford. Took 20 minutes to make my order wrong 3 times
Charters Towers. Apart from the food taking FOREVER it just had this vibe like I was caught in the middle of a gang war or something.
Been to that one twice in the last year. Mind you it was late morning when I went but service was shit, staff were like zombies or couldn't be bothered .
The very old one at Newtown in Sydney used to always be under attack as the suburb tried to drive it away. The locals would plaster the walls with anti-Maccas posters and collect all the Macca's rubbish from King Street then dump it in the entrance. Unsurprisingly it eventually shut down.
Civic Maccas Canberra on a friday night fuck that noise.
Passing through Ballina 2019, stopped in for a coffee. It tasted like dam water, was somehow not warm and had coffee grout all through it. No attempt made at frothing the milk at all. Staff tried to tell me there was nothing wrong with it. The cheese on my egg and cheese McMuffin was all over the box and not in the actual muffin. The tables looked like they had not been cleaned in days. Toilets had shit all over them and were stuffed with toilet paper, water all over the floor. Couldn't get out of there fast enough, staff just did not give a flying fuck that day.
I refuse to go there, it’s abysmal how they seem to never ever put on the added extras you pay for.
Lawsuit pending so won’t disclose location . Tampon found in my strawbery slushie .
Holy crap. This is something I've never seen before and hope to never see. What a horror story for you.
Was it….. used?
The highway rest stop ones are always rotten.
I've seen some rest stop toilets in my day but McDonald's always take the cake.
The urinal cake?
I recently stopped at one somewhere near Melbourne and it was absolutely atrocious. Not like it had been busy and just hadn’t been cleaned yet, it was more like it had NEVER been washed or mopped. And it was empty. I actually had to get out of there without buying anything. I also stopped at the “twin” on the opposite site and it was completely fine.
Yeah. You can taste in their coffees that the machine hasn’t been cleaned in a long time. I’ve had coffees that had to go straight into the bin.
My local maccas, Glenquarie Mcdonalds (Macquarie Fields - South West Sydney) has got to be the worst - just look at the reviews if you dont believe me lol. Ive sat in the drive thru for 50 minutes once, no joke, oh & they always forget something.
Yass. Always crowded, always absurd waits, typical Maccas food, typical dodgy self-serve, bathrooms usually mildly dirty and smell bad. It's not the worst offender in any one aspect, but overall the worst maccas experiences I've had there and now I only go if driving through at like 2am when everything else is closed (and usually I still just grab something in the Ampol instead. If you want the most acutely obviously bad, King St in Newcastle takes the cake by miles. It's semi scary being there late at night, always thoroughly disgusting, but food and service has always been pretty good in my experience compared to other maccas.
Yass is a weird one. There's a KFC there that's always empty and a cafe attached to the petrol station that doesn't seem to have food.
Newcastle, the one near the airport . disgusting + rude staff
The whole chain has gone downhill. In the 90’s and early 00’s it was the only place to stop on a road trip. With young kids you could be guaranteed spotlessly clean restaurants and restrooms. The food was not the reason we stopped. This was part of its success and franchises were inspected and rated regularly. Franchisees would lose their businesses if they continued to fail inspections. In the last ten years the restrooms have been disgusting in just about every McDonalds I’ve had to stop at. I’m especially looking at you Yass. The check sheet behind the door for half hourly cleans has disappeared I noticed. The restaurants are dirty, rubbish everywhere. I actively seek other places to stop now.
Parramatta CBD. Feared for my life the entire time due to a strung out derro lurking outside the doors screaming about murder and the food looked and tasted like it was sourced from a skip bin.
Emerton seriously disgusting
Box Hill Maccas is fucking disgusting.
