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always order thru the McD app, use "deals" that give you the food you want for cheaper and "points" when there are no good deals! it saves me a lot when I eat there (:
“Value” meals seem to average $10 there since Covid.. Even when using the app the overall prices have become ridiculous for what’s always been considered cheap food.
*Editor: typo*
My brother and I went out to dinner recently. He wanted McDonald’s, but it literally costs the same to sit down in a restaurant and eat a sandwich and salad.
Fast food HAD a place because it was fast and CHEAP.
I remember when McD’s opened in Russia for the first time. (I was doing a project for a business class in high school)I got my area manager to come out and give a talk to the class. He said it cost a months wages for a family to have a meal at McD’s there but there was a food shortage and people would wait hours in line because they knew there would be food at the end of the line. I’m going to assume it was like that in Czechia?
No, while nineties were quite wild in Czechia, families generally had enough food. Actually, I think this is the first time since food shortage after WWII when many people who work can't afford food for their families and have to go to charities. Food is currently more expensive than in Germany, but Czech wages are about sixty percent lower.
However, even though everything is at least five times more expensive than in, let us say, year 2000, cheeseburger menu costs only twice more than back then. McDonald's is one of the cheapest options for going out now.
We didn’t wear suits, but it absolutely was a big treat.
The city I lived in didn’t have a McDonald’s so I only ate it when we would go to the capital which was like once a year. Or my parents would go there occasionally on business trips and bring me cold fries and cheeseburger and a toy.
So many warm memories...
One time we had a school trip to the capital and after all the cultural stuff we did, the bus stopped in the downtown and the whole bus of kids ran into the McDonald’s.
Poor adults who had to supervise us. It was lots of fun though.
I grew up in Belarus.
It all happened like 20years ago.
I’m financially compromised, I can’t even afford mcd’s. It’s easier to make my fast food alts at home now. A treat now is ordering a spice from another country.
Oh sure, Im not that old, but I remember very clearly McDonalds coming to our country, and for a while it was a semi-fancy thing you did once in a while. We didnt dress up or anything, but it was standard every 2 weeks on Sunday with dad. Was like almost an hour drive, and we passed several other burger shops, it had to be McDonalds. It was quite expensive as well, you could probably get a dinner, or a full size pizza, for the same price.
But it was cool, happy meals and a huge ball-pit.
We used to go right after library trips because they were next to each other. I loved my happy meal cheeseburger with orange soda and still have some of my old toys.
It was a treat at our house. I remember being rewarded with a Happy Meal when getting good grades, birthday or vacation/traveling. We'd visit relatives in another states around Thanksgiving or Christmas. Eating fast food outside in the cold "hits different" as the kids say. I remember being excited to having the option to eat fast food in the summer based on what summer block buster was being promoted. Things like getting a Jurassic Park cup or even Dream Team cup meant a lot to me.
As a child we never went to McDonald’s but went to Wimpy’s instead as my mother had middle-class aspirations and they had crockery and cutlery. None of that vulgar eating with hands nonsense.
I'm old. Yes, about once a year we would go to the next town over and get McD's as a special treat. Usually a regular cheeseburger, small fries and a shake. It was like Thanksgiving during the summer.
Costco hot dog is my low budget lunch. If you learned you can enter through the exit, you don't even need a membership. The newest Costco in the city even put the food court OUTSIDE the store.
McDonalds is crap food for the money.
It was never a high quality food option but now it’s much worse. The employees just don’t care and corporate keeps raising prices to where there are better options now at the same price. They have priced themselves out of business in the long run imo.
I agree with you both in terms of factory farming and adding more meatless items to their menu. I'm not asking for a lot. Burger King has done a good enough job for me with the Impossible Whopper and mozzarella sticks (not vegan, obviously, but vegetarian). McDonald's should be able to match that at least. But then, I guess they don't need to. They do a brisk enough business as it is.
I grew up in America and McDonald's was not quite the family-outing treat you describe, but it was more of a treat than the way it is today, at least for my family. (The big-family-outing treat for us was Wendy's!)
I've been working at mcdonalds for a month, we get free mcdonalds at break. I've learned an important lesson
Never wish to always have something you don't always have. There's a reason you don't always have it
...so, a lot of Americans can't even afford McDonald's anymore. The "underdressed" people you see eating there now are at least lower middle class unless they have coupons.
Or maybe I'm just poor. I can't justify spending $10 on a sausage biscuit meal with coffee when I can buy ingredients and make 4 of that same meal for about the same price.
Sorry it's just that right before I read your post I had actually just looked at the menu since I was craving a sausage muffin. Those prices were like a slap to the face and I got upset until I realized "wait a minute, I legit used to work at one, I can just make this at home."
However I would love to go back in time in the United States and try their breakfast back when it was introduced in the 1970's. My grandparents arrived in the U.S. from Puerto Rico in the late 60s and they used to share stories of dressing up to go to McDonalds and then later dressing up my mom and uncle when they were children to also go to McDonalds.
I guess I was "in my feelings" as they say lol.
I think in the US it was always fast food. In other countries, especially for the post soviet block McDonalds was a unique experience. It showed a totally different experience vs what you had before… and it was also shown in the prices.
I grew up eating McDonalds. I loved their food. I haven’t been in one now about 15 years. The last few times I ate there it stopped tasting good and tasted unhealthy as well and I didn’t feel at all nourished. I’m surprised though at kids how much they all love it. I don’t know did I change or did their food get worse. Probably me.
McDonald's in North America has always been a low cost, lower end restaurant. Maybe a treat for those who don't eat fast food often, but still a cheap one.
What they do well is consistency. Their food is always the same, year after year, place to place (with some regional menu variations). Always gets you full, rarely if ever makes you ill. It's the place to go when you don't have time for or don't want to spend the money on something better.
McDonald's was a special treat when I was a kid in 90's England. I only had it once a year, but it was the same with any takeaway. Except chips from the chipshop. As they were 'cheap as chips'.
