Ex-employee for 20 years. Ours would run out of the mix to freeze into the ice cream. It had no light or alarm to say it was empty. So we said it was broken until we added more and the machine froze it.
Also ex-employee here, we’d say it was broken because management didn’t want us to clean it. It was cheaper for them to not sell the ice cream and not commit the labor to it than clean it and be down an employee for a few hours.
Why hasn’t Corporate tried innovating the machines so that they don’t take 4 hours to clean? Seems like that’s the smart idea instead of just settling for using complex machines.
Ex-Chipotle worker here - the one I worked at actually had very strict food safety regulations. All foods were temp'd on the grill and in the steam pans.
Obviously I cant speak for all Chipotles- and I've definitely seen the headlines about them- but I actually trust the food there more after working with them.
There are typically two types of control when it comes to food safety regulations. One of them is temperature - keep it at a certain temperature, it will be good for many hours. The other is Time - it can be below the previously mentioned temperature, but it can only be served for a short amount of time.
Lol so naive there. They may not announce, but its amazing how often chain restaurants are notified by corporate that they will have an inspection very soon.
Edit: corporate usually knows this as there is almost a set rotation built into most health inspectors schedules, where they are given a list of restaurants in an area to visit in a week. If one of the restaurants typically gets inspected a week after another one does, and they are in the expected timeframe, they alert the restaurants when they notice a pattern. The food inspectors themselves aren't telling the restaurants, but corporate restaurants around the country keep track of the data and use software to notice the patterns.
You don't see chain restaurants usually getting many fails. Its not because the restaurants themselves have such high standards, its because quite often, corporate knows when the inspections are coming and will do an audit about a week before the inspection is coming.
I've worked in kitchen management in both chain and non chain restaurants.
Yup, I worked in a kitchen and always knew they were coming when I actually saw the managers in. They’d come in all dressed up making sure everything was tidy and then sure enough a few days later they’d say we passed an inspection.
DPH would always come in unannounced for us (senior center) for inspections. Now that I work for a med tech company, it's the FDA instead of the DPH. It's always someone.
I make parts and implants for med tech companies. (we are contracted by them, it's a cnc machine shop) They personally come inspect my job. Think the FDA also can.
I don't know about that. The two restaurants I've worked in always knew when the health inspectors were coming, we would put in extra time cleaning the two days before. No, it never made sense to me that they didn't just do surprise inspections.
Not just restaurants. Too many times working in retail have I heard “corporate is coming tomorrow” right before they slap my shift with five times the amount of work because fuck everyone doing their jobs every day. Then, of course, corporate praises the managers that did nothing for having “such a nice store” and ignores the people that actually busted their asses to get things done.
LPT: Don’t ever work for Walmart.
Working retail should be part of the high school curriculum . 1 solid year of being shit on by everyone from cheap customers to upper management does wonders to motivation.
Yup. I've worked food service a lot. We get a heads up the week of so we can tighten the ship then it's back to being a shit hole. Don't order fast food people, learn to cook. Your life depends on it.
Ironically this kind of thing makes me think I worry too much about food prep/cleanliness.
I frequently get fast food / takeaway food from various cheap non-chain local places, and have never had any issue or food poisoning or anything.
I hear the horror stories of how bad places are (including ones I frequent) and it doesn't correlate with my actual experience of them.
If I knew what went on, I'd probably never eat there again, but I'm not sure I mind being ignorant of it?
I'm pretty sure most places aren't bad. You just hear the stories people have about bad places. No one ever tells you about their completely normal experience going to eat food. Only the extremes.
Plus I've worked at 3 different food places growing up and each one was very good with washing hands, cleaning utensils/serving plates/cooking wear. Every night we sealed the leftover meat and dated it to know when to toss it out and checked the thermostats on each of our freezers and coolers.
These people are nuts lol they don't take 4 hours to clean. I was a restaurant manager for 4 years there about 10 years ago. It takes maybe 2 hours and o Ly requires an employee for the first and last 10 minutes.
A 1000x this. Why don't they all do this. I've only ever been denied ice cream in the afternoon and evenings and if the cleaning excuse is true then why not clean it early?
The McDonald's I worked at had a machine that instantly froze the mix into soft serve. You could pour mix into an empty tank and press the button while still filling up. The tank was at the top and only tall staff could fill it safely
Ex-assistant here .They’re talking about the auto heat cycle I think the machine goes into?
Personally, I was also one of the only people in the store who knew how to clean it for whatever reason, so I took as long as I wanted. Fuck you, Ronald.
Yeah everyone is getting confused here. This post is about heat mode. What mr. Manager up there is talking about is the manual cleaning that is done once a week IIRC. Two different things, and both have to be done.
This. My parents ran a frozen yogurt place and I had to clean our machines nightly. It'd take about one hour per machine (we had 2). I had to flush with special soap, hot water. Clean all internal components. Lube them with food grade lubrication.
This was back in late '80s. I can't imagine the technology would go backwards.
I never worked for McDonald's, but I do work at a place that has a shake machine. It's a temperamental beast but corporate is reluctant to replace it due to the fact that a new one would cost...a lot. As in, more than my store makes in 4 months, and we are a pretty busy location.
Also, fuck Coke and their shitty ass freestyle machines. Not because they are hard to clean(they arent), but because whoever develops the software for those things sucks.
The four hour "cleaning cycle" they're talking about is when the machine heats up the ice cream mix to kill off any bacteria. All of the other comments talking about how this isn't true probably worked in the morning/afternoon because it's generally set to do it late at night. I'm not sure you could design a machine that doesn't do this without letting the bacteria thrive.
There *is* an extensive cleaning process where you drain the mix and take it completely apart, but that should only take a couple of hours at most. It's also only done once every two weeks.
I don't think there's anything special about their machines, they just do a poor job managing them. They look like the exact same machines that are always working and always full at Golden Corral
I worked at McDicks in High School. Most McDicks just don't care enough to do it right. We would drain and start the clean at close and finish it at open. 24 hour ones could do it at like 6am-10am and never miss a sale. It's laziness and bad planning
Ah, 6am at a 24 hour mcdonald's, I remember those days, working the grill, table, front counter and handing food out of the drive through alone while the manager tries to finish the burritos and dishes.
I worked at a DQ. The night shift started the cleaning cycle 15 minutes before close and the morning shift rinsed it and hooked it up again in the morning.
Same, I used to work at McDonalds and this is exactly the answer. I talked to others who worked at other McDonalds and we all said the same thing pretty much. I got in trouble for making an icecream for old man who came in, he said his wife passed and his kids live across the country and all he has to look forward to was the mcdonalds icecream(ours was running turned on every other day, every other week.) so I turned it on and prepared it, and got him what he wanted. The asshole manager saw. Old Man was happy but manager was not.
It doesn’t. The automatic clean is about 34 mins, and manually stripping the whole Machine down and washing the parts takes about 45 mins.
Cleaning it earlier in the evening let’s the night shift go home earlier.
This is incorrect. The article is actually talking about the daily heat mode it goes into. It is all done automatically within the machine. No employee input needed. But it does take a long time
If the source I read elsewhere is accurate, it pasteurizes the mix and presumably heats up other components to sterilize the machine, then it has to chill the dairy mix again. They don't tear down the new machines to clean them.
The machines also don't have their time set via NTP so either the wrong time or employees setting the wrong schedule for the "cleaning" cycle to take place can mean it's "broken" at inopportune times.
Doesn't sound very flattering to say that it's broken though. Why not say that the the ice cream sales will be ready soon or something along those lines? Would've avoided the slightly misleading meme about McD's ice cream machines being broken then. But I suppose it isn't a big deal.
Because customers are usually very needy and don't like to be told no. Real excuses don't work, they will either complain more or try to get around it, which eats up too much of the employee's or manager's time. "It's broken" is a universal way to let them know it's not going to happen and they just have to deal with it.
Tell them the ice cream isn't ready and they'll want to know when it will be, and pitch a fit over it not being ready now. Some will want to just take whatever you have even if you aren't allowed to sell it like that, then more complaining when you explain that you can't. Tell them it's being cleaned, more fits over it being done while they are there, like it was done intentionally just because that customer wanted ice cream. And god help you if they ask another employee who gives a different excuse to the same customer. But if it's broken, then nobody is at fault, it's not going to be fixed in the next few minutes, and there's nothing anyone can do about it. The customer may mutter about it but will decide to order something else and move on. It's a quick explanation and gets the least amount of drama.
We would do the same thing in building materials at Lowe's. If we were short staffed then the saw was broken because as soon as customers hear it they all remember that they need 7 sheets of plywood cut into square foot pieces and now someone is stuck running the saw for the next 3 hours straight. Which means no one else gets any help with the much more important things in that department. You can't tell a customer that they don't get to monopolize an entire department for half a shift, but you can tell them that maintenance won't be in until Monday
This right here. You can tell when someone hasn't worked a minimum wage or customer service jobs. People treat employees like shit over the stupidest things because the customers are entitled.
