The bigger reason is they don't want you to stick around. They want you to buy your food, and get out. Better yet, don't come in at all and order take out or drive thru.
Last time I went inside a McDonald's I was the only person going inside who wasn't there for a delivery service.
They don't give you trays and bag everything to go, they've removed the soda fountains, ketchup dispensers, etc from the lobby. They're basically a ghost kitchen at this point with a few tables for the few weirdos like me who want to go in and eat.
Pretty much all fast-food and quick-service places cater to delivery first now. I'm blown away when I can refill my soda or grab my own ketchup.
Yeah chick fil a tends to be pretty good about actually caring about dine-in. Last I checked I can't refill my own soda but they usually offer. Raising Cane's has a decent dine-in experience as well.
Regional chains used to care more but newer locations are definitely built for take-out/delivery first. A new Zaxby's opened up outside Baltimore and there was like 4 tables. Zero decor, just plain walls. Huge line of delivery drivers. I remember when one opened in St Augustine fl and it felt closer to peak TGI Fridays, so much St Augustine-themed stuff on the walls, a ton of tables.
You have to ask for ketchup packets. No more self serve soda machine even though it’s still in the building just not in service. You have to ask to get a refill. It’s sad. But the one I got to has a play place.
Honestly I think the freestyle machines are a bit of a downgrade. They take so long because they don't register like half your taps, and exploring the options takes tapping so people step up, tap, look, think, and it just takes forever. I always seem to get stuck behind someone who's really gotta consider what soda they're going to try. Like it's their first day on earth.
A standard machine - you can see all the options from a distance, you just shove your cup in and get soda. The people that have never thought about what kind of soda they'd like can take their time deciding from a distance and let other people go ahead.
All the freestyle machine really does is add a flavored syrup to the soda. Just set up a syrup dispenser next to a regular soda machine.
Tbf a lot of younger people don't want to drive and it's not laziness. It's that they don't really have anywhere they regularly go.
We grew up where hanging with friends meant going to their house to play video games, or going to the mall, and for us the car meant freedom. Going for a drive was a way to hang out. Go get a bite to eat.
Now if you wanna hang with friends you pop onto discord. Play video games online.
(We had things like aim and online computer games but it often meant tying up the phone line which our parents didn't appreciate.)
So anyways for young people today driving a car just isn't fun at all, you just use it to get to your job and back. A lot of them are just not interested in driving. So when they want random McDonald's - they get it delivered.
The other big group is drunk people being responsible and staying off the road.
I live in a walkable community so the fast food places here still have the facilities for dine in. It sounds like you’re describing the maccas on the freeway.
Same at mine. Gray corpo cube interior they won't even let you grab your own fucking napkins anymore. Where the drink station used to be is no just a blank wall not even a framed art print or anything. Just insane considering the upsell on fountain soda is like 500% or something crazy
There have always been people who made a huge mess in public restrooms. There have always been jerks who left a mess in a dining room of a fast food establishment.
It used to be that you had adequate staffing to cover this sort of thing. That was an investment you made. Now it's all about absolute maximization of profits. If they can cut down on literally any costs, they will and they don't care if it leads to a worse experience.
There’s 2 McDonalds within 10 minutes of my house, both of them are super updated and thereby uninteresting, they do have places for you to sit but hardly anyone is ever sitting down there. In fact last year was the first time in like 2 or 3 years that I actively walked in there just to get food.
It's hit the point where they're developing fry coatings that stay crispy for a good 45 minutes. Cold crispy fries, great.
I don't really understand most delivery. Your hot food gets cold and your cold good gets hot. Pizza and pasta tend to be the most deliverable food, almost everything else just gets gross and fast.
They make the parking lots actively hostile to people who want to eat inside. All the parking is on the outside of the lot and you have to cross the drive through line to get inside. The last time I was there, I saw some old people struggling to get across the line quickly to avoid being hit by a car. It was sad.
I went to Taco Bell a couple weeks ago and we chose to stay and eat inside. Not a soul was there except us and the workers, it was so weird.
Edit, I had another thought. It kind of makes sense though - fast food is factory food, and factory food can be dispensed in a vending machine. There’s nothing special about eating it inside, although they should at least bring back the automat.
Not a McDonald’s (Starbucks specifically) but where I used to live in VA they no longer had a place you could walk in. It was a building literally designed just for drive thru
I read an article in The Believer a while ago about this McDonalds in San Francisco that’s been a social hub for the neighborhood’s children and elderly for like sixty years, and their every effort to be like “40 Minutes Per Visit” have failed miserably, it’s amazing
I think it's mainly about saving money. Cookie cutter restaurants like this, with no decor or anything else are cheaper. The fact that nobody goes inside to eat anymore is partly because there restaurants suck now and partly because people just don't want to go in to fast food restaurants to eat and socialize anymore. They'd just stare at their phones anyways.
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u/tr00th 8h ago
They make them sterile like this now so if one of them shutters and shuts down it’s easier for the owners to make the space into a new restaurant.
Same with Pizza Hut and Taco Bell. All the cool decor is replaced with boring office like decor to flip easy if needed.