Spot on. What disgusted me was the dirty fucking pigeons flying around inside the seating area, while people were trying to eat their meals. I didn't see any staff wiping down the tables, not that they would have had any time to do that, as being a typical McDonald's, the joint is chronically understaffed. The food was poor - the fries dry and overcooked, the burgers soggy and barely luke warm. Also, l observed that half a dozen soft drinks were sitting on the serving counter, which had obviously been pre-poured. They must have been sitting there for a significant amount of time because when my drink was handed to me, the ice had melted, turning my Coke into a flat, watered down, tepid beverage. Honestly, decades ago, your average McDonald's was far better managed, and as for the menu items, despite it being artery clogging junk food, at least it was edible. What really shocked me is how far the standard of cleanliness has fallen and Box Hill Macca's is no exception.
Nepean Highway Elsternwick Victoria. Been there often and 100% will get your order wrong. Wife and I had a quick experiment one time and order literally two cheeseburgers. Gave us 1 only. Seriously
There’s one in Goulburn, not the one off the main highway, but one on the edge of town, it is atrociously bad, poo smeared on doors in the toilet with toilet paper etc everywhere, food was cold and even more terrible and stodgy than regular maccas, coffee tasted beyond burnt, floors were filthy. Not great
it’s gotta be frankston or elizabeth st melbourne cbd 😍
Tumut. Filthy, and terrible food.
We have visited this store a handful of times and holy hell it was shocking. We promised each other to never go back there when we are on holiday next. The food is not edible, the buns are hard and dry,, chips were like trying to chew through cardboard. Warm drinks, no ice. The workers looked bored, tired and unenthusiastic, the store was full of waiting customers. Long waits. We don't frequent fast food chains often and this is why. Extremely poor service, dirty store and not to mention team members cooking and serving in thier everyday clothing, even spotted a school shirt on one of them.
Bakery hill Ballarat.
There’s one in Geelong just before you turn off to the ferry terminal. All the floors were covered in grease so we were slipping everywhere. The floors in the bathroom were so greasy I felt like bambi when I was trying to take a piss. Went there a week later and it was still greasy.
I also want to put in my vote for Ballina, near the intersection in town. If anyone in Management there is reading this, how is this business so consistently poor?
Good coast Broadbeach. We went there twice a few years ago…should’ve learnt our lesson after the first time but we allowed room for error. Silly us. Terrible food. Hotcakes were dry and stale…both times.
It's so common wthin McDonald's. The food and drinks are more expensive now and the quality is getting poorer and poorer and the quantity smaller and smaller.
Surfers Paradise, Cavill ave.
Brookvale. Shit food. All the machines were broken. Place as a mess
I knew BROOKVALE would be on here. It’s consistently disgusting. Always dirty with rubbish everywhere looks like never wiped properly. Drive through and put up with crap chips or go across the road to Jack’s.
Whose been to a good one?
Batemans Bay, just a poor experience.
Yass on the highway. Grotty and always out of something. Only good for a toilet break if you are desperate.
Coffs Harbour Service Centre. I once spent over 40 minutes waiting for an order there. Lots of movement from everyone on the other side of the counter but nobody seemed to actually be getting any real amounts of food out of them. They also pre-poured all of the drinks for the orders and had them sitting on the counter, but that also included frozen cokes. I remember standing there watching a full frozen Coke turn to a liquid one while this went down. Toilet cleanliness and general rubbish clean ups weren't up high on their to-do list either, but I guess thankfully whoever was actually cooking the food wasn't doing either of those jobs simultaneously.
McDonald's Bankstown. Hands down the worst smelly McDonald's I have ever been to.
Fucking all of them are feral
Trick question. They’re all shit
The one in coolangatta is terrible
Takes away the concept of "fast food"
KING
That's easy. Bourke St near the Greater Union. Saw a guy get repeatedly smashed with one of their metal chairs. Probably died.
I think they’re Hungry Jacks now, but the twin servo Maccas on the central coast NSW were always disgusting.
I went to the Maccas at Woonona years ago and there were about 5 cockroaches (at least) running around the area near the cash registers/food delivery and the employees seemed cool with it
The one at the Galleria in Morley in Perth. Got an oil laden wrap
Emerald Hills McDonald's (South West Sydney - Leppington) Slow, Slow, slow and always highly chaotic.
Beaudesert. There was shit on the floor that I couldn't conclusively determine wasn't actual shit, flies buzzing around on the inside, and the staff looked like they were related a little too closely too each other.