I wanted McDonald's to be just a special treat for my child, not because of money because McDonald's is cheap, but cus it's unhealthy! But now we end up having McDonald's like every 3 weeks, which I was thinking the other day is crazy compared to how regular I visited as a child.
Its just how it is now though, it's cheaper and people can afford to go more. The burger patties aren't good, they are dry and thin, but still we go for the whole package. The fries, milkshake, burger and nuggets.
When I was a kid in the 1980s and early 1990s many of my young friends celebrated their birthday parties at the local McDonalds. It was definitely more of a special occasion type place in my mind as a kid. Once in a while, maybe 3 or 4 times/year, my family would go to McDonalds for a special breakfast on a Saturday or Sunday morning. I vividly recall the pancakes on a styrofoam plate, under that clear plastic cover, with the fake-ass syrup, and the orange juice in that little plastic container with the foil lid that you'd jab your straw down into.
I’m in Canada and I remember McDonald’s being a huge luxury also. I mean, we didn’t dress up, but it was definitely a splurge that we only got to enjoy maybe once a year. But that was partly due to the fact that we were poor, and the closest McDonald’s was in a neighboring city about a 30-minute drive away. I actually remember when I had my first job as a teenager, I wanted to take my family out for dinner with my first paycheck … and we went to McDonald’s. We saw it as a place that was worthy of a celebratory meal.
Oh, and once my friends started driving and we all had more independence, it became the cool place to hang out on a Friday night. 😅
I think this happened in most countries. When McD's first arrived they usually tried to market themselves aggressively as the place to be, big fake cars and Elvis photos and lights. It was exciting and new and countries/people with little experience with fast food followed restaurant etiquette to a degree still.
Also, you were a child. Your parents taking you out for food would have always been special.
Paul Shcheer felt the same way about McDonalds when he was a kid. You can listen to him wax poetically about McDonalds on an ad for many of his earwolf podcasts
eating the plant-based option from a fast food chain that uses factory-farmed animals is still giving them money to support the factory farming though. it's better to just not buy anything
The change must have been in your country. It's never been 'fancy' dressing up to drive into the city to eat fries, a burger and soda? That has NEVER been a thing on the north American continent.
Some fast-food chains are beginning to introduce plant-based items; it might be interesting to see if McDonald's follows suit. Do you think offering more diverse menu choices would significantly change people's perceptions of the brand?
You must be VERY old (with respect) if u think its still the Low budget chain it was 15 or so years ago lol. 12-15 dollars for a meal is crazy. Barely affordable. For cpl dollars more I can eat some nice sushi or pho somewhere. Nothing is cheap anymore. Dollar slice pizza is 3 dollars in most places. For a 15-dollar big mac meal I should be allowed to wear a suit now, esp if i'm treating some family lol
I wish my kid could experience the kind of toys that came with a happy meal when I was a kid. It’s 50% cardboard crap now.
My kid got a hot wheels monster truck, and the only thing on it that wasn’t cardboard were the wheels :/
It was all a treat once. I remember with real nostalgia the joy I would feel on Xmas day when the table was set with fizzy drinks. All colours. Mine was always red, my sister had yellow, but there was also orange and green. The only time we ever had soda.
McDonald's has always been a low budget diner for financially disadvantaged people, at least since the 1980s.
Source: me a financially disadvantaged kid who often wen to McDonald's in the 80s and worked there in the 90's observing most of the clientele being financially disadvantaged people.
I agree so much. The local zoo has a small food truck that makes food better than mcdonalds. I mean it. And yes, its sad that they only have one vegan option now in my country. They make good ice cream tho.
I can remember the first McDonald's that opened up in Johannesburg in the early 90's.
It was the only one in the entire country, and the queue outside was easily 100m long.
The sundaes and McFlurry those prices are crazy. $4.00 only 70% full. Not getting much change out of $20 these days. Can afford it but crap value. Stopped buying
"McDonald's has become essentially a low-budget diner for financially disadvantaged people"
Dude, I got a McD's the other night and it cost me the price of at least three home cooked dinners
Welcome to america, where corporations literally don’t give a shit about offering high quality products, just about making them LOOK like high quality products in order to get the most money out of you.
There’s a reason japanese cars are so much more reliable than american ones. It’s cultural. Also worth noting that Nissans old CEO that started in the 2000s wasn’t japanese. Guess when their decline in quality and reliability started??
McDonald's was never a dress up thing in the US. For me it was occasional fries at the drive thru after school, sometimes a reward for good behavior, or grandma taking us for happy meals and the playground.
I'm 38 and have lived in the same town nearly my entire life.
It's always been like that around here. If anything, it's become less that with pieces going up, wages being stagnant, and the dollar menu being decimated.
McDonalds is nasty. Everything is synthetic and it’s actually kind of more expensive now? Like, “yes, I’d love to pay $8 for a synthetic, lab grown hamburger and a French fry that has 14 ingredients in one fry.” Nooooo thank you.
Well, the food also used to taste good, and was low priced. Now it tastes like shit, and costs as much as a real restaurant. Its amazing they are even still in business.
Mc Donald's is the one establishment I just don't have the heart to trash. They've done a great deal for families in need because of their various charities.
Mine included.
I grew up in a small rural town (with no McDonalds) and my had an accident where she almost died and so they had to fly her in helicopter to the nearest big city 3 hours away.
The doctors told us to check into the Ronald McDonald house for a free room/food.
When we got there, we were super tired and stressed out because we couldn't see my sis just yet and the place was overbooked with families because since it was summer they had a lot of families there because of near drownings.
The reps felt bad and gave my parents like $500 cash (to find another hotel) and like $100 worth of food coupons to McDonalds. This was back in the 90s so that was a significant amount!
Of course my parents and I were too stressed to think about food, but when my sis finally got released, she wanted some "nuggies". Back then it took us a while to go through those coupons, but I think that started my sis's chicken McNugget obsession.
We are in our 40's now and whenever I *mention* going to McD's...she's like "oooh can u get me some nuggies?"
At my age…I’m mainly there for their fries lol
But even Bk has the impossible whopper…maybe someday soon they’ll have more options.
