no self-serve drinks at McD's, Wendy's goes AI, and you can drive underneath Chick-fil-A......

turkeydance

turkeydance

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1.The decision means customers will now have to get their refills from employees at the counter as opposed to filling up their drinks by themselves.

2. Meanwhile, Wendy's is incorporating artificial intelligence into its model and has teamed up with Google to create an AI chatbot that can take orders at its drive-thrus.

3. ....Chick-fil-A, which is currently testing out various new concepts... including...an elevated kitchen that sends orders to a four-lane mobile order drive-thru underneath...




www.theepochtimes.com

McDonald's Scrapping Self-Serving Drink Machines for All US Customers

McDonald's will be eliminating self-serving drink machines from all of its restaurants in the United States within the next 10 years, the company has confirmed.
www.theepochtimes.com www.theepochtimes.com
 
Bojangles in Locust has used AI for their drive-thru orders for the last 6 months or so. It's mostly hassle free but irritating to not talk to a real person.
 
A lot of places are doing that with drinks now. The Chik-Fil-A where my kids work has a person whose duty is refills (among a couple other front counter things) so the cashier is free to do cashier things and don't hold up the lines refilling drink requests.
 
Some people ruin it for the rest of us. This same guy in Advance, NC pulls into McDonald's with his Nationwide Insurance car. Takes the McDonald's cup from his car, goes in to McDonald's, rinses it out with the water and then fills it up with ice and a drink and walks out. I have seen this at least a dozen times. Asshat.
 
The benefit is less money lost on refills. I bet they don’t put an option for “refill” on the ordering screen to summon an employee from the back. You’ll have to wait until someone is bringing food from the back and try to catch them.
 
Don’t know if it’s voice response or not, but at Bojangles drive through I swear the ”person” taking the order is not in the building…and there is no reason they need to be.

Most of the time I’d opt for a lottery line at Bojangles, charge me a random amount and give me a random bag of food, just get me through in less than 15 min.
 
I had to fight the pickup at Bojangles to get a refill unsweetened tea, the kid cleaning the trays tossed out my half eaten lunch.
They used to have unsweet at the ice machine.
 
g19 said:
Some people ruin it for the rest of us. This same guy in Advance, NC pulls into McDonald's with his Nationwide Insurance car. Takes the McDonald's cup from his car, goes in to McDonald's, rinses it out with the water and then fills it up with ice and a drink and walks out. I have seen this at least a dozen times. Asshat.
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They do that at Sheetz, gulp it down, dump it and repeat then walk out.
 
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Chuckman said:
A lot of places are doing that with drinks now. The Chik-Fil-A where my kids work has a person whose duty is refills (among a couple other front counter things) so the cashier is free to do cashier things and don't hold up the lines refilling drink requests.
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What's old is new again. As a youngster working at the mall Taco Bell in 1986 my main job was either frying up taco shells and nacho chips (they used to come in as just corn tortillas we processed on site) or if caught up on that taking a turn at the soda machine doing orders and refills.

What will they think of next, big hair and neon colors?
 
Chuckman said:
A lot of places are doing that with drinks now. The Chik-Fil-A where my kids work has a person whose duty is refills (among a couple other front counter things) so the cashier is free to do cashier things and don't hold up the lines refilling drink requests.
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Only one open cashier at our CFA, they encourage their app.
 
noway2 said:
Generally speaking, I avoid putting apps on my devices. This would simply encourage me to take my business elsewhere.
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I don't like them, I resist to have my Employer app but it's how we call out or schedule time off.
 
Button Pusher said:
I don't like them, I resist to have my Employer app but it's how we call out or schedule time off.
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I would be really concerned about what sort of information that app has access to and what it is actually doing or monitoring.
 
Dale Gribble said:
Yeah?

Well, there is a price to be paid for being a heretic.



😂
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Empty carbs. I dropped 45lbs over two years by skipping the carbs and sodas.
Drive up windows no more, no fourth meal but five, six and seven.🙁
 
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Button Pusher said:
Empty carbs. I dropped 45lbs over two years by skipping the carbs and sodas.
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👍 Nice!

To put that in perspective, get five, 1 gallon milk jugs, fill ‘em full of water and try carrying them around all day…that’s how much weight your body is not having to support any more.
 
Ah, the good old days of hefting ice from the big maker in the back to the ice bins in the front under the pop machine...
yes, i said pop.
I would seriously doubt that they are losing enough money on people scamming the refill station to make this worth the trouble. They lose maybe 25c per event, so it would have to be 60 people doing it every hour to cost more than an employee's wages (assuming the new standard of $15/hr, which is low for places that can't even get employees in the door - not counting insurance, employee management , etc) Odds are they're crunching the numbers and figured out that they need a minimal amount of staff to keep customer turnover times in "goal" and they will need the drinks employee to be a floater to cover every other little thing too. It's been 30 years since i worked at mcds, but refills never took a significant portion of our time.. and that was when drink sizes were only about 8 - 12oz.
The old dudes wanting refills on coffee, then having their hyperplasitc prostates cause them to dribble pee all over the bathroom floor... that's where a lot of time was spent prepping the mop bucket, washing hands 9,000 times during the in/out of different areas.

I can see the apps and AI order stations working out well, because that removes the issue of people grunting out their orders wrong, then demanding it was the employee that made the screwup. It would be faster and could include a simple "please review your order and confirm it is correct" that would seriously cut down on having to remake things. People paying via app or waving a card across a sensor would cut down on the need for cashiers, improve times, and be able to show a checkmark on screen to show that they had paid - no more "uh, your food is ready, did you pay yet" and losing out on money from those types of customers that would lie about it.