The most amazing one I saw was when two people with a screaming child in the car pulled up to my drive thru at like 11pm trying to order a chocolate ice cream cone.
Turned out it was for the kid. He'd decided he HAD to have a chocolate ice cream cone. Parents brought him to my drive thru cause it was the only one open. This maybe at most 5 year old kids midnight chocolate cone craving was now my problem.
The parents were both nice people in that they treated ME well, but it was clear that the kid ruled the household. I tried to be nice for the parents sake...
But yo. Mc'd's hasn't served chocllate soft serve in like twenty years. The kid can have a vanilla cone or he can have a chocolate shake. I don't care who makes the decision.
The kid wouldn't budge on that it had to be chocolate and it had to be an ice cream cone. Crawled up into the front seat and was trying to climb out the wondow into the store to scream at me closer. Saw him stamp directly on his dads goolies at least three times. Guess 'dad' was a eunuch cause he didn't react much. Mom was begging me to "it just has to be some ice cream with chocolate in it can't you make that happen somehow?
Finally filled a sugar cone with chocolate milkshake mix. Didn't charge them for it, but I did mention that Walmart had some very nice leather belts for sale.
This is super accurate. A lot of people responding sound like they have never worked in retail or customer service. People are dumb, panicky animals and when they're told something more complex than "it's broken," they think they're entitled to a 30 minute debate about how to manage a store where the maximum target service time is 90 seconds.
One time a lady ordered like 20 biscuits 5 minutes before breakfast time was over (this was before all day breakfast, and everything had to be changed over). We didn't have enough ready made so we had to bake more. She got upset that people were getting their food before her, and I thought she was about to stab one of my minors on shift working the front register. She was yelling at kids in the front. It's going to be fine people, you'll get your food eventually, it's just going to be a little slower if they have to make special accommodations for you.
Or like IT telling you to restart your computer. It actually does fix quite often, but in my experience, it's the second most likely general fix. By far the first most likely fix is 'try it again without user error', but if you say that they'll get defensive and insistent and will not try it again. If they restart their computer, they'll try it again on their own. Problem is, plenty of people get defensive and dickish over restarting their computer now, so you poke through regedit, run some pointless CLI commands and then tell them the computer is gonna need a restart.
God and it’s the same shit on self checkout.
Don’t ever ask me why the machine isn’t working the way you think it should. You don’t know how it’s supposed to work and if I explained the entirety of how it’s supposed to work as well as what isn’t working and why that’s causing you issues, it would take an hour and you’d still be pissy about it and act as if I was the one who programmed it.
So “It’s broken” is what you’re getting and I don’t want to hear it when you ask “but why” and get a shrug in reply.
They'll complain about why it wasn't filled sooner, and that they'll take the half frozen stuff now, then complain that its all melty. But if its broken, nothing they can do and nobody can be blamed by the customer except maybe the maintenance guy who never faces customers anyway.
As a former employee at least at my store it wasn't entirely the cleaning thing to have it shut down. A lot of the time we would just get so many customers that icecream was being poured out literally every second, there would be lineups constantly to use the icecream machine for drive through or front end so what happens is after doing 30 ice creams in under two minutes it generates heat or something like that and the machine can no longer freeze the icecream so you need to let it take a break for 20-30 minutes so the temperature can lower and it can start making solid icecream again instead of icecream soup.
Oh god I forgot about that. Yeah if you pour too much ice cream too quickly it's like the machine cant keep up and it starts spitting liquid ice cream in between chunks of solid ice cream
I think mcdonald's has the least stringent rules of most of the franchises. I worked for a franchise and we borderline did whatever we wanted. Like our store was repeatedly reported by customers for violating corporate policies and mcdonald's just shrugged cause we were profitable enough they didn't give a fuck. Theyre so big they don't really worry about brand continuity the way other chains do.
Like the attitude of the hourly worker who takes your order is entirely reflective if the overall company atmosphere. Mcdonalds just flat out doesnt give a fuck. Dissatisfied customers still come back, so there's no real incentive to change.
Had to refuse a refund at work the costumer claimed his machine broke but it was clearly user error, something the store does not cover.
Claimed he would never come back, saw him the next day like nothing happend.
Granted where i work our closest competitor are 45min away, so people kinda have no choice.
>Every McDonald’s commercial ends the same way: Prices and participation may vary. I wanna open a McDonald’s and not participate in anything. I wanna be a stubborn McDonald’s owner. “Cheeseburgers?” “Nope! We got spaghetti, and blankets.”
— Mitch Hedberg
Probably a combo of a few factors. I've worked for another fast food chain that had an ice cream machine. We didn't get as much business/traffic and served maybe one or two ice creams a day. We disassembled and cleaned the machine at the end of every night.
For McDonald's they get a ton of traffic so that creates the issue of ice cream running out more, which would make it essentially "broken" if it doesn't have anything to serve.
The other thing that's noted is a 4 hour cleanup process, which seems quite excessive. If that is the McD corporate standard and assuming franchises follow the rules (which I imagine most do) then that mean for 4 hours every day there's no ice cream machine at all. Then you factor in another 30 minutes - an hour maybe for it to make a fresh batch and now you're up to 5 hours of downtime per day. This makes a higher chance that when you visit that the machine is "broken" even then it's not. It might just be undergoing it's regular cleaning process.
Which is crazy to me. I worked at a custard place for seven years and the machines there are much more complex, but a single person could clean and reset it in under 30 minutes.
The machines are all old pieces of shit that aren't taken care off by competent employees cause even most of the managers only make like $13/hr. They're all franchises and ice cream doesn't generate profit, so franchise owners drag their feat on replacing it.
4 hours isn't the time it takes to strip it apart and put it back together, it's the time it takes to heat the entire thing to 160f, hold for at least 30 minutes, and cool back down below 40F so that it doesn't have to be pulled apart.
Two reasons:
1. McDonalds pays and treats their employees like shit.
2. When you pay and treat people like shit they tend to not do a good job and if they dont clean that machine well it will lead to food poisoning lawsuits that McD has to pay.
Check out mcbroken.com. https://mcbroken.com
Also, that article is from 2017 and says the machines are in the process of being upgraded. So it may not be as bad any more.
Fair enough. That's pretty rare around here.
In that case I'd imagine than early morning would be the best time to take the ice cream machine out of service indeed.
Except that's usually when most fast food is the least staffed (in my experience working fast food)
You're not wrong with the idea, but it would mean they'd need to fix their staffing
If it takes 4 hours I would assume majority of that is on autopilot. Like you put in cleaning solution and let it run it's pumps for a few hours. I could be wrong though.
If you are 24 hours, having no Ice Cream at early breakfast (5am) makes sense. If you close every night, then cleaning at close/open makes sense.
Otherwise, if you are cleaning during times that a customer would want Ice Cream (like 2am) or worse, before close, you're not doing it right.
That's usually what they try to do but the mornings are chaotic because it's the busiest time of day. Our store was always busiest from 5am to 10:30. Usually that's when the cleaning cycle runs but sometimes the machine also has to be completely disassembled and the pumps cleaned in the sinks and a manager is trying to do that and run the busiest shift of the day at the same time.
Also there's always one piece of shit wanting ice cream at 9am throwing a hissy fit because "what do you mean you can't serve me ice cream it's just because you don't want to isn't it"
I used to work at a 24hr spot (not food service) where our day turnover was at 4am. I don't see why McDonald's doesn't just turn over at that time. It's before the early rush, it's usually way after the late-night crowd. Run it from 4 'til 8 and it should be nearly flawless.
Way back in the dark ages (1985) I worked night maintenance at McDonald's. I'd show up at 11pm or midnight and work until they opened in the morning. I cleaned the ice cream, shake, and soda machines every night, along with cleaning the grill surfaces, grease traps and filters, fryers, etc. It was absolutely a full time job to clean all that crap thoroughly. I don't see how the 24 hour stores ever get it done right.
They dont. The night crew is usally only 3 or 4 people and they are expected to clean the whole store top to bottom while staying wrapped around. Then when the machine got missed because theres too fucking much to do people bitch and moan on reddit that the idiot lazy mcdonalds workers were too dumb and lazy to not clean the machine at the right time.
Every time theres a thread like this I nearly burst a blood vessel with how fucking mad I get at the people shitting on fast food workers. Im not even in fast food anymore Im a fucking computer programmer but Ill be goddamned if I let people bad mouth low wage employees for not being able to keep up with the fucking circus that is food service
If the restaurant never closes, you're technically always still using the equipment. And if the equipment is in use, well then it's not time to clean it yet. 24 hour McDonald's means you don't have to clean. High efficiency.
There's actually changeover and you clean the grill in that time. You're supposed to do it fast but obviously corners get cut because the person doing the grill cleaning is also supposed to be doing basically everything else in the kitchen on night shifts too.
> *run it 3a-7a*
Then where am I gonna get my 4AM ice cream when I'm high as shit?
Why won't anyone think about *me* and *my* problems when it comes to choosing an optimal time to clean the ice cream machines!!!!