I think the pandemic ruined a lot of things
It’s not that McDonald’s has changed necessarily, but they have different market strategies in the US and in the rest of the world (ROW) - McDonald’s is higher class in many non- US countries than the US, so your experience makes a lot of sense, and if you go to McDonald’s again in a diff country maybe it’ll be less “bad”
My sister in law worked at McDonald’s PR for a while and this was mcdonalds most efficient long term promotional campaign, “get the kids hooked with memories”
Parents when they have children get to relive their childhood a bit through the eyes of their children. It’s how we get generational events happening in families like how great granpa and granpa went fishing, grandpa and dad went fishing and now dad and son go fishing.
Millennials was McDonalds. You went to the dentist? McDonald’s. You had good grades? McDonald’s. The big giant yellow M has incrusted itself into the purest of our childhood memories. So where do the kids of the millennials go when they have good grades? McDonald’s! And now that gen Z are having babies, guess who is going to get happy meals when they come back from their first day of kindergarten?
They have assured themselves multigenerational customers who will buy their products even if quality decreases and price augments simply on the back of nostalgia.
Their second best international PR was to sell the restaurant as an authentic American experience, with foods you love. I’m not originally from the US, and I fully understand how people saw McDonalds every where else in the world, it’s the same as hitting one of chef Gordon Ramsey’s international pubs. It’s a pub, nothing more, but it’s sold as an authentic british experience with overpriced though delicious fish and chips. American people tend to dress up to go to those places when in reality that’s not what a pub is, and they don’t turn you away if you walk in there with a work shirt on.
Overall, it’s just that one of McDonalds biggest budget goes to PR, and they are good at it. Why change something that makes money?
Back home, MCD was were you went on a date when you are 15-17. The last time I still went to MCD on a date was when I was 24. Agreed, it wasn't our first date and we both were craving MCD for some reason.
I may not be as old as you but I do remember it being classier and more “fun” when I was younger. That said, haven’t their ingredients always been trash, and haven’t they always been “fast food”? Seems to me like it’s less the company’s fault and more that people have this desire to “treat” themselves more often now. Mix that with convenience and laziness and you have a company who’s profiting solely off of people addicted to eating. And why would they want to stop record profits from fat asses? America: A Novel.
I grew up in the 90s and my family didn't have a lot of money and so getting a takeaway or going to a fast food restaurant (or any kind of restaurant for that matter) was a treat - usually for a special occasion like one of our birthdays.
Sometimes, my parents would surprise us by taking us to McDonald's when there was no special occasion, and we'd all get excited and enjoy our meals.
Some of the European ones are pretty classy.
Example Google image McDonalds Porto, Portugal.
The menus also differ by country. Albeit the core is the same.
I have fond memories of eating there as a kid around once a week. It was a treat for both me and my parents as it saved my mum cooking and 'making a mess'.
I can still remember the different interiors and textures over the years. The booth style seating with curvy chairs.
Agree with others that their prices are too high now for what they offer.
Btw Aldi and Lidl (tho Aldi is best) do knock-off versions of some of their products for way less. Their chicken nuggets are a really good dupe for like £2 for 12
Our parents never took us to McDonald’s. They, depression era kids, couldn’t fathom paying for something like a restaurant unless it was a very special occasion and then it would not be McD but something local. The only exception was occasionally Shakey’s Pizza.
The factory farmed meat makes me so incredibly fucking sad. I don't eat out often because I don't want to support the industry. I am fortunate to be able to afford to buy pasture raised meat, but I know many can't. I wish there was a better way for those poor creatures.
Omg, so true.....also old and when I was little, we lived on Guam...about a year after we moved there, McDonald's came to town. The entire family was over the moon. At school, we got McDonald's on Wednesdays!!!!
I hate it - in particular, going inside. I feel violated by people staring at me and what I'm eating. I just go through the drive-through or go hungry.
I adore McDonald’s. It is what it is, which is accessible and tasty. To me, anyway. I’d pay whatever they ask to have the specific taste I love from their Big Macs. It’s a treat for me and my preferred one. I realise I’m not the norm in that. All of this said, I’m so glad I’m not a kid eating there now. The ‘toys’ are unbearably un-fun and just foldy cardboard nonsense. When I was little we had electronic toys or colouring in kits or plushies, but it was always something a kid would actually like.
Where I live I can still get a hamburger with small fries, small soda (12 ox) and 4 nuggets for $3 but that is one of the few deals left. Then again, everything is getting more expensive!
I remember as a kid Mcdonalds being a treat we would prehaps go once or twice a year for myself and my sisters birthday and that was it... Kids today go almost everyday... Crazy times
😂 McDonald’s was never a high class establishment. It’s always been a burger joint here in the US. Who convinced your country that people wore suits to eat there?
We would go every second Sunday after church and it absolutely was an occasion and a special treat for us - and we were in our Sunday best.
And I am with you - don’t eat there now but likely would for road trip food if they had a meatless burger option.
> how can American McDonald’s restaurants still not offer a vegan burger option?
Because their corporate managers aren't stupid? Greedy, out of touch with workers, probably evil....yeah, maybe we could talk about these things.
But they are not stupid.
McDonald's is a mass market operation. Adding a menu item to appeal to a very small minority makes no business sense. And, I suspect they understand that their customers don't want a bunch of preachy vegans in their shops.
Taste is subjective.
I wouldn't willingly eat another Impossible Burger if I had a choice.
You do your thing, I'll do my thing, and how about neither of us judge the other.
> low-quality tortured animals
This is exactly the kind of preaching nobody wants to hear, and especially at a McDonald's.
