The Golden Arches

I almost never eat McDonalds. My general feeling, after consuming anything there, is it would have been better to stay hungry.

Still, it's an interesting snapshot of America in a way. We ate there largely because I had subjected the girls to a lengthy shopping expedition, we were all hungry, and we still had to do a grocery run. Besides the fact that I had budgeted for a meal out that we didn't have last night, I figured I might save about as much as the meal cost in unnecessary groceries by not going to the store hungry.

I shouldn't have offered McDonalds as an option if I wanted to avoid it. It was about as nasty as I remembered.

But I noticed things, maybe because I'm so rarely in the place. A sign above the drive-through window says 'Presentation Target: 10-15 Seconds.' I remember when I was a kid they did a promotion, 60-seconds or it's free. They'd have a person grabbing the items you ordered from the heat lamps while the person at the cashier was still taking your order. I might not think much of their food, but obviously their marketing research has told them most Americans will eat any Soviet-style ersatz food if the service is fast enough.

They have a TV on the wall that shows profiles of employees along with advertising crapola for McDonalds and Coca-Cola and whatnot. The frame that struck me was the one claiming 'This is How Coke Should Taste.'

Technically, perhaps, but not true.

When I worked for QuikTrip (this is going back about ten years), I learned about the brix ratio for soda fountains. The syrup comes in a bag, and by the terms of licensing with the bottler, you can dilute it 4:1 or 5:1. You cannot cut it 3:1 with carbonated water, you can't go 6:1. The soda cops will get you if you do that.

QT, and most places that feature soda fountains prominently in their business model, uses the 4:1 ratio, which closely matches what you'd get from a bottle of the same soda. Which is important if the customer is stopping specifically for soda: the Coke from the fountain needs to taste like the Coke in the bottles and cans, or like the bottles and cans if you poured them over ice anyway.

But at McDonalds, they go 5:1. I'm not sure, but I think this is a dispensation they specifically got from Coke so the soda cops would leave them alone. No one ever goes to McDonald's just for a soda, but because the economy of scale McDonalds is operating at translates that watery soda into profits large enough to shame Bill Gates, they do this anyway.

It's why McDonald's soda is so nasty: they do it on purpose. And the ad on the in-house idiot box is their way of trying to con you into thinking it's a good thing.

Thing is, the corporate machine knows better; I have proof: McDonalds also owns Chipotle, a chain that doesn't do much advertising, but which does serve pretty decent food as 'fast food' goes. I guess they figure they'll grab the few dollars that aren't coming in just for fast presentation. So they send their real food to Chipotle and spend billions on advertising to make up for the pre-vomit they pass off at the golden arches.

I also learned that while mayo on fries is good, it's not good enough to make McDonald's fries worth eating.

Looking forward to lunch tomorrow. The fast food foray put the kibosh on the plans I had to grill dinner. In my freezer, I found a pair of Omaha Steaks, bacon-wrapped filet mignon, remnants of a gift last fall, still vacuum sealed. Add to that salmon (on sale) and a few shrimp (also on sale), and it's going to be a good surf & turf in Lobster Land tomorrow.