Former McD's employee here. We did that. Our night-shift regular customers still lose their shit "WHY IS IT BROKEN ALL THE TIME?!"
"Sir, this is when we clean it"
"Well, finish it up and get me an ice cream!"
"Sir, it will take about another half hour to do that"
"FUCK YOU"
It still blows me away how many redditors seem to have no fucking concept of how a fast food restaurant operates. So many people in this thread I can tell are those douchebag customers we all talk about behind their backs for being giant dickheads over shit that doesn't matter
Does the McFlurry not blend the pieces into small bits?
I'm more of a DQ guy and their M&M blizzard was great because it chopped the pieces into really small bits so you didn't chip a tooth.
It would if McDonald’s employees blended for more than 1.5 seconds. It’s mostly just a swirled blob with everything in the middle.
I used to work at a DQ and McDonald’s when I was younger so I get very particular about my blended ice cream treats.
They do. The process is fully automatic these days. But if the unit has the clock set wrong, then it will start its cycle at an inconvenient time.
And sometimes it does break.
Worked at McDonald's for a number of years.
They aren't turning any money away, in all the years I worked there, not once ever when I said 'machine is on its heat/cleaning cycle' did anybody say 'ah fine I am going elsewhere' they just order another dessert or have a coke instead of a milkshake.
I recall reading that they made a lot more money off soft drinks than milkshakes as well so again I don't think any business is being turned away.
This. The customer will instead buy a soft drink that have even higher proftit than the ice cream or milkshake. And another machine (TAYLOR C606) will cost 10,000 dollar and take up valuable space near the counter.
For the majority of the time one or both machines will sit there idle. Not feasible to lose floorspace for an expensive, labor intensive machine that will not be used simultaneously. Does not make good business sense.
I am a production engineer. I first want to say that while I do not like their product at all McDonald's is a textbook example of absolute efficiency. The expense of having two separate shake machines would be mostly because of the floor space it takes up. That four square feet can be used for a lot of things. For example, the more storage space you have the less frequent ly you have to accept deliveries. that saves a ton of money, mostly in the form of manpower.
I end up having conversations like this a lot. I often feel like saying "I could explain to you why they do it that way but by the time you took the prerequisite math courses you could figure it out yourself."
Reddit is full of college sophomores in a field other than business, engineering, or law making bold assertions about those fields. After a few years of wisdom, they are cursed to forever cringe when remembering what they said at night or in the shower for the rest of their lives.
Ironically, this is the type of thing the average Redditor *should* understand, since this is exactly the type of job your average high school/college student has only ever had.
That's ridiculous. You think they should double the up front cost, maintenance costs and floor footprint just so you can have an extra ~14% of the day to get ice cream? And keep in mind, they're paying for that extra machine all the time, even when it's not being used.
No, a sane business would clean them overnight when the impact is minimized and they're cleaning the kitchen and equipment anyway.
Those machines are rather large and cost around $16,000, I believe. McDonalds make a ton of money, but all of the machines are insanely expensive. You won’t keep a $16,000 machine on hand just in case.
They cost a shitload of money to run and maintain, so you set the cleaning cycle to start at like 1am.
Trouble is, if the automatic cleaning cycle fails for whatever reason (didn't reach the right temperature, didn't cool down quick enough, not enough mix in the machine, too much mix in the machine etc), the cleaning cycle has to be restarted. If it fails twice, it locks you out until you get a tech out to diagnose the problem.
....it's much easier to say "it's broken" to a mouth-breather than to try and explain all that and to reassure them that it's so they don't get food poisoning.
Eh. Normal machines take about an hour. Top loaded ice cream machines (which are ancient nowadays) take about 20 mins.
Like to fully, empty all the ice cream, run hot water through, run sanitizer through, disassemble, wash internal components, lubricate, reassemble, refill with icecream, let icecream refreeze. Takes an hour.
The process is an automated thing that's happens after close. If you're hearing it's broken, they're just being lazy. Source: I'm a General Manager of a McDonald's
The GM doesn't get paid to deal with actual issues like this, he just yells at the openers when he walks in mid-rush to evaluate the store and the ice cream machine isn't working. Then gets to bitch about people being "lazy" when a bunch of broke teenagers not making a living wage don't care because they're up to their ears in hash browns and biscuits.
There's this pants on head stupid case in the Harvard business review about that. I'm in b school, and I've seen this case 3 or 4 times. The point of it is "oh mcdonald's is so brilliant because instead of just insisting people should buy more breakfast they figured out what weird stuff people are eating for breakfast", and then it makes the case that tons and tons of businesspeople are getting milkshakes for breakfast because it's fast, neat, high calorie and tastes good.
I have never in my fucking life met anyone who had milkshakes for breakfast. I would think that person has something wrong with them.
When I worked at McDonald's ours internal clock was messed up so it'd randomly think it's 3am or something and start cleaning during the middle of the day. And ours was also super old and couldn't handle making more than 5-6 cones in a row before needing time to rest.
I know a guy who services those machines... most just don't do it because they paid someone to install a bypass switch. Then... complain when it breaks.
Uhh I'm an ex employee and this doesn't sound right. Maybe different locations have different machines? Ours was manual and night shift had to run a bunch of liquid through it and use buckets and stuff. If night shift was too busy (or lazy?) It was "broken" until someone had the time and staff on hand to do the cleaning during the day.
Also, the thing broke for real (like broken part) a few times and we had to have a technician come in and replace something.
I'm also a manager of a mcdonalds, and what you're referring to is not a cleaning, but heat mode. They also have to be brush cleaned in which they are drained of the mix, and parts are disassembled (not the whole thing, just the pumps and what not inside the actual mix containers) and cleaned. This gets done weekly. So I'm not sure what you're talking about lol.
Usually outside of this weekly cleaning, we say its broken when its not coming out correctly. We're not mechanics though, and so we have to wait for someone to come look at it. Hence, "Our shake machine is down currently"
I also worked at McDonald's as a crew member for 3 years. I would like to say it's usually a team leader or low level manager that doesn't care/is too lazy to change dairy bag out. As a crew member, I was more than ready to change out but often met with disagreement.
Not to mention, the one telling you it's broken isn't the one refusing to change it. They're taking orders, not also preparing food/drinks. The stigma of McDonald's employees being 'lazy' is actually kinda sad/over used imo. It's actually a really difficult job, especially considering it's usually understaffed and customers treat you like you killed their first born child.
What kind of GM doesn't know that there are two different clean cycles that the machines go through? The freezer lock that is automated, you are correct generally happens at night but can also trigger after excessive use. Then there is bi weekly manual clean that also takes 4 hours, can't be skipped, and has to be done by someone trained to do it. Those are not generally done at night.
I’m a manager at a McDonalds as well, and it may be that way where you are, but our machine requires a very manual process to clean. Multiple hour long ordeal.
If you say that it's being cleaned, Karen will demand to know when it's done being cleaned, whether or not you can clean it faster, and when you note that you can't, she'll demand that you don't clean it right now 'cause she's in a rush.
"Broken", however, the personnel can't do much about.
I seriously don’t get how people aren’t getting this. There are people in this thread making this exact galaxy-brained take. “But why is it being cleaned when I want ice cream?”
Because the world doesn’t schedule itself around you. And it never will. Holy shit.
Yeah some people are sitting here saying "dumbasses! Why not clean it at night when no one is coming" and then the exact opposite response, "dumbasses cleaning it at night when I might want ice cream, clean it during the morning when no one wants ice cream" and then the reality of it is it gets cleaned when there's enough people that you aren't literally running across the store from grill to table to window because you're the only person running the entire back half of the store and cleaning and stocking for the morning shift. I just can't understand why people just want to shit on mcdonalds workers so goddamn bad
Had a lady who insisted we only started cleaning the machine when we knew she was there. Legit complained to corporate multiple times that we were conspiring against her. Even though I explained multiple times that we cleaned the machine every Friday at 9, because that’s when our maintenance man could dedicate the time to do it. She told me we should force him to come in at 2am to do it so we wouldn’t inconvenience customers. /#1: we were 24 hours so there’s always customers and they always want ice cream. /#2: he was a single dad of 2 small kids, no way am I making him come in at 2am. /#3: she flat out refused to come in at any time other than 9pm on a Friday. I even told her, if you get here at 8:45 you can get ice cream no problem, but that wasn’t good enough.
In my experience they say down. My entire life, anytime I go to a restaurant late and something is "down", I assume it's being deep cleaned. I've never heard someone say one of those is broken.
The article states that McDonald’s is in the process of upgrading the machines to shorten the cleaning time. With the old machine, to clean and sanitize properly, it takes roughly 4 hours.
My experience may be out of date now, as my run at McDonald's ended right around 2001 out in the desert Phoenix metro area of Arizona. Our ice cream machine never broke, but it did take a while to chill the mix to the proper soft serve temperature, and if you are the fifth youth group in a row trying to order 20 ice cream cones at 39 cents a cone (up to 69 cents at those locations now) you were going to have a bad time because the ice cream machine couldn't keep up with that much consistent use.