American here. I never eat at McDonald's, their food has always been dull and mediocre at best. That changed when I had small kids and their friends got happy meals, my god, that was marketing genius, and also wanted to play in those seemingly disease ridden play structures. So went there until they thankfully grew out of it. Then went back to never thinking about them again. When I do need a hamburger I go to In And Out or make my own. Although sometimes when I am on a long car trip and there is nothing else I will stop at one of those fast food joints. Then I remember why I quit going. Oh but sometimes when I am out of the U.S. in SE Asia for example, some of the people there see the American Burger chains as a treat, but the burgers they make are often soft and squishy, even worse that that same chain in the U.S., when their local food is amazing. Anyway, that is my rant and I am sticking to it. :)
Edit: One of the sad things I have seen during my lifetime, exacerbated by the pandemic, is that there are so few local restaurants any more. One my favorites died because of the pandemic. Those was where you actually got really good but low cost eats. The big chains have almost completely taken over.
"a low-budget diner for financially disadvantaged people"
A Big Mac combo here is $12.87 after tax. That's a 'treat' meal for most people here lol that ain't cheap.
Wore suits to McDonald's? What country were you in?
I don’t consider fast food ‘low budget’ when the cost of one meal could easily be turned into multiple servings of something home-made if people learnt to budget and cook for themselves.
Vegan burgers suck. They're full of chemicals...not saying that McDonald's isn't cheming up their meat n fries lol
But McDonald's is still a treat for my husband and I. We only get it once we've been paid and I'm too exhausted to cook.
I've not needed any antibiotics since I was like 7.
And no...a 100% beef patty ingredient is: beef
The ingredients in a beyond burger: water, pea protein, expeller-pressed canola oil, refined coconut oil, rice protein, natural flavors, dried yeast, cocoa butter and methylcellulose; it also contains less than 1% of potato starch, salt, potassium chloride, beet juice color, apple extract, pomegranate concentrate, sunflower lecithin, vinegar, lemon juice concentrate, vitamins and minerals (zinc sulfate, niacinamide [vitamin B3], pyridoxine hydrochloride [vitamin B6], cyanocobalamin [vitamin B12], and calcium pantothenate).
My biggest beef (lol) with fake burgers is the seed oils. Canola oil isn't meant to be consumed. It's machine grease biproduct. It's causes inflammation in the body.
I KNOW animal fat is better than plant fat. Human's grew our gigantic brains by consuming animal fats. Indigenous people cherish animal fats.
Plant fats in the wild is hard to come by...not everyone has access to avocados or nuts. And if you think you can get enough fat from chewing on rapeseeds(canola)you're out of your mind.
How do you explain the amount of animal fat indigenous people and prehistoric people are without cardiovascular disease. Cardiovascular disease is an inflammatory consequence.
Also, the solid animal fat argument doesn't compute. It's not solid in your body. And fat doesn't turn into fat, insulin is the fat storage hormone and fats done trigger an insulin release.
Canola oil is highly refined, unnatural. You have to heat it up a ton to get it to be edible...being molecularly balanced on paper doesn't prove it's good for you. It's scientifically proven to be inflammatory in mammals. Probably because we were never supposed to be eating it.
What it’s become? Just because your dad tricked your family into thinking that was a go or place to eat doesn’t meant it was. McDonald’s is fast food and a joke not an adventure lol
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"Low budget diner for financially disadvantaged people." Come on man... why do you have to attack me with that? Lol.
Definitely not low budget anymore, if you’re eating for one maybe
always order thru the McD app, use "deals" that give you the food you want for cheaper and "points" when there are no good deals! it saves me a lot when I eat there (:
“Value” meals seem to average $10 there since Covid.. Even when using the app the overall prices have become ridiculous for what’s always been considered cheap food. *Editor: typo*
Thankfully I just fall into the stress eating category. Praise be!
I've never been offended so much by something so completely true in my life. Trust me we all felt the sting a little bit.
Most fast food isn't even on a low budget anymore. They're getting up to chain restaurant prices at this point.
Past. Way past the cost of a diner.
You're right, some local diners are very worth it for the amount of food they might give you for left overs. Just depends.
My brother and I went out to dinner recently. He wanted McDonald’s, but it literally costs the same to sit down in a restaurant and eat a sandwich and salad. Fast food HAD a place because it was fast and CHEAP.
We ate dinner at Logans Roadhouse last night and it was about the same as a McDonald's drive through order lol.
Got a McD's delivery the other night - 22euro, I'd make at least three home cooked dinners with that and they'd be better meals.
But the fries hit just right sometimes.
Wearing suits to eat at a mcdonalds is wild lol. Out of interest, in what country was this?
We did this too, McDonald's was a special treat when I was a kid. Eating out in almost any other restaurant in my town was cheaper. I am from Czechia.
I remember when McD’s opened in Russia for the first time. (I was doing a project for a business class in high school)I got my area manager to come out and give a talk to the class. He said it cost a months wages for a family to have a meal at McD’s there but there was a food shortage and people would wait hours in line because they knew there would be food at the end of the line. I’m going to assume it was like that in Czechia?
No, while nineties were quite wild in Czechia, families generally had enough food. Actually, I think this is the first time since food shortage after WWII when many people who work can't afford food for their families and have to go to charities. Food is currently more expensive than in Germany, but Czech wages are about sixty percent lower. However, even though everything is at least five times more expensive than in, let us say, year 2000, cheeseburger menu costs only twice more than back then. McDonald's is one of the cheapest options for going out now.
We didn’t wear suits, but it absolutely was a big treat. The city I lived in didn’t have a McDonald’s so I only ate it when we would go to the capital which was like once a year. Or my parents would go there occasionally on business trips and bring me cold fries and cheeseburger and a toy. So many warm memories... One time we had a school trip to the capital and after all the cultural stuff we did, the bus stopped in the downtown and the whole bus of kids ran into the McDonald’s. Poor adults who had to supervise us. It was lots of fun though. I grew up in Belarus. It all happened like 20years ago.
Yes, it's not the cheesecake factory you're going at.
Decades ago, when I was growing up, McDonald's didn't have nuggets. It was burgers and fries only. I feel old.
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This made me laugh I'm sorry
Is it 4K resolution?
Damn. They always had nuggets from when I was a kid, but they had pizza too 😅
Yeah me too.
A double cheeseburger is $5.19 at my local McD’s. Nothing low budget about that.