Dale Gribble said:
👍 Nice!

To put that in perspective, get five, 1 gallon milk jugs, fill ‘em full of water and try carrying them around all day…that’s how much weight your body is not having to support any more.
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It's only a drawback if you spend your time on land instead of in the water, silly.
 
CFA is my favorite fast food. That said, I haven't been to one in probably 2 years. It's like Yogi Berra said, "nobody goes there anymore, they're too busy". That applies to me. And why do they need my name for the order? I'm not wanting to start a relationship with them. Can't I be #284 like I am everywhere else? I told a cashier in Pigeon Forge once my name was "Mohammed". He panicked, said he didn't know how to spell that. How about I just give you money and you give me food so I can be on my way.

I hate the drive trough window, better than a 50/50 chance your order will be screwed up. I will not do drive through.

I'm not putting another app on my phone, the fewer the better for me.

With as big as a "small" cup is at most of the fast food places, why does anyone need a refill?

If I can't see and talk to a person at a business there's a pretty good chance I won't be back.

.
 
Gator said:
CFA is my favorite fast food. That said, I haven't been to one in probably 2 years. It's like Yogi Berra said, "nobody goes there anymore, they're too busy". That applies to me. And why do they need my name for the order? I'm not wanting to start a relationship with them. Can't I be #284 like I am everywhere else? I told a cashier in Pigeon Forge once my name was "Mohammed". He panicked, said he didn't know how to spell that. How about I just give you money and you give me food so I can be on my way.

I hate the drive trough window, better than a 50/50 chance your order will be screwed up. I will not do drive through.

I'm not putting another app on my phone, the fewer the better for me.

With as big as a "small" cup is at most of the fast food places, why does anyone need a refill?

If I can't see and talk to a person at a business there's a pretty good chance I won't be back.

.
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I love Biscuitville, but I have almost stopped going there because you get to the speaker and have your order all ready in your head and they want your name first. My name is irrelevant, I have money and you have goods for sale. Lets finish the transaction with all haste and let me be on my way. Minor irritation I know, but it has definitely cost them business from me.
 
Ferrisfan said:
Because it is 80% ice.
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Their issues aren't so much people asking for refills as it is people ordering water and filling with soda, or people flat out bringing in their own cups/mugs and filling it up, because they know the employees won't do anything about it.
 
Supermatch said:
Their issues aren't so much people asking for refills as it is people ordering water and filling with soda, or people flat out bringing in their own cups/mugs and filling it up, because they know the employees won't do anything about it.
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pennies in lost beverages, which get people to come in and spend dollars on food.
they could probably just give free drinks with any food order and not take too much of a loss because it would bring in more customers
 
Drink stations are always a freaking mess. People acting foolish and behaving like 5 year olds. Saving $$ on the product is not the issue, but keeping order and maintaining staff safety/morale is top of mind I’m sure.
 
concepthomes2 said:
Bojangles in Locust has used AI for their drive-thru orders for the last 6 months or so. It's mostly hassle free but irritating to not talk to a real person.
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A mixed blessing, in my opinion.

Holy cow, some of these "real people" SUCK.
 
Gator said:
Not when I'm the one filling the cup.

.
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And now you see one of the real reasons for removing the self serve. There's really a couple things pushing this.
Little bit of theft.. really very little, they'll lose more in a day by leaving ketchup packs on a counter somewhere.
Franchisee/Companies thinking they're profit margins are being hammered by people putting $0.04 cents worth of coke in their $3 drink instead of the $0.0155 cents worth it would be if the employee was filling it full of ice..
But mainly QSR wants to get rid of dining rooms, or at the very least minimize the staffing needed to support them. The higher minimum wages are putting a hurting on them, they never paid well, but now they're paying 2x or better in some places for an employee, they're not going to double G&A so they half employees and look for all the automation and corner cutting they can. They want to get a typical sized/traffic unit to where it can be run by 5 or less people, 2 food prep workers, 1 drive through cashier, 1 counter person who's just there really as a gopher and a manager/lead for the shift getting an extra $2 to run around like a chicken with their head cut off.
All the robot cookers, smart ovens, etc is to try and get the kitchen staff paired down even more.

The CFA concept is pretty cool actually, I think they have a test unit of that active in Atlanta now, basically it's a kitchen on stilts with the drive though lines running underneath the kitchen and dumbwaiters going down to the car lines for food delivery, from a making the most use of your lot space, being able to control traffic, etc it's pretty slick. A lot of different concepts are getting beat up by city planning boards, etc because of traffic issues since they've shifted to primarily drive through sales, so everyone is experimenting on getting higher volume though the same size space.
 
they're "losing" money

soft drinks are their most profitable item because, like antifreeze, if you buy the pre-mix crap you're paying for mostly water. they buy the concentrate, water it down, and make upwards of 80% profit
 
Gator said:
CFA is my favorite fast food. That said, I haven't been to one in probably 2 years. It's like Yogi Berra said, "nobody goes there anymore, they're too busy". That applies to me. And why do they need my name for the order? I'm not wanting to start a relationship with them. Can't I be #284 like I am everywhere else? I told a cashier in Pigeon Forge once my name was "Mohammed". He panicked, said he didn't know how to spell that. How about I just give you money and you give me food so I can be on my way.
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When they ask your name, just say 284. Duh. 🤓
 
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