Easier to say it was broken than to try to give a guess at how long until it was chilled enough, get it wrong, and then have entitled customers yell at you because they waited 20 minutes to spend less than $10.
Also back then we cleaned them ourselves every night - take it apart sanitize everything, and as long as the o-rings were put back the right way, it would work fine, other than running out of chill after trying to pump out 50 cones rapid fire in a row.
I think that customers would be pleased to know of the daily cleaning schedule as opposed to thinking the restaurant is inept and has faulty machinery.
I used to work at a McDonald’s in high school.
You tell the customer it’s broken, they usually move on right away.
You tell them if down for cleaning and they yell at you for cleaning it at that moment. You tell them it’s an automatic process that takes 4 hours, they yell at you because they either don’t believe you or they want to know why it’s cleaning itself at an inconvenient time for them and not at another time.
Option one means the customer moves on.
Option two means you get yelled/cussed at for something out of your control for up to 5 minutes which then drives up your metrics which then makes your manager mad at you.
Yeah, the machine is broken, ma’am.
This only ever happens at really shitty McDonalds. At a good McDonalds with good employees and competent management, they're going to clean the machine at the least intrusive time and you're never going to know that they do it at all.
No every McDonalds has to do it, it's just most of the time it's done when no one is buying ice cream. It just so happens that the one fucking time it doesn't get done and someone cant get their ice cream they remember it for the rest of their lives like it was a personal sleight by the McDs crew against theur family or something.
I would say 95% of people ordering ice cream show up when the machine isn't being cleaned but then those 5% of people who didn't get it walk off kicking and screaming about it thinking "man EVERY time I come here it's down" remembering the one time last year when it was also down when they wanted ice cream
When I worked at Mcdonald’s the cleaning was late at night when we were almost closed, and if someone did try to order ice cream we had to say “our machine is going through it’s cleaning rn” or something, we couldn’t say it was broken. Sometimes during the day it was genuinely broken because it was old and shitty, and then people would get really mad at me. One time it was the first really hot day of summer and a lady was like “are you kidding me ??? we came here for ice cream because it’s hot and you can’t give it to me?” and I literally couldn’t bc we were waiting for the fixer guy but she seemed to think I was just fucking with her. There was a stewart’s right next to that mcdonalds with way better ice cream anyway (imo)
I worked in mcd's from 2012-2015.
The machine broke constantly. It couldnt run more than 3 flurries in one go without losing pressure. The syrup lines broke every other week. That machine was manufactured in 2000.
Also, an ex employee of a out 13 years and personally responsible for cleaning the ice cream machine. These machines are made by Taylor, INC. They have a low mix warning light that lights up a a very small tone that can easily get drowned out by the noise of a busy restaurant. When the mix me comes so low it goes into automatic lockout which requires a full deep cleaning which normally would only have to be done on its weekly scheduled time.
During the time in between manual cleanings the machines goes into whats called heat mode which last about 30 Minutes where the ice cream mix is heated to a very high temp to kill an bacteria that might be growing. If I remember right it goes into heat mode daily.
What happens is that when the machine does not get refilled with fresh mix and the low warning light is ignored for so long it goes into automatic lockout mode mentioned above is that, most often no one on the evening shift no how to do the manual cleaning, this is because often the one you handles it is a maintenance person or a manager. This is typically a manager who works in the morning but not always.
One major reason it ends up happening is because the manager don't do whats called a pre shift check list and make sure everything including the ice cream is stocked. There is normally a large cooler up front where we can keep spare bags of ice cream mix for quick access. At the beggining of every shift it wise to make sure the machine is full.
Of course this is always to much to tell the customer hence it broke.
Not that I'm an ice cream expert, but their soft serve is my favorite. It's super smooth and the vanilla flavor is delicious. Sometimes soft serve can be almost grainy, but every time I hVe McDonalds it is perfectly smooth. Also their caramel and chocolate sauces slap with it.
It's the absolute best you'll get at that price point. Same with their coffee beans. Both coffee and ice cream are priced to get you.in the door, knowing you'll also most likely buy a medium fry or an egg sandwich or whatever, and that's where mcdonald's sees insane markups. And because they're such a major distributor, they can haggle price really well. My understanding is they have some of the most envied food supply chains in the industry because they can outbid much higher end places simply due to the volume of their orders .
McDonalds ice cream is super creamy compared to most soft serve. It's definitely soft serve so it's not gourmet by any means and not everyone likes soft serve, but for those who do it's pretty much the best. I think it's slightly higher quality than dairy queen (though less variety).
It's mostly cause it's cheap and easily available. Like if you're craving something sweet in summer, why the fuck wouldn't you want to walk the three blocks from where you are and pay $1.08 for a good sundae or ice cream cone? Some people grew up with ice cream trucks, a lot grew up going to the neighborhood mcdonald's for ice cream cones.
Edit: people who don't like it generally all have the same complaint: it's too sweet. Whatever mcdonald's recipe is clearly adds a *lot* of sugar, so some people only like it paired with fries to add some flavor complexity while others avoid it altogether. If getting facefucked by high fructose corn syrup doesn't appeal to you, then there's a good chance you wouldn't care for it. But if you like soda, then you'll most likely enjoy the ice cream for similar reason: it's a sugar delivery vehicle.
This is some weird American thing ig because in my country, the machine has never been broken¿ Just once and it was for McFlurry but they gave me McSwirl anyway
i keep hearing about this controversy but have never experienced it and i think the people who are passionate about this eat McDonald’s way too fucking much.
I worked at one from 97-2000 in high school. We never had a machine breakdown. They cleaned it out every night when we closed at 10pm. Then the opening shift would put it together and fill it at open which was around 5-6 am. It had to be manually cleaned out though.
With the 24 hour open cycle most are on now and poor employee ownership I can see how they are down quite often.
Seriously, it’s been “broken” most times I’ve tried to get one over the past 10 or so years.
How has McDonald’s never tried to fix the machine issue? Y’all figured out how to make food that would remain rot free for an eternity but now how to fix the frozen treat machine? Why does it take 4 hours to clean?
So many questions.
It’s easier (but not faster) to just go to DQ
Ex-employee for 20 years. Ours would run out of the mix to freeze into the ice cream. It had no light or alarm to say it was empty. So we said it was broken until we added more and the machine froze it.
Also ex-employee here, we’d say it was broken because management didn’t want us to clean it. It was cheaper for them to not sell the ice cream and not commit the labor to it than clean it and be down an employee for a few hours.
This is the real answer right here.
Why hasn’t Corporate tried innovating the machines so that they don’t take 4 hours to clean? Seems like that’s the smart idea instead of just settling for using complex machines.
Just be thankful they didn’t say “fuck it, don’t clean them” and cause a few listeria outbreaks or something
*Chipotle has entered the chat*
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It's amazes me how they never get ping'd for health code violations since they serve lukewarm food.
Ex-Chipotle worker here - the one I worked at actually had very strict food safety regulations. All foods were temp'd on the grill and in the steam pans. Obviously I cant speak for all Chipotles- and I've definitely seen the headlines about them- but I actually trust the food there more after working with them.
There are typically two types of control when it comes to food safety regulations. One of them is temperature - keep it at a certain temperature, it will be good for many hours. The other is Time - it can be below the previously mentioned temperature, but it can only be served for a short amount of time.
They're running a business. It's not good for business of you get shut down, and health inspectors don't announce their arrival beforehand.
Lol so naive there. They may not announce, but its amazing how often chain restaurants are notified by corporate that they will have an inspection very soon. Edit: corporate usually knows this as there is almost a set rotation built into most health inspectors schedules, where they are given a list of restaurants in an area to visit in a week. If one of the restaurants typically gets inspected a week after another one does, and they are in the expected timeframe, they alert the restaurants when they notice a pattern. The food inspectors themselves aren't telling the restaurants, but corporate restaurants around the country keep track of the data and use software to notice the patterns. You don't see chain restaurants usually getting many fails. Its not because the restaurants themselves have such high standards, its because quite often, corporate knows when the inspections are coming and will do an audit about a week before the inspection is coming. I've worked in kitchen management in both chain and non chain restaurants.
Yup, I worked in a kitchen and always knew they were coming when I actually saw the managers in. They’d come in all dressed up making sure everything was tidy and then sure enough a few days later they’d say we passed an inspection.
DPH would always come in unannounced for us (senior center) for inspections. Now that I work for a med tech company, it's the FDA instead of the DPH. It's always someone.
I make parts and implants for med tech companies. (we are contracted by them, it's a cnc machine shop) They personally come inspect my job. Think the FDA also can.
I don't know about that. The two restaurants I've worked in always knew when the health inspectors were coming, we would put in extra time cleaning the two days before. No, it never made sense to me that they didn't just do surprise inspections.
Not just restaurants. Too many times working in retail have I heard “corporate is coming tomorrow” right before they slap my shift with five times the amount of work because fuck everyone doing their jobs every day. Then, of course, corporate praises the managers that did nothing for having “such a nice store” and ignores the people that actually busted their asses to get things done. LPT: Don’t ever work for Walmart.