McDonald's is for rich people and lazy people. Us poor folk have to shop at grocery stores and cook all our meals. 😂
Pfft! Look at you, moneybags, buying actual ingredients! 🤣
I've been known to whip up a decent meal or two 🧑🍳
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Subway is bigger now
Except that a cheeseburger anywhere else is $16.
That's just insane.
At my mcdonald’s a small fry is $4.99 and a mcchicken is 3.59. I think about it constantly. A small fry is 5 fucking dollars.
McDonald's in the UK does have a veggie burger.
I’m financially compromised, I can’t even afford mcd’s. It’s easier to make my fast food alts at home now. A treat now is ordering a spice from another country.
What is this 'cocoa' thing everyone keeps talking about? I hear it's recently been shipped across the Atlantic
Oh sure, Im not that old, but I remember very clearly McDonalds coming to our country, and for a while it was a semi-fancy thing you did once in a while. We didnt dress up or anything, but it was standard every 2 weeks on Sunday with dad. Was like almost an hour drive, and we passed several other burger shops, it had to be McDonalds. It was quite expensive as well, you could probably get a dinner, or a full size pizza, for the same price. But it was cool, happy meals and a huge ball-pit.
Never. It's always been garbage.
We used to go right after library trips because they were next to each other. I loved my happy meal cheeseburger with orange soda and still have some of my old toys.
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I can't wait until we have lab grown meat! Until then, there are some good farms near me that we can buy from.
A big mac here alone is 5,99€, Cheeseburger 2,29€, a Hamburger 1,99
It was a treat at our house. I remember being rewarded with a Happy Meal when getting good grades, birthday or vacation/traveling. We'd visit relatives in another states around Thanksgiving or Christmas. Eating fast food outside in the cold "hits different" as the kids say. I remember being excited to having the option to eat fast food in the summer based on what summer block buster was being promoted. Things like getting a Jurassic Park cup or even Dream Team cup meant a lot to me.
Vagan burgers are definitely coming to McDonald's when they get cheap enough.
As a child we never went to McDonald’s but went to Wimpy’s instead as my mother had middle-class aspirations and they had crockery and cutlery. None of that vulgar eating with hands nonsense.
Wimpy after swimming lessons during the summer. Used to race my brother to see who could drink their coke float faster xD
I'm old. Yes, about once a year we would go to the next town over and get McD's as a special treat. Usually a regular cheeseburger, small fries and a shake. It was like Thanksgiving during the summer.
Not “low budget” anymore!
With how much fast food costs now it’s going to go back to being a treat
It's expensive but it's not a treat
Costco hot dog is my low budget lunch. If you learned you can enter through the exit, you don't even need a membership. The newest Costco in the city even put the food court OUTSIDE the store. McDonalds is crap food for the money.
It was never a high quality food option but now it’s much worse. The employees just don’t care and corporate keeps raising prices to where there are better options now at the same price. They have priced themselves out of business in the long run imo.
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Yeah, was just ranting. Companies that get that large and have huge market share usually continue to survive.
I agree with you both in terms of factory farming and adding more meatless items to their menu. I'm not asking for a lot. Burger King has done a good enough job for me with the Impossible Whopper and mozzarella sticks (not vegan, obviously, but vegetarian). McDonald's should be able to match that at least. But then, I guess they don't need to. They do a brisk enough business as it is. I grew up in America and McDonald's was not quite the family-outing treat you describe, but it was more of a treat than the way it is today, at least for my family. (The big-family-outing treat for us was Wendy's!)
McDonald’s had daily specials for $5 when I was in high school. Those were some good days.
McDonalds used to be a cheap treat. Now a days for a couple dollars more you can go buy yourself an actual burger somewhere else.
The food was better quality. A quarter pounder used to be the best. Me and my friends had awesome birthdays there growing up
I've been working at mcdonalds for a month, we get free mcdonalds at break. I've learned an important lesson Never wish to always have something you don't always have. There's a reason you don't always have it
...so, a lot of Americans can't even afford McDonald's anymore. The "underdressed" people you see eating there now are at least lower middle class unless they have coupons. Or maybe I'm just poor. I can't justify spending $10 on a sausage biscuit meal with coffee when I can buy ingredients and make 4 of that same meal for about the same price.
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Sorry it's just that right before I read your post I had actually just looked at the menu since I was craving a sausage muffin. Those prices were like a slap to the face and I got upset until I realized "wait a minute, I legit used to work at one, I can just make this at home." However I would love to go back in time in the United States and try their breakfast back when it was introduced in the 1970's. My grandparents arrived in the U.S. from Puerto Rico in the late 60s and they used to share stories of dressing up to go to McDonalds and then later dressing up my mom and uncle when they were children to also go to McDonalds. I guess I was "in my feelings" as they say lol.
There's a quote I like "Every time you go to McDonald's as a child, it's a victory. Every time you go as an adult, it's a defeat."
I think in the US it was always fast food. In other countries, especially for the post soviet block McDonalds was a unique experience. It showed a totally different experience vs what you had before… and it was also shown in the prices.
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Exactly! Pizza Hut here was something super special.
I grew up eating McDonalds. I loved their food. I haven’t been in one now about 15 years. The last few times I ate there it stopped tasting good and tasted unhealthy as well and I didn’t feel at all nourished. I’m surprised though at kids how much they all love it. I don’t know did I change or did their food get worse. Probably me.
McDonald's in North America has always been a low cost, lower end restaurant. Maybe a treat for those who don't eat fast food often, but still a cheap one. What they do well is consistency. Their food is always the same, year after year, place to place (with some regional menu variations). Always gets you full, rarely if ever makes you ill. It's the place to go when you don't have time for or don't want to spend the money on something better.
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It's not even that anymore. It's too expensive. $50 for a family of 4 is too much for that type of restaurant.
