Say goodbye to self-serve soft drinks at McDonald's

Okay, "goodbye to self-serve soft drinks at McDonald's."

Thanks dad.
- Father for 13 years. I know how to dad joke.
Oh my God the Mad lad did it

I work in a restaurant and ever since COVID the health inspector has been SUPER cautious about our soda machine. We run a clean ship but it's always the first thing they look at, and they go over it with a fine tooth comb.

I don't think this is about cleanliness, I think this is about McDonalds limiting free refills.
- This is 100% about pinching pennies. Gotta find new ways to post those "record breaking profits" every year.
Even before covid the soda fountain was the thing they could get. I remember that being a big target back when I worked fast food 20 years ago.
That's crazy, you literally push the cup against the trigger. Flesh doesn't even need to touch it!
The lid/straw area, however.....

the main reason i even go to chains like mcdonalds in the first place is the soda fountain. it's (usually) much better than retail product in bottles or cans.

if i have to wait 10 minutes to maybe (they will have zero incentive to wait on you) get a refill, after already waiting 10-30 minutes for my food in the first place (wait times have gotten really bad the last few years.. for "reasons"). i won't even go there anymore at all unless i'm traveling (which i don't really do much of either). the ridiculous and constant price increases already got me down from a once-a-week treat to maybe once every month or two.

I find the wait times have gone up as they prioritise both drive thru and delivery options ahead of people actually at the counter.
it’s actually because they dont want you to go there and buy stuff if you buy stuff then they have to spend money to restock stuff and that hurts profits!

This change happened awhile ago at places where I live, in Canada. Barely noticed it.

Now they bring my drink to my table, instead of me having to awkwardly wait around for the cup so I can fill it up while they bring the food out.

I don't mind it at all, you still get a free refill btw, just gotta ask for it.

Now I know some random kid hasnt gotten their sticky popsicle fingers all over my cup lid or tried to drink straight out of the machine end. I am very much in favor of that.

Your Mcdicks serves you at your table? They tried that years ago out east but it only lasted a few months.
- They do indeed, Im in Western Canada. Even when press the to-go button, they ask me if I would prefer table service to check in.
  I think its my specific area of my specific city, its a little bit of a nicer corner of the city, and the mcdicks is a little bit more polished and clean. The folks working at them (there's 2 of em) seem to be a bit more engaged.
  It might be a franchised chain in this area, so perhaps its the owner of the franchise encouraging it. Either way it works and I enjoy it.

My guess is this is a small move in a long term strategy to fully automate their restaurants. Everything needing a human will be re-worked to not need human labor or will be eliminated.

I've been saying this for years now.
Within 20-30 years, most things as we know it will be automated.
White Castle is buying 100 robots that can flip burgers and man fry stations.
Amazon has shown off a cashierless grocery store.
Wal-Mart is deploying tech to identify when stock on a shelf is low and was looking at robot stockers.
Waymo, Uber, etc. are working good progress on self-driving taxis.
Domino's has a pizza delivery robot they're working on.
Amazon is deploying its automatic delivery drones.
Russia is actively using self-driving semi trucks in Siberia, and there are multiple startups working on the problem elsewhere.
Journalists are slowly being replaced by AI.
Both WGA and SAG-AFTRA are striking because of the threat that AI will take their jobs in the near term.
There was that dumb AI lawyer thing a little bit ago.
Blizzard is replacing concept artists with AI image generation.
And so on.
The point isn't that the tech is good now - it isn't. Wal-Mart didn't keep their stocking robots. The AI lawyer got in a tremendous amount of legal trouble. AI journalism has been rolled back after quality issues.
But do you think the technology will stay this bad?
Like, remember what phones were like in 2003? People still had landlines. The closest thing to a smartphone was a Blackberry (which came out in 2002). 3G networks were brand-new (and spotty). None of it was very good, yet they got better and better and now here we are 20 years later where smartphones are an indispensable part of daily life for most people.
What will automation look like in 2043? 2053? That's within our lifetime. What kind of jobs will today's kindergartners have available to them when they reach their 20s and 30s?
There is nothing to indicate that automation will always be bad forever. There is money to be saved by cutting out the human element and replacing them with robots. It's looking more and more reasonable to invest in R&D that eliminates human jobs, in every industry - from Uber and DoorDash drivers to semi drivers to tutors to artists to cashiers. It's coming, and we have to think about how we're going to support all the people that won't have a job anymore.
First this, then refills are no longer free (which is how it works in most of the world already). I imagine automation will also come in there as well.
Margin on drinks is huge as they cost next to nothing.
Are they going to automate the eating as well?
- Will they automate the pooping!?
How does this remove human labor? In a traditional fast food restaurant human labor will always be needed to wipe the tables for example also. If you mean not a traditional restaurant but instead becoming basically a store sized vending machine, that's possible, but that would be such a different product that they wouldn't already be making those changes in their existing stores.
You my friend just have a crystal ball. ( I do really mean I believe your correct)

Food safety and theft prevention...

Great so now you get to have your drink prepped from a machine that's never been cleaned by the sweaty, overworked teen behind the counter who's handled everyone's dirty money and cards all day instead of going over to the machine that's never been cleaned and touching the machine that all those same dirty people have touched.