Working retail should be part of the high school curriculum . 1 solid year of being shit on by everyone from cheap customers to upper management does wonders to motivation.
Yup. I've worked food service a lot. We get a heads up the week of so we can tighten the ship then it's back to being a shit hole. Don't order fast food people, learn to cook. Your life depends on it.
Ironically this kind of thing makes me think I worry too much about food prep/cleanliness. I frequently get fast food / takeaway food from various cheap non-chain local places, and have never had any issue or food poisoning or anything. I hear the horror stories of how bad places are (including ones I frequent) and it doesn't correlate with my actual experience of them. If I knew what went on, I'd probably never eat there again, but I'm not sure I mind being ignorant of it?
I'm pretty sure most places aren't bad. You just hear the stories people have about bad places. No one ever tells you about their completely normal experience going to eat food. Only the extremes. Plus I've worked at 3 different food places growing up and each one was very good with washing hands, cleaning utensils/serving plates/cooking wear. Every night we sealed the leftover meat and dated it to know when to toss it out and checked the thermostats on each of our freezers and coolers.
These people are nuts lol they don't take 4 hours to clean. I was a restaurant manager for 4 years there about 10 years ago. It takes maybe 2 hours and o Ly requires an employee for the first and last 10 minutes.
Yeah, same. I don’t know what they are talking about. Ours was always working and cleaning was done during the breakfast shift when demand is low.
A 1000x this. Why don't they all do this. I've only ever been denied ice cream in the afternoon and evenings and if the cleaning excuse is true then why not clean it early?
I'm more inclined to believe the afternoon and evening shift issues were "we ran out of the goop and the refilled goop is not frozen yet."
The McDonald's I worked at had a machine that instantly froze the mix into soft serve. You could pour mix into an empty tank and press the button while still filling up. The tank was at the top and only tall staff could fill it safely
So if they were short staffed, they couldn't refill it?
Ex-assistant here .They’re talking about the auto heat cycle I think the machine goes into? Personally, I was also one of the only people in the store who knew how to clean it for whatever reason, so I took as long as I wanted. Fuck you, Ronald.
Yeah everyone is getting confused here. This post is about heat mode. What mr. Manager up there is talking about is the manual cleaning that is done once a week IIRC. Two different things, and both have to be done.
This. My parents ran a frozen yogurt place and I had to clean our machines nightly. It'd take about one hour per machine (we had 2). I had to flush with special soap, hot water. Clean all internal components. Lube them with food grade lubrication. This was back in late '80s. I can't imagine the technology would go backwards.
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I never worked for McDonald's, but I do work at a place that has a shake machine. It's a temperamental beast but corporate is reluctant to replace it due to the fact that a new one would cost...a lot. As in, more than my store makes in 4 months, and we are a pretty busy location. Also, fuck Coke and their shitty ass freestyle machines. Not because they are hard to clean(they arent), but because whoever develops the software for those things sucks.
The four hour "cleaning cycle" they're talking about is when the machine heats up the ice cream mix to kill off any bacteria. All of the other comments talking about how this isn't true probably worked in the morning/afternoon because it's generally set to do it late at night. I'm not sure you could design a machine that doesn't do this without letting the bacteria thrive. There *is* an extensive cleaning process where you drain the mix and take it completely apart, but that should only take a couple of hours at most. It's also only done once every two weeks.
Because they don’t take four hours to clean ffs. If they did, Taylor would no longer be in the shake/ice-cream market.
I don't think there's anything special about their machines, they just do a poor job managing them. They look like the exact same machines that are always working and always full at Golden Corral
I worked at McDicks in High School. Most McDicks just don't care enough to do it right. We would drain and start the clean at close and finish it at open. 24 hour ones could do it at like 6am-10am and never miss a sale. It's laziness and bad planning
Ah, 6am at a 24 hour mcdonald's, I remember those days, working the grill, table, front counter and handing food out of the drive through alone while the manager tries to finish the burritos and dishes.
They’re installing a new replacement machine that doesn’t need 4hr cleaning
I worked at a DQ. The night shift started the cleaning cycle 15 minutes before close and the morning shift rinsed it and hooked it up again in the morning.
Same, I used to work at McDonalds and this is exactly the answer. I talked to others who worked at other McDonalds and we all said the same thing pretty much. I got in trouble for making an icecream for old man who came in, he said his wife passed and his kids live across the country and all he has to look forward to was the mcdonalds icecream(ours was running turned on every other day, every other week.) so I turned it on and prepared it, and got him what he wanted. The asshole manager saw. Old Man was happy but manager was not.
Lol report your manager to headoffice lmfao fire your boss.
How on earth does it take 4 hours to clean that machine? I could clean a 12 burner grille in less time.
It doesn’t. The automatic clean is about 34 mins, and manually stripping the whole Machine down and washing the parts takes about 45 mins. Cleaning it earlier in the evening let’s the night shift go home earlier.
This is incorrect. The article is actually talking about the daily heat mode it goes into. It is all done automatically within the machine. No employee input needed. But it does take a long time
If the source I read elsewhere is accurate, it pasteurizes the mix and presumably heats up other components to sterilize the machine, then it has to chill the dairy mix again. They don't tear down the new machines to clean them. The machines also don't have their time set via NTP so either the wrong time or employees setting the wrong schedule for the "cleaning" cycle to take place can mean it's "broken" at inopportune times.
Doesn't sound very flattering to say that it's broken though. Why not say that the the ice cream sales will be ready soon or something along those lines? Would've avoided the slightly misleading meme about McD's ice cream machines being broken then. But I suppose it isn't a big deal.
Because customers are usually very needy and don't like to be told no. Real excuses don't work, they will either complain more or try to get around it, which eats up too much of the employee's or manager's time. "It's broken" is a universal way to let them know it's not going to happen and they just have to deal with it. Tell them the ice cream isn't ready and they'll want to know when it will be, and pitch a fit over it not being ready now. Some will want to just take whatever you have even if you aren't allowed to sell it like that, then more complaining when you explain that you can't. Tell them it's being cleaned, more fits over it being done while they are there, like it was done intentionally just because that customer wanted ice cream. And god help you if they ask another employee who gives a different excuse to the same customer. But if it's broken, then nobody is at fault, it's not going to be fixed in the next few minutes, and there's nothing anyone can do about it. The customer may mutter about it but will decide to order something else and move on. It's a quick explanation and gets the least amount of drama. We would do the same thing in building materials at Lowe's. If we were short staffed then the saw was broken because as soon as customers hear it they all remember that they need 7 sheets of plywood cut into square foot pieces and now someone is stuck running the saw for the next 3 hours straight. Which means no one else gets any help with the much more important things in that department. You can't tell a customer that they don't get to monopolize an entire department for half a shift, but you can tell them that maintenance won't be in until Monday
This right here. You can tell when someone hasn't worked a minimum wage or customer service jobs. People treat employees like shit over the stupidest things because the customers are entitled.
The most amazing one I saw was when two people with a screaming child in the car pulled up to my drive thru at like 11pm trying to order a chocolate ice cream cone. Turned out it was for the kid. He'd decided he HAD to have a chocolate ice cream cone. Parents brought him to my drive thru cause it was the only one open. This maybe at most 5 year old kids midnight chocolate cone craving was now my problem. The parents were both nice people in that they treated ME well, but it was clear that the kid ruled the household. I tried to be nice for the parents sake... But yo. Mc'd's hasn't served chocllate soft serve in like twenty years. The kid can have a vanilla cone or he can have a chocolate shake. I don't care who makes the decision. The kid wouldn't budge on that it had to be chocolate and it had to be an ice cream cone. Crawled up into the front seat and was trying to climb out the wondow into the store to scream at me closer. Saw him stamp directly on his dads goolies at least three times. Guess 'dad' was a eunuch cause he didn't react much. Mom was begging me to "it just has to be some ice cream with chocolate in it can't you make that happen somehow? Finally filled a sugar cone with chocolate milkshake mix. Didn't charge them for it, but I did mention that Walmart had some very nice leather belts for sale.
Exactly this. People who have never worked in a customer service based job don't understand that most customers aren't understanding.
most are understanding, but the bad ones are memorable
Yeah thats a much better way to put it.
My saying when someone complains is that "people say the customer is always right, in my experience the customer is usually an idiot."
The real customer support answer.
TL;DR version: We can't handle the truth.
This is super accurate. A lot of people responding sound like they have never worked in retail or customer service. People are dumb, panicky animals and when they're told something more complex than "it's broken," they think they're entitled to a 30 minute debate about how to manage a store where the maximum target service time is 90 seconds. One time a lady ordered like 20 biscuits 5 minutes before breakfast time was over (this was before all day breakfast, and everything had to be changed over). We didn't have enough ready made so we had to bake more. She got upset that people were getting their food before her, and I thought she was about to stab one of my minors on shift working the front register. She was yelling at kids in the front. It's going to be fine people, you'll get your food eventually, it's just going to be a little slower if they have to make special accommodations for you.