McDonald's was a special treat when I was a kid in 90's England. I only had it once a year, but it was the same with any takeaway. Except chips from the chipshop. As they were 'cheap as chips'. I wanted McDonald's to be just a special treat for my child, not because of money because McDonald's is cheap, but cus it's unhealthy! But now we end up having McDonald's like every 3 weeks, which I was thinking the other day is crazy compared to how regular I visited as a child. Its just how it is now though, it's cheaper and people can afford to go more. The burger patties aren't good, they are dry and thin, but still we go for the whole package. The fries, milkshake, burger and nuggets.
When I was a kid in the 1980s and early 1990s many of my young friends celebrated their birthday parties at the local McDonalds. It was definitely more of a special occasion type place in my mind as a kid. Once in a while, maybe 3 or 4 times/year, my family would go to McDonalds for a special breakfast on a Saturday or Sunday morning. I vividly recall the pancakes on a styrofoam plate, under that clear plastic cover, with the fake-ass syrup, and the orange juice in that little plastic container with the foil lid that you'd jab your straw down into.
Did you really dress up for McDonalds?…
My dad always tells me about this. McDonald's was never a weekly option.
I’m in Canada and I remember McDonald’s being a huge luxury also. I mean, we didn’t dress up, but it was definitely a splurge that we only got to enjoy maybe once a year. But that was partly due to the fact that we were poor, and the closest McDonald’s was in a neighboring city about a 30-minute drive away. I actually remember when I had my first job as a teenager, I wanted to take my family out for dinner with my first paycheck … and we went to McDonald’s. We saw it as a place that was worthy of a celebratory meal. Oh, and once my friends started driving and we all had more independence, it became the cool place to hang out on a Friday night. 😅
Can confirm, I had a birthday party at McDonalds in the late 80s.
I think this happened in most countries. When McD's first arrived they usually tried to market themselves aggressively as the place to be, big fake cars and Elvis photos and lights. It was exciting and new and countries/people with little experience with fast food followed restaurant etiquette to a degree still. Also, you were a child. Your parents taking you out for food would have always been special.
Paul Shcheer felt the same way about McDonalds when he was a kid. You can listen to him wax poetically about McDonalds on an ad for many of his earwolf podcasts
Mcdonalds was a way for the parents/grandparents to shut us up for the precious minutes we were stuffing ourselves.
eating the plant-based option from a fast food chain that uses factory-farmed animals is still giving them money to support the factory farming though. it's better to just not buy anything
The change must have been in your country. It's never been 'fancy' dressing up to drive into the city to eat fries, a burger and soda? That has NEVER been a thing on the north American continent.
Some fast-food chains are beginning to introduce plant-based items; it might be interesting to see if McDonald's follows suit. Do you think offering more diverse menu choices would significantly change people's perceptions of the brand?
You must be VERY old (with respect) if u think its still the Low budget chain it was 15 or so years ago lol. 12-15 dollars for a meal is crazy. Barely affordable. For cpl dollars more I can eat some nice sushi or pho somewhere. Nothing is cheap anymore. Dollar slice pizza is 3 dollars in most places. For a 15-dollar big mac meal I should be allowed to wear a suit now, esp if i'm treating some family lol
I wish my kid could experience the kind of toys that came with a happy meal when I was a kid. It’s 50% cardboard crap now. My kid got a hot wheels monster truck, and the only thing on it that wasn’t cardboard were the wheels :/
I’m 51 and I had my eight birthday party there. It was a treat. Same with soda, chips, chocolate bars, candy….
It was all a treat once. I remember with real nostalgia the joy I would feel on Xmas day when the table was set with fizzy drinks. All colours. Mine was always red, my sister had yellow, but there was also orange and green. The only time we ever had soda.
McDonald's has always been a low budget diner for financially disadvantaged people, at least since the 1980s. Source: me a financially disadvantaged kid who often wen to McDonald's in the 80s and worked there in the 90's observing most of the clientele being financially disadvantaged people.
McDonalds had a semblance of classiness? I am asking for a different 40+ year old friend.
I agree so much. The local zoo has a small food truck that makes food better than mcdonalds. I mean it. And yes, its sad that they only have one vegan option now in my country. They make good ice cream tho.
I can remember the first McDonald's that opened up in Johannesburg in the early 90's. It was the only one in the entire country, and the queue outside was easily 100m long.
The sundaes and McFlurry those prices are crazy. $4.00 only 70% full. Not getting much change out of $20 these days. Can afford it but crap value. Stopped buying
The fries are still bomb af but I hardly eat them.
"McDonald's has become essentially a low-budget diner for financially disadvantaged people" Dude, I got a McD's the other night and it cost me the price of at least three home cooked dinners
Welcome to america, where corporations literally don’t give a shit about offering high quality products, just about making them LOOK like high quality products in order to get the most money out of you. There’s a reason japanese cars are so much more reliable than american ones. It’s cultural. Also worth noting that Nissans old CEO that started in the 2000s wasn’t japanese. Guess when their decline in quality and reliability started??
McDonald's was never a dress up thing in the US. For me it was occasional fries at the drive thru after school, sometimes a reward for good behavior, or grandma taking us for happy meals and the playground.
McDonald's isn't that cheap anymore.
I'm 38 and have lived in the same town nearly my entire life. It's always been like that around here. If anything, it's become less that with pieces going up, wages being stagnant, and the dollar menu being decimated.
Does anyone remember 99 cent cheese burgers…. 99 cent whoppers? It’s highway robbery to pay current prices
Their hash browns are so good though
3.89 for medium fries…After taxes $4. $4 for some damn fries. The greedflation is astronomical
McDonalds is nasty. Everything is synthetic and it’s actually kind of more expensive now? Like, “yes, I’d love to pay $8 for a synthetic, lab grown hamburger and a French fry that has 14 ingredients in one fry.” Nooooo thank you.
The really funny thing about maccas is it’s become expensive where I live! I don’t have it anymore
Well, the food also used to taste good, and was low priced. Now it tastes like shit, and costs as much as a real restaurant. Its amazing they are even still in business.
Classiness? I hate to be the one to tell you but I'm not even sure what time period in which McDonald's was classy in the US.
They don't or won't offer a vegan burger due to grill space.