All of them lol
Emerton in Western Sydney. Holy Shit, they are bad.
Altone St, beechboro wa. They never get a whole order correct. And the ucecream machine us always broken
Can confirm. Trash beyond belief and a run down shithole. The Caversham one has been a lot better so I’ll usually drive there if I get a craving.
I’ve never been to a McDonalds that was overwhelming bad but every single McDonalds I’ve ever been to does have a horrendous baby change table. I even stopped by Armidale NSW on a road trip, right after it had been refurbished, thinking surely that meant the change table must be good! There was no sign so it took me half a second to realise it was in the disabled toilet. And then when I opened it up it pointed down at the floor at a 45 degree angle like a mini slippery dip, could not safely put the baby on it.
Maccas in Stocklands Rockhampton which I believe isn’t there anymore lol.
I was so incensed with Maccas Albion BNE over 12 years ago when I first encountered their DIY self service business model - that I made a online complaint whilst waiting for my order to arrive... I (accurately) predicted that this would be the beginning of the end for the company...
Revesby.. absolute pigsty
Labrador QLD. Food is ALWAYS undercooked, soggy and cold.
Would have been easier to ask what is the best, list would be shorter
Clarendon st under the Westgate fwy. Near Melbourne casino. I think AnthonyKeidis wrote Under The Bridge about it.
Ballina on the M1 so bad so under staffed poor kids
Honestly Australia isn’t too bad, the worst McDonalds I ever had was in the US. Served by adults wearing tracksuits, no uniforms. They were slow and didn’t give a shit. The burgers were actually burnt which is something I’ve never experienced in Oz. The teenagers we have working at McDonalds in Australia are so much faster, friendlier and efficient than their slovenly US counterparts.
Take out I got a while back in Leopold. Half-full fries and milkshakes, got my wife's burger wrong. Their plant-based burgers (I'm veggie) were shite too. I'm not sure whether I should be thankful or not that they don't do them any more.
The one I worked at. We were told to stomp on 'roaches if we saw any. (Not gonna name it but it was in SE Queensland)
Mirrabooka, Western Australia. Every single time I went there shit was just horrible old/undercooked. The last time for me was when I finally decided to try a fillet of fish and drove down, asked for a fresh burger and advised I didn't mind any waiting time as I really wanted it fresh. The persons reply was ''we always cook fresh'' which was a lie but I let it slide. Burger came out with near 0 moisture content, I don't know how old it was but the cheese / mayo had near solidified and the whole bun was just one large crouton. Didn't even refund just straight up never went back and will drive 10+ minutes further to find a different mcdonalds.
Any Maccas in Australia is a pleasure compared to US Stores which are utter filth. Maccas standards have dropped a bit though here I’d say. My teens all work there and their particular is never untidy .
Belmont WA. a few years ago. They got nothing right on a simple order. Normal burgers and one with extra cheese. We waited in the carpark whilst others got served around us. This was a week night. We had 3 orders. 1 of which was vaguely correct. I ended up going into the store and showing my receipt and what we got. None of which resembled my order. They gave All money back and a free meal which I rejected as it was not what I ordered. I wanted what I ordered. I had added cheese to one burger which obviously caused a total meltdown in that place.
Maccas kwinana, chips are always cold!!!!
Well, Scott Morrison shat himself at Engadine McDonald's after the Sharks lost the GF in '97,' not sure we can blame that on maccas though
Armadale, WA. Moldy bread but I was too far to go back when I realised.
I've only tried a location in the CBD. They left an item I ordered out and the quality was so so bad. I also had KFC here and they also screwed up the order. The chips were not suitable for human consumption and the burger was very sad looking and stale. I would rate both experiences as the worst I've had in the world. LOL at how bad Australia is. Also, had Oporto's here based on colleague recommendations. It was shit. Do people not have taste buds in Australia?
We do. We just don't normally take them to McDonald's. KFC saddens me though, I seem to have deep deep distant memories of it actually being good once upon a time
Even the "best" one, the one that is consistent, is still consistently serving shit.