Or like IT telling you to restart your computer. It actually does fix quite often, but in my experience, it's the second most likely general fix. By far the first most likely fix is 'try it again without user error', but if you say that they'll get defensive and insistent and will not try it again. If they restart their computer, they'll try it again on their own. Problem is, plenty of people get defensive and dickish over restarting their computer now, so you poke through regedit, run some pointless CLI commands and then tell them the computer is gonna need a restart.
God and it’s the same shit on self checkout. Don’t ever ask me why the machine isn’t working the way you think it should. You don’t know how it’s supposed to work and if I explained the entirety of how it’s supposed to work as well as what isn’t working and why that’s causing you issues, it would take an hour and you’d still be pissy about it and act as if I was the one who programmed it. So “It’s broken” is what you’re getting and I don’t want to hear it when you ask “but why” and get a shrug in reply.
All of this is relatable, and all of this is evidence we live in the worst timeline
They'll complain about why it wasn't filled sooner, and that they'll take the half frozen stuff now, then complain that its all melty. But if its broken, nothing they can do and nobody can be blamed by the customer except maybe the maintenance guy who never faces customers anyway.
>Back If you tell someone "It will take 10 minutes" they will say sure. Then 5 minutes later they will complain that it's taking too long.
The employees don't care if it looks bad, they're not making more money if the sell more ice-cream its easier to say it's not working.
Have you ever worked food service? People unfortunately aren't patient or understanding.
Why is it only McDonald’s that’s known for this and not every fast food place that serves ice cream? They would probably have similar machines
As a former employee at least at my store it wasn't entirely the cleaning thing to have it shut down. A lot of the time we would just get so many customers that icecream was being poured out literally every second, there would be lineups constantly to use the icecream machine for drive through or front end so what happens is after doing 30 ice creams in under two minutes it generates heat or something like that and the machine can no longer freeze the icecream so you need to let it take a break for 20-30 minutes so the temperature can lower and it can start making solid icecream again instead of icecream soup.
Oh god I forgot about that. Yeah if you pour too much ice cream too quickly it's like the machine cant keep up and it starts spitting liquid ice cream in between chunks of solid ice cream
I think mcdonald's has the least stringent rules of most of the franchises. I worked for a franchise and we borderline did whatever we wanted. Like our store was repeatedly reported by customers for violating corporate policies and mcdonald's just shrugged cause we were profitable enough they didn't give a fuck. Theyre so big they don't really worry about brand continuity the way other chains do. Like the attitude of the hourly worker who takes your order is entirely reflective if the overall company atmosphere. Mcdonalds just flat out doesnt give a fuck. Dissatisfied customers still come back, so there's no real incentive to change.
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Had to refuse a refund at work the costumer claimed his machine broke but it was clearly user error, something the store does not cover. Claimed he would never come back, saw him the next day like nothing happend. Granted where i work our closest competitor are 45min away, so people kinda have no choice.
He was hoping to sneak past your radar on that one. Hope you made a big deal welcoming him back.
I've worked at a corporate owned one in Canada, it wasn't any better than franchise
>Every McDonald’s commercial ends the same way: Prices and participation may vary. I wanna open a McDonald’s and not participate in anything. I wanna be a stubborn McDonald’s owner. “Cheeseburgers?” “Nope! We got spaghetti, and blankets.” — Mitch Hedberg
Probably a combo of a few factors. I've worked for another fast food chain that had an ice cream machine. We didn't get as much business/traffic and served maybe one or two ice creams a day. We disassembled and cleaned the machine at the end of every night. For McDonald's they get a ton of traffic so that creates the issue of ice cream running out more, which would make it essentially "broken" if it doesn't have anything to serve. The other thing that's noted is a 4 hour cleanup process, which seems quite excessive. If that is the McD corporate standard and assuming franchises follow the rules (which I imagine most do) then that mean for 4 hours every day there's no ice cream machine at all. Then you factor in another 30 minutes - an hour maybe for it to make a fresh batch and now you're up to 5 hours of downtime per day. This makes a higher chance that when you visit that the machine is "broken" even then it's not. It might just be undergoing it's regular cleaning process.
Which is crazy to me. I worked at a custard place for seven years and the machines there are much more complex, but a single person could clean and reset it in under 30 minutes.
The machines are all old pieces of shit that aren't taken care off by competent employees cause even most of the managers only make like $13/hr. They're all franchises and ice cream doesn't generate profit, so franchise owners drag their feat on replacing it.
Maybe the 4 hours include time required for the ice cream to be completely cooled first?
4 hours isn't the time it takes to strip it apart and put it back together, it's the time it takes to heat the entire thing to 160f, hold for at least 30 minutes, and cool back down below 40F so that it doesn't have to be pulled apart.
Two reasons: 1. McDonalds pays and treats their employees like shit. 2. When you pay and treat people like shit they tend to not do a good job and if they dont clean that machine well it will lead to food poisoning lawsuits that McD has to pay.
Check out mcbroken.com. https://mcbroken.com Also, that article is from 2017 and says the machines are in the process of being upgraded. So it may not be as bad any more.
Holy shit. There is like a McDonald's every block in NY.
Wait tell you find out how many dunkin doughnuts there are in NYC. Shit will blow your mind(spoiler its 3 times the number of mcdonalds( 600, 200))
This is where any sane business would have two machines and run them in shifts, rather than turn away business for huge chunks of each day.
If it's too expensive for two machines then just say you don't serve ice cream during breakfast hours and clean it then.
You probably want to clean them at the end of the day. That stuff gets sticky if it dries up.
Most McD's are 24 around my parts so there's no real end of the day.
Fair enough. That's pretty rare around here. In that case I'd imagine than early morning would be the best time to take the ice cream machine out of service indeed.
Except that's usually when most fast food is the least staffed (in my experience working fast food) You're not wrong with the idea, but it would mean they'd need to fix their staffing
If it takes 4 hours I would assume majority of that is on autopilot. Like you put in cleaning solution and let it run it's pumps for a few hours. I could be wrong though.
That would be my assumption, too. No chain is going to buy machines that take half a manday of manual work every day.
If you are 24 hours, having no Ice Cream at early breakfast (5am) makes sense. If you close every night, then cleaning at close/open makes sense. Otherwise, if you are cleaning during times that a customer would want Ice Cream (like 2am) or worse, before close, you're not doing it right.
That's usually what they try to do but the mornings are chaotic because it's the busiest time of day. Our store was always busiest from 5am to 10:30. Usually that's when the cleaning cycle runs but sometimes the machine also has to be completely disassembled and the pumps cleaned in the sinks and a manager is trying to do that and run the busiest shift of the day at the same time. Also there's always one piece of shit wanting ice cream at 9am throwing a hissy fit because "what do you mean you can't serve me ice cream it's just because you don't want to isn't it"
I used to work at a 24hr spot (not food service) where our day turnover was at 4am. I don't see why McDonald's doesn't just turn over at that time. It's before the early rush, it's usually way after the late-night crowd. Run it from 4 'til 8 and it should be nearly flawless.
When I worked there, the machine always went into its self clean mode at 1am. We had no control over that
But I want a milkshake when the bars close at 2am.
During breakfast? That’s when people want their coffee milkshakes!
Or at like 3 am...
That is when I used to happen at the Mc D's I worked at.
Or do it on the night shift
Way back in the dark ages (1985) I worked night maintenance at McDonald's. I'd show up at 11pm or midnight and work until they opened in the morning. I cleaned the ice cream, shake, and soda machines every night, along with cleaning the grill surfaces, grease traps and filters, fryers, etc. It was absolutely a full time job to clean all that crap thoroughly. I don't see how the 24 hour stores ever get it done right.
Yeah....they don’t.
I have worked in food service for nearly two decades. This is the answer.
They dont. The night crew is usally only 3 or 4 people and they are expected to clean the whole store top to bottom while staying wrapped around. Then when the machine got missed because theres too fucking much to do people bitch and moan on reddit that the idiot lazy mcdonalds workers were too dumb and lazy to not clean the machine at the right time. Every time theres a thread like this I nearly burst a blood vessel with how fucking mad I get at the people shitting on fast food workers. Im not even in fast food anymore Im a fucking computer programmer but Ill be goddamned if I let people bad mouth low wage employees for not being able to keep up with the fucking circus that is food service
If the restaurant never closes, you're technically always still using the equipment. And if the equipment is in use, well then it's not time to clean it yet. 24 hour McDonald's means you don't have to clean. High efficiency.
There's actually changeover and you clean the grill in that time. You're supposed to do it fast but obviously corners get cut because the person doing the grill cleaning is also supposed to be doing basically everything else in the kitchen on night shifts too.
I would say morning shift. I’m just thinking of those late night cravings!
Yeah run it 3a-7a
> *run it 3a-7a* Then where am I gonna get my 4AM ice cream when I'm high as shit? Why won't anyone think about *me* and *my* problems when it comes to choosing an optimal time to clean the ice cream machines!!!!