All because McDonald's is worried about saving literally pennies to "food theft" which is just a fancy way of them saying they don't want you getting free refills anymore.

It's just an excuse to squeeze more profit..
They've operated wonderfully and made billions in the decades before this decision. It'll get to the point where corporations won't even try to sugar coat these moves.
"We're removing food wrappers and packaging because we make more money that way" we'll be seeing this in the headlines in the next 5 years.
It started with defaulting to not putting ketchup packets in your bag without telling you, and even now if you ask at the drive thru 50/50 you get it anyways.
- Imagine how much waste was generated giving people ketchup packets they might not want and end up throwing away. This sounds like an example of doing the right thing for the wrong reason.
Whos paying at the counter and by money in Maccy Ds in 2023? You order on the big touch screen thing and tap your phone/card to pay.

from UK, only place I have seen this is Ikea
This. I can't remember walking into a Macca's in my country with self-serve drinks. And contrary to what you would expect from someone describing the place as "Macca's," I live in The Netherlands.

They did that in a McD near where I live. Before, when I wanted a refill I would:

Get a refill

Clearly we can make this process better. Now at the newly remodeled McD it's as simple as:

Wait at the counter to get an overworked employees attention
Tell them you want a refill
Throw your entire cup away in the trash
Wait for your replacement drink

"It's an evolution toward convenience," Mikel Petro

They've been penny-pinching and jacking up prices aggressively. For something called "fast food" it is not really fast anymore. The rare time I've been to mcdonalds since the pandemic, it looks like they keep the number of employees to two people at a time in each location and the drive-thru line takes forever to move. Not going to miss it since it was rare for me to go to mcdonalds even before the pandemic, but the general penny-pinching pisses me off and mcdonalds seems like one of the worst offenders. I think they've been wanting to rebrand as "casual dining" or whatever, but based on their approach it's really just a market segment that doesn't make sense to me. Shitty food, small portions, high prices, and slow service. I have no idea why people still go there.

McDonalds has crashed in quality since the pandemic. During the pandemic everyone was really competing for market share and improving their menus.... Except McDonalds, and now that we're out of the pandemic, everyone is pinching including McDonalds. I'd really rather go anywhere else except maybe BK.

Fuck em. Don’t eat there.

The mcdonalds near me removed self serve soda during the pandemic and never brought them back. I can still request free refills but a staff member does it from behind the counter.

I said goodbye to McDonalds (and Wendy's, Burger King, Taco Bell, Arbys etc.) 15 years ago.
Poor health isn't a good trade for convenience.

It was right after I had the baconator for the first time.
It was kind of a wake up call, I just said "Holy shit what am I doing to myself".

Fast food is high in salt and sugar, but assuming you overall are fairly healthy eating it occasionally isn't terrible for you.

I will miss my drink concoction

You can still ask for it but there's no guarantee that the proportions will be right.

Those things are fucking nasty anyway.

That's always been my impression of them. They are rarely kept up very well and often extremely messy.
- Once they are back behind the counter you won't see how gross they are.

Where do you live? In California it's commonplace that self-serve station refills are free.
The main exceptions are touristy places like Disneyland. But most places have the dispensers on the dining room side (not the cash register side) so you can get free refills.
- Ohio here, refills are free as well.
That's the European thing, most fastfood restaurants in America allow it. The two places in Czech Republic that allow it(KFC and Burger King) have people save their cups and refill them days later so I imagine that kind of theft is why more places don't have it. Also, European restaurants in general monetize drinks a lot more. In the US it is common for sit-down restaurants to refill your drinks for free, and water is always free (to the point where California passed a law requiring a restaurant asks if you want water before bringing it, to conserve water)

This is already the case in France since self refill for soda was made illegal few years ago.

Some of the machines are still there but with only ice or sparkling water.

I will bet they never implement this change.

If they do implement it, I will bet they reverse it in six months.

What about the tea containers, those going away?

Oh God, Now all of the soda machines will be broken.

By 2032?

Who gives a shit?

Makes sense. I've watched homeless people bathe in them (using the water dispenser), I've seen people take 8+ refills, I've watched people bring in their own buckets from outside and refill them.

I don't make excuses for shitty corporations, but humans are unhinged these days, and ruin shit for everyone else.

I’ve seen people take 8+ refills
Well look who woke up and decided to be judgy on the internet. I'm busy self-medicating, if you don't mind.

Now if McDonalds would just go away altogether that would be good news.

Such an American thing

McDowell's is better
- You can spot it by the gold arcs.
Lol
Sit outside one and watch the amount of people going there.
It's insane

If this is a set up to get a tip...IM GOING TO SNAP! I'm just kidding, who in the fuck eats inside anyways besides a bunch of screaming kids and homeless people?? I guess I have a couple times when I was fucked up with the amigos but I'm more of a taco bell guy in those situations tbh

what a cool guy
I mean yeah, only homeless people am I right amigos?
- Don't forget the screaming children homie
I'm reading this comment as I'm sitting inside a fast food place on my lunch break. Some of us like to spend their lunch away from their work or school.
Cringe 2010 internet moment
- I love you