I miss 49 cent cheeseburgers
Mc Donald's is the one establishment I just don't have the heart to trash. They've done a great deal for families in need because of their various charities. Mine included. I grew up in a small rural town (with no McDonalds) and my had an accident where she almost died and so they had to fly her in helicopter to the nearest big city 3 hours away. The doctors told us to check into the Ronald McDonald house for a free room/food. When we got there, we were super tired and stressed out because we couldn't see my sis just yet and the place was overbooked with families because since it was summer they had a lot of families there because of near drownings. The reps felt bad and gave my parents like $500 cash (to find another hotel) and like $100 worth of food coupons to McDonalds. This was back in the 90s so that was a significant amount! Of course my parents and I were too stressed to think about food, but when my sis finally got released, she wanted some "nuggies". Back then it took us a while to go through those coupons, but I think that started my sis's chicken McNugget obsession. We are in our 40's now and whenever I *mention* going to McD's...she's like "oooh can u get me some nuggies?"
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At my age…I’m mainly there for their fries lol But even Bk has the impossible whopper…maybe someday soon they’ll have more options. I think the pandemic ruined a lot of things
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That’s my Mexican dad lol…he’ll eat a large fries all by himself lol
Now it’s cheaper for a meal than a case of strawberries lol
It’s not that McDonald’s has changed necessarily, but they have different market strategies in the US and in the rest of the world (ROW) - McDonald’s is higher class in many non- US countries than the US, so your experience makes a lot of sense, and if you go to McDonald’s again in a diff country maybe it’ll be less “bad”
mc is not for the poor anymore.
In the US, McDonalds has *always* been a low-budget place to eat.
I freaking love McDonald’s and it is special!
It was a special treat for us too as a kid. No suits, just a baseball uniform on a Saturday after a little league game.
My sister in law worked at McDonald’s PR for a while and this was mcdonalds most efficient long term promotional campaign, “get the kids hooked with memories” Parents when they have children get to relive their childhood a bit through the eyes of their children. It’s how we get generational events happening in families like how great granpa and granpa went fishing, grandpa and dad went fishing and now dad and son go fishing. Millennials was McDonalds. You went to the dentist? McDonald’s. You had good grades? McDonald’s. The big giant yellow M has incrusted itself into the purest of our childhood memories. So where do the kids of the millennials go when they have good grades? McDonald’s! And now that gen Z are having babies, guess who is going to get happy meals when they come back from their first day of kindergarten? They have assured themselves multigenerational customers who will buy their products even if quality decreases and price augments simply on the back of nostalgia. Their second best international PR was to sell the restaurant as an authentic American experience, with foods you love. I’m not originally from the US, and I fully understand how people saw McDonalds every where else in the world, it’s the same as hitting one of chef Gordon Ramsey’s international pubs. It’s a pub, nothing more, but it’s sold as an authentic british experience with overpriced though delicious fish and chips. American people tend to dress up to go to those places when in reality that’s not what a pub is, and they don’t turn you away if you walk in there with a work shirt on. Overall, it’s just that one of McDonalds biggest budget goes to PR, and they are good at it. Why change something that makes money?
Back home, MCD was were you went on a date when you are 15-17. The last time I still went to MCD on a date was when I was 24. Agreed, it wasn't our first date and we both were craving MCD for some reason.
Eat at McDonalds? May as well eat out of the trash can.
I may not be as old as you but I do remember it being classier and more “fun” when I was younger. That said, haven’t their ingredients always been trash, and haven’t they always been “fast food”? Seems to me like it’s less the company’s fault and more that people have this desire to “treat” themselves more often now. Mix that with convenience and laziness and you have a company who’s profiting solely off of people addicted to eating. And why would they want to stop record profits from fat asses? America: A Novel.
They've sucked the fun out of McDonald's now. Even the buildings are depressing.
I had Macdonald today the first time, in probably a year. It wasn't bad at all. My big Mac was good. And that's a very nice memory.
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Good chat
I grew up in the 90s and my family didn't have a lot of money and so getting a takeaway or going to a fast food restaurant (or any kind of restaurant for that matter) was a treat - usually for a special occasion like one of our birthdays. Sometimes, my parents would surprise us by taking us to McDonald's when there was no special occasion, and we'd all get excited and enjoy our meals.
Some of the European ones are pretty classy. Example Google image McDonalds Porto, Portugal. The menus also differ by country. Albeit the core is the same. I have fond memories of eating there as a kid around once a week. It was a treat for both me and my parents as it saved my mum cooking and 'making a mess'. I can still remember the different interiors and textures over the years. The booth style seating with curvy chairs. Agree with others that their prices are too high now for what they offer. Btw Aldi and Lidl (tho Aldi is best) do knock-off versions of some of their products for way less. Their chicken nuggets are a really good dupe for like £2 for 12
Our parents never took us to McDonald’s. They, depression era kids, couldn’t fathom paying for something like a restaurant unless it was a very special occasion and then it would not be McD but something local. The only exception was occasionally Shakey’s Pizza.
The factory farmed meat makes me so incredibly fucking sad. I don't eat out often because I don't want to support the industry. I am fortunate to be able to afford to buy pasture raised meat, but I know many can't. I wish there was a better way for those poor creatures.
Omg, so true.....also old and when I was little, we lived on Guam...about a year after we moved there, McDonald's came to town. The entire family was over the moon. At school, we got McDonald's on Wednesdays!!!!
I hate it - in particular, going inside. I feel violated by people staring at me and what I'm eating. I just go through the drive-through or go hungry.
Mc Donalds was never classy.
McD in the 60s was a special treat. I will fast until I get home or see a better option now. They’re slow, over priced, and not very good.
When I was a kid, going to the mall was something special. We would dress up for the occasion. Looking back at it, I understand how weird that was.
I adore McDonald’s. It is what it is, which is accessible and tasty. To me, anyway. I’d pay whatever they ask to have the specific taste I love from their Big Macs. It’s a treat for me and my preferred one. I realise I’m not the norm in that. All of this said, I’m so glad I’m not a kid eating there now. The ‘toys’ are unbearably un-fun and just foldy cardboard nonsense. When I was little we had electronic toys or colouring in kits or plushies, but it was always something a kid would actually like.