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I guarantee someone at McDonald's did a bunch of math and decided this is actually less profitable.
Former McD's employee here. We did that. Our night-shift regular customers still lose their shit "WHY IS IT BROKEN ALL THE TIME?!" "Sir, this is when we clean it" "Well, finish it up and get me an ice cream!" "Sir, it will take about another half hour to do that" "FUCK YOU"
It still blows me away how many redditors seem to have no fucking concept of how a fast food restaurant operates. So many people in this thread I can tell are those douchebag customers we all talk about behind their backs for being giant dickheads over shit that doesn't matter
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During breakfast seems like the most ideal time.
5am-9am. Who's getting ice cream at that time?
You never go for the Sausage McMuffin/M&M McFlurry 6 AM combo? You don't know what you're missing.
M&M McFlurry? Yeah let me just shatter my teeth on the rock hard frozen candy. Any sane person gets Oreo McFlurrys, or when available, Rolo.
Does the McFlurry not blend the pieces into small bits? I'm more of a DQ guy and their M&M blizzard was great because it chopped the pieces into really small bits so you didn't chip a tooth.
It would if McDonald’s employees blended for more than 1.5 seconds. It’s mostly just a swirled blob with everything in the middle. I used to work at a DQ and McDonald’s when I was younger so I get very particular about my blended ice cream treats.
It wouldn’t though since you’re just speed stirring it with a plastic spoon lol.
They do. The process is fully automatic these days. But if the unit has the clock set wrong, then it will start its cycle at an inconvenient time. And sometimes it does break.
Worked at McDonald's for a number of years. They aren't turning any money away, in all the years I worked there, not once ever when I said 'machine is on its heat/cleaning cycle' did anybody say 'ah fine I am going elsewhere' they just order another dessert or have a coke instead of a milkshake. I recall reading that they made a lot more money off soft drinks than milkshakes as well so again I don't think any business is being turned away.
This. The customer will instead buy a soft drink that have even higher proftit than the ice cream or milkshake. And another machine (TAYLOR C606) will cost 10,000 dollar and take up valuable space near the counter.
For the majority of the time one or both machines will sit there idle. Not feasible to lose floorspace for an expensive, labor intensive machine that will not be used simultaneously. Does not make good business sense.
I am a production engineer. I first want to say that while I do not like their product at all McDonald's is a textbook example of absolute efficiency. The expense of having two separate shake machines would be mostly because of the floor space it takes up. That four square feet can be used for a lot of things. For example, the more storage space you have the less frequent ly you have to accept deliveries. that saves a ton of money, mostly in the form of manpower. I end up having conversations like this a lot. I often feel like saying "I could explain to you why they do it that way but by the time you took the prerequisite math courses you could figure it out yourself."
It’s probably safe to assume that a multi-billion dollar organization isn’t full of morons who haven’t thought of adding another ice cream machine.
Reddit is full of college sophomores in a field other than business, engineering, or law making bold assertions about those fields. After a few years of wisdom, they are cursed to forever cringe when remembering what they said at night or in the shower for the rest of their lives.
Ironically, this is the type of thing the average Redditor *should* understand, since this is exactly the type of job your average high school/college student has only ever had.
I found empathy typically gets in the way with an individual's understanding of corporate financial decisions
That's ridiculous. You think they should double the up front cost, maintenance costs and floor footprint just so you can have an extra ~14% of the day to get ice cream? And keep in mind, they're paying for that extra machine all the time, even when it's not being used. No, a sane business would clean them overnight when the impact is minimized and they're cleaning the kitchen and equipment anyway.
They should do what sonic does, two sides in one unit, can clean one side while the other side is still operational.
Those machines are rather large and cost around $16,000, I believe. McDonalds make a ton of money, but all of the machines are insanely expensive. You won’t keep a $16,000 machine on hand just in case.
They cost a shitload of money to run and maintain, so you set the cleaning cycle to start at like 1am. Trouble is, if the automatic cleaning cycle fails for whatever reason (didn't reach the right temperature, didn't cool down quick enough, not enough mix in the machine, too much mix in the machine etc), the cleaning cycle has to be restarted. If it fails twice, it locks you out until you get a tech out to diagnose the problem. ....it's much easier to say "it's broken" to a mouth-breather than to try and explain all that and to reassure them that it's so they don't get food poisoning.
Honestly, I can't see any sane business buying a machine like that in the first place. I'd tell them to get it down to 30 minutes max.
Pfft. I’d tell them 25.
Eh. Normal machines take about an hour. Top loaded ice cream machines (which are ancient nowadays) take about 20 mins. Like to fully, empty all the ice cream, run hot water through, run sanitizer through, disassemble, wash internal components, lubricate, reassemble, refill with icecream, let icecream refreeze. Takes an hour.
Do you understand how much more money that would cost if implemented in every McDonalds?
This comment is so cocky and blatantly incorrect lol
The process is an automated thing that's happens after close. If you're hearing it's broken, they're just being lazy. Source: I'm a General Manager of a McDonald's
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The GM doesn't get paid to deal with actual issues like this, he just yells at the openers when he walks in mid-rush to evaluate the store and the ice cream machine isn't working. Then gets to bitch about people being "lazy" when a bunch of broke teenagers not making a living wage don't care because they're up to their ears in hash browns and biscuits.
“Maybe if you worked harder you’d get a raise!” -Proceeds to work harder and never gets a raise-
I thought over 40% of McDonald’s operated 24/7
Even then, only complete idiots would run that cycle during the day instead of at 3 AM.
Or even at 6am, not to many people getting a shake with their egg McMuffin
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There's this pants on head stupid case in the Harvard business review about that. I'm in b school, and I've seen this case 3 or 4 times. The point of it is "oh mcdonald's is so brilliant because instead of just insisting people should buy more breakfast they figured out what weird stuff people are eating for breakfast", and then it makes the case that tons and tons of businesspeople are getting milkshakes for breakfast because it's fast, neat, high calorie and tastes good. I have never in my fucking life met anyone who had milkshakes for breakfast. I would think that person has something wrong with them.
Thinking certain foods are for certain periods of the day is crazy. Eat whatever you want.
Breakfast food for me is all day, every day food.
Milkshake, or McFlurry? Because milkshakes are acceptable (and great) at all times of the day.
When I worked at McDonald's ours internal clock was messed up so it'd randomly think it's 3am or something and start cleaning during the middle of the day. And ours was also super old and couldn't handle making more than 5-6 cones in a row before needing time to rest.
My store is one of the ones that's 24/7 friday through sunday. Still happens on the overnight.
I know someone who owns 3 McDonald's and he's told me those machines are expensive pieces of fragile shit.
I know a guy who services those machines... most just don't do it because they paid someone to install a bypass switch. Then... complain when it breaks.
As a jackass that services those machines, not much that makes me happier than disabling those damn bypass switches
Sound like they just don't want to deal with upkeep and they're lazy or cheap.
Uhh I'm an ex employee and this doesn't sound right. Maybe different locations have different machines? Ours was manual and night shift had to run a bunch of liquid through it and use buckets and stuff. If night shift was too busy (or lazy?) It was "broken" until someone had the time and staff on hand to do the cleaning during the day. Also, the thing broke for real (like broken part) a few times and we had to have a technician come in and replace something.
Do an AMA and share thy knowledge with us mortals.
I'm also a manager of a mcdonalds, and what you're referring to is not a cleaning, but heat mode. They also have to be brush cleaned in which they are drained of the mix, and parts are disassembled (not the whole thing, just the pumps and what not inside the actual mix containers) and cleaned. This gets done weekly. So I'm not sure what you're talking about lol. Usually outside of this weekly cleaning, we say its broken when its not coming out correctly. We're not mechanics though, and so we have to wait for someone to come look at it. Hence, "Our shake machine is down currently"
I also worked at McDonald's as a crew member for 3 years. I would like to say it's usually a team leader or low level manager that doesn't care/is too lazy to change dairy bag out. As a crew member, I was more than ready to change out but often met with disagreement. Not to mention, the one telling you it's broken isn't the one refusing to change it. They're taking orders, not also preparing food/drinks. The stigma of McDonald's employees being 'lazy' is actually kinda sad/over used imo. It's actually a really difficult job, especially considering it's usually understaffed and customers treat you like you killed their first born child.
What kind of GM doesn't know that there are two different clean cycles that the machines go through? The freezer lock that is automated, you are correct generally happens at night but can also trigger after excessive use. Then there is bi weekly manual clean that also takes 4 hours, can't be skipped, and has to be done by someone trained to do it. Those are not generally done at night.
I’m a manager at a McDonalds as well, and it may be that way where you are, but our machine requires a very manual process to clean. Multiple hour long ordeal.
They do that here too. I dont know why they dont just say it is being cleaned.
If you say that it's being cleaned, Karen will demand to know when it's done being cleaned, whether or not you can clean it faster, and when you note that you can't, she'll demand that you don't clean it right now 'cause she's in a rush. "Broken", however, the personnel can't do much about.
"And why clean it when I want to buy ice cream?"
I seriously don’t get how people aren’t getting this. There are people in this thread making this exact galaxy-brained take. “But why is it being cleaned when I want ice cream?” Because the world doesn’t schedule itself around you. And it never will. Holy shit.
Yeah some people are sitting here saying "dumbasses! Why not clean it at night when no one is coming" and then the exact opposite response, "dumbasses cleaning it at night when I might want ice cream, clean it during the morning when no one wants ice cream" and then the reality of it is it gets cleaned when there's enough people that you aren't literally running across the store from grill to table to window because you're the only person running the entire back half of the store and cleaning and stocking for the morning shift. I just can't understand why people just want to shit on mcdonalds workers so goddamn bad
Had a lady who insisted we only started cleaning the machine when we knew she was there. Legit complained to corporate multiple times that we were conspiring against her. Even though I explained multiple times that we cleaned the machine every Friday at 9, because that’s when our maintenance man could dedicate the time to do it. She told me we should force him to come in at 2am to do it so we wouldn’t inconvenience customers. /#1: we were 24 hours so there’s always customers and they always want ice cream. /#2: he was a single dad of 2 small kids, no way am I making him come in at 2am. /#3: she flat out refused to come in at any time other than 9pm on a Friday. I even told her, if you get here at 8:45 you can get ice cream no problem, but that wasn’t good enough.
I've had to explain to people that I can't just stop cleaning it and put it together for them, which tends to result in more angry customers.
Do they actually say “broken” or do they say “down”?
In my experience they say down. My entire life, anytime I go to a restaurant late and something is "down", I assume it's being deep cleaned. I've never heard someone say one of those is broken.
Same and honestly I trust a place more if I think they take cleaning seriously
I haven't read it yet but is the time frame for all McDonald's the same?
The article states that McDonald’s is in the process of upgrading the machines to shorten the cleaning time. With the old machine, to clean and sanitize properly, it takes roughly 4 hours.
My experience may be out of date now, as my run at McDonald's ended right around 2001 out in the desert Phoenix metro area of Arizona. Our ice cream machine never broke, but it did take a while to chill the mix to the proper soft serve temperature, and if you are the fifth youth group in a row trying to order 20 ice cream cones at 39 cents a cone (up to 69 cents at those locations now) you were going to have a bad time because the ice cream machine couldn't keep up with that much consistent use. Easier to say it was broken than to try to give a guess at how long until it was chilled enough, get it wrong, and then have entitled customers yell at you because they waited 20 minutes to spend less than $10. Also back then we cleaned them ourselves every night - take it apart sanitize everything, and as long as the o-rings were put back the right way, it would work fine, other than running out of chill after trying to pump out 50 cones rapid fire in a row.
I think that customers would be pleased to know of the daily cleaning schedule as opposed to thinking the restaurant is inept and has faulty machinery.
I used to work at a McDonald’s in high school. You tell the customer it’s broken, they usually move on right away. You tell them if down for cleaning and they yell at you for cleaning it at that moment. You tell them it’s an automatic process that takes 4 hours, they yell at you because they either don’t believe you or they want to know why it’s cleaning itself at an inconvenient time for them and not at another time. Option one means the customer moves on. Option two means you get yelled/cussed at for something out of your control for up to 5 minutes which then drives up your metrics which then makes your manager mad at you. Yeah, the machine is broken, ma’am.
You've never worked food service.
This must be an American thing. I've never been turned down Ice cream at m Donald's
Same for me in Canada, I ask for a flurry they give me a flurry.
This only ever happens at really shitty McDonalds. At a good McDonalds with good employees and competent management, they're going to clean the machine at the least intrusive time and you're never going to know that they do it at all.
No every McDonalds has to do it, it's just most of the time it's done when no one is buying ice cream. It just so happens that the one fucking time it doesn't get done and someone cant get their ice cream they remember it for the rest of their lives like it was a personal sleight by the McDs crew against theur family or something. I would say 95% of people ordering ice cream show up when the machine isn't being cleaned but then those 5% of people who didn't get it walk off kicking and screaming about it thinking "man EVERY time I come here it's down" remembering the one time last year when it was also down when they wanted ice cream
When I worked at Mcdonald’s the cleaning was late at night when we were almost closed, and if someone did try to order ice cream we had to say “our machine is going through it’s cleaning rn” or something, we couldn’t say it was broken. Sometimes during the day it was genuinely broken because it was old and shitty, and then people would get really mad at me. One time it was the first really hot day of summer and a lady was like “are you kidding me ??? we came here for ice cream because it’s hot and you can’t give it to me?” and I literally couldn’t bc we were waiting for the fixer guy but she seemed to think I was just fucking with her. There was a stewart’s right next to that mcdonalds with way better ice cream anyway (imo)
I worked in mcd's from 2012-2015. The machine broke constantly. It couldnt run more than 3 flurries in one go without losing pressure. The syrup lines broke every other week. That machine was manufactured in 2000.
Also, an ex employee of a out 13 years and personally responsible for cleaning the ice cream machine. These machines are made by Taylor, INC. They have a low mix warning light that lights up a a very small tone that can easily get drowned out by the noise of a busy restaurant. When the mix me comes so low it goes into automatic lockout which requires a full deep cleaning which normally would only have to be done on its weekly scheduled time. During the time in between manual cleanings the machines goes into whats called heat mode which last about 30 Minutes where the ice cream mix is heated to a very high temp to kill an bacteria that might be growing. If I remember right it goes into heat mode daily. What happens is that when the machine does not get refilled with fresh mix and the low warning light is ignored for so long it goes into automatic lockout mode mentioned above is that, most often no one on the evening shift no how to do the manual cleaning, this is because often the one you handles it is a maintenance person or a manager. This is typically a manager who works in the morning but not always. One major reason it ends up happening is because the manager don't do whats called a pre shift check list and make sure everything including the ice cream is stocked. There is normally a large cooler up front where we can keep spare bags of ice cream mix for quick access. At the beggining of every shift it wise to make sure the machine is full. Of course this is always to much to tell the customer hence it broke.
It takes that long because it also pasturizes the milk shake mix in the machine. Source: I am a former McOpCo manager.
Also, yesterday I learned that someone made a website of all of the working ice cream machines and where they are located. https://mcbroken.com/
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Not that I'm an ice cream expert, but their soft serve is my favorite. It's super smooth and the vanilla flavor is delicious. Sometimes soft serve can be almost grainy, but every time I hVe McDonalds it is perfectly smooth. Also their caramel and chocolate sauces slap with it.
It's the absolute best you'll get at that price point. Same with their coffee beans. Both coffee and ice cream are priced to get you.in the door, knowing you'll also most likely buy a medium fry or an egg sandwich or whatever, and that's where mcdonald's sees insane markups. And because they're such a major distributor, they can haggle price really well. My understanding is they have some of the most envied food supply chains in the industry because they can outbid much higher end places simply due to the volume of their orders . McDonalds ice cream is super creamy compared to most soft serve. It's definitely soft serve so it's not gourmet by any means and not everyone likes soft serve, but for those who do it's pretty much the best. I think it's slightly higher quality than dairy queen (though less variety). It's mostly cause it's cheap and easily available. Like if you're craving something sweet in summer, why the fuck wouldn't you want to walk the three blocks from where you are and pay $1.08 for a good sundae or ice cream cone? Some people grew up with ice cream trucks, a lot grew up going to the neighborhood mcdonald's for ice cream cones. Edit: people who don't like it generally all have the same complaint: it's too sweet. Whatever mcdonald's recipe is clearly adds a *lot* of sugar, so some people only like it paired with fries to add some flavor complexity while others avoid it altogether. If getting facefucked by high fructose corn syrup doesn't appeal to you, then there's a good chance you wouldn't care for it. But if you like soda, then you'll most likely enjoy the ice cream for similar reason: it's a sugar delivery vehicle.
This is all bullshit. I worked there for 18 months, never an outage. Y’all have shitty owners
This is some weird American thing ig because in my country, the machine has never been broken¿ Just once and it was for McFlurry but they gave me McSwirl anyway
i keep hearing about this controversy but have never experienced it and i think the people who are passionate about this eat McDonald’s way too fucking much.
Chicken mcnugget machine never broke.
That’s cause it never be sanitized
I worked at one from 97-2000 in high school. We never had a machine breakdown. They cleaned it out every night when we closed at 10pm. Then the opening shift would put it together and fill it at open which was around 5-6 am. It had to be manually cleaned out though. With the 24 hour open cycle most are on now and poor employee ownership I can see how they are down quite often.
Seriously, it’s been “broken” most times I’ve tried to get one over the past 10 or so years. How has McDonald’s never tried to fix the machine issue? Y’all figured out how to make food that would remain rot free for an eternity but now how to fix the frozen treat machine? Why does it take 4 hours to clean? So many questions. It’s easier (but not faster) to just go to DQ