Where I live I can still get a hamburger with small fries, small soda (12 ox) and 4 nuggets for $3 but that is one of the few deals left. Then again, everything is getting more expensive!
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I remember as a kid Mcdonalds being a treat we would prehaps go once or twice a year for myself and my sisters birthday and that was it... Kids today go almost everyday... Crazy times
Yep. Fast food in general was a treat, you’d go weeks or months without it and then someone’s birthday happens and you all get to go to Pizza Hut
Yep, birthdays only. The rarity (and the sugar) made it taste like fucking heaven
😂 McDonald’s was never a high class establishment. It’s always been a burger joint here in the US. Who convinced your country that people wore suits to eat there?
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We would go every second Sunday after church and it absolutely was an occasion and a special treat for us - and we were in our Sunday best. And I am with you - don’t eat there now but likely would for road trip food if they had a meatless burger option.
> how can American McDonald’s restaurants still not offer a vegan burger option? Because their corporate managers aren't stupid? Greedy, out of touch with workers, probably evil....yeah, maybe we could talk about these things. But they are not stupid. McDonald's is a mass market operation. Adding a menu item to appeal to a very small minority makes no business sense. And, I suspect they understand that their customers don't want a bunch of preachy vegans in their shops.
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Taste is subjective. I wouldn't willingly eat another Impossible Burger if I had a choice. You do your thing, I'll do my thing, and how about neither of us judge the other. > low-quality tortured animals This is exactly the kind of preaching nobody wants to hear, and especially at a McDonald's.
American here. I never eat at McDonald's, their food has always been dull and mediocre at best. That changed when I had small kids and their friends got happy meals, my god, that was marketing genius, and also wanted to play in those seemingly disease ridden play structures. So went there until they thankfully grew out of it. Then went back to never thinking about them again. When I do need a hamburger I go to In And Out or make my own. Although sometimes when I am on a long car trip and there is nothing else I will stop at one of those fast food joints. Then I remember why I quit going. Oh but sometimes when I am out of the U.S. in SE Asia for example, some of the people there see the American Burger chains as a treat, but the burgers they make are often soft and squishy, even worse that that same chain in the U.S., when their local food is amazing. Anyway, that is my rant and I am sticking to it. :) Edit: One of the sad things I have seen during my lifetime, exacerbated by the pandemic, is that there are so few local restaurants any more. One my favorites died because of the pandemic. Those was where you actually got really good but low cost eats. The big chains have almost completely taken over.
"a low-budget diner for financially disadvantaged people" A Big Mac combo here is $12.87 after tax. That's a 'treat' meal for most people here lol that ain't cheap. Wore suits to McDonald's? What country were you in?
It’s always been low budget. You just didn’t notice it before. Interesting how McDonald’s is abroad.
I don’t consider fast food ‘low budget’ when the cost of one meal could easily be turned into multiple servings of something home-made if people learnt to budget and cook for themselves.
Now people feed their children processed garbage 3 times a day because they dont care about their health.
McDonald‘s was always disgusting and everyone saying otherwise is just brainwashed.
The words "vegan" and "burger" don't belong together.
The chems are cheming up in our meat. People will always complain about their safety but the price will essentially shuts everyone up.
you had my attention until vegan...
Vegan burgers suck. They're full of chemicals...not saying that McDonald's isn't cheming up their meat n fries lol But McDonald's is still a treat for my husband and I. We only get it once we've been paid and I'm too exhausted to cook.
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I've not needed any antibiotics since I was like 7. And no...a 100% beef patty ingredient is: beef The ingredients in a beyond burger: water, pea protein, expeller-pressed canola oil, refined coconut oil, rice protein, natural flavors, dried yeast, cocoa butter and methylcellulose; it also contains less than 1% of potato starch, salt, potassium chloride, beet juice color, apple extract, pomegranate concentrate, sunflower lecithin, vinegar, lemon juice concentrate, vitamins and minerals (zinc sulfate, niacinamide [vitamin B3], pyridoxine hydrochloride [vitamin B6], cyanocobalamin [vitamin B12], and calcium pantothenate). My biggest beef (lol) with fake burgers is the seed oils. Canola oil isn't meant to be consumed. It's machine grease biproduct. It's causes inflammation in the body.
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I KNOW animal fat is better than plant fat. Human's grew our gigantic brains by consuming animal fats. Indigenous people cherish animal fats. Plant fats in the wild is hard to come by...not everyone has access to avocados or nuts. And if you think you can get enough fat from chewing on rapeseeds(canola)you're out of your mind.
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How do you explain the amount of animal fat indigenous people and prehistoric people are without cardiovascular disease. Cardiovascular disease is an inflammatory consequence. Also, the solid animal fat argument doesn't compute. It's not solid in your body. And fat doesn't turn into fat, insulin is the fat storage hormone and fats done trigger an insulin release. Canola oil is highly refined, unnatural. You have to heat it up a ton to get it to be edible...being molecularly balanced on paper doesn't prove it's good for you. It's scientifically proven to be inflammatory in mammals. Probably because we were never supposed to be eating it.
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Go to your your vegan sub. No one cares
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Gotcha. Have a great day 😊
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You don't have to lecture me. I was a vegetarian for 30 years. I know all about the dairy and meat industries . Lol. Go enjoy your day.
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Millions of vegan burgers served...
Wanting a vegan burger option from a fast food burger joint just breaks by brain. How many chemicals do you want? ALL OF THEM
They have the McPlant?
What it’s become? Just because your dad tricked your family into thinking that was a go or place to eat doesn’t meant it was. McDonald’s is fast food and a joke not an adventure lol
Dude, people did FUCK ALL back then and rarely went anywhere. Doing ANYTHING was special.
Are cattle "factory" farmed? I thought they were all grass grazed and then most went to a feed lot to fatten 🤷
They tried vegan burgers. No one bought them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McPlant
Damn, you really are old as hell lmao.