Poor service, poor food (McDonald's)

Member Name: Fiver29

Product:	McDonald's
Date:	18/04/09 (126 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Saves washing up

Disadvantages: Unhealthy or dull food

I used to be a regular visitor to McDonald's, especially when the kids were little. A Happy Meal was a monthly treat for behaving themselves. But gradually our visits became less and less frequent.

Last week however we decided to have treat and went to the local drive through. There are two McDonald's restaurants in Barrow, one in the town centre, which is eat in or take away only. And one on an out of town shopping area, which is eat in, take away and drive thru.

Firstly I have to say the drive thru is very badly designed, the window for ordering food and the window for pick-ups are both on the same side of the building, rather than having the ordering window around the other side. This means if they are waiting for any of the food to be ready, the queue of cars quickly reaches the ordering window, and in turn a long queue forms behind these.

Very often this means some poor worker has to go out in all weathers with a portable ordering machine, and walk along the length of the cars to collect order.

Once you've got past the problems of ordering, which can't be bypassed by parking up and walking in either, because the queues inside are just as bad. You eventually get your food.

I have noticed that over the years the portion sizes for the fries have changed a little, the medium sized fries used to be that same size as he Happy Meal fries. Now it seems that medium is the same size as the old large, which considering the prices haven't increased that much is good for the consumer in terms of value. But they are also sneakily getting people to eat more, and hoping they'll come back more often.

But I resisted the fries this time and got a chicken salad, which came in a huge paper carrier bag, and because I was driving I couldn't look inside, so I thought the salad much have been enormous. At this point I have to say, I was not impressed that the girl taking the order didn't know what dressings they offered, and even when she looked them up said 'a range thingy dressing, or basmic or summat dressing', she meant Balsamic of course, which is what I chose.

The kids of course had Happy Meals, although my son is getting a bit old for the toys that they have inside. He told me later all his friends get a proper meal now, so I guess I'll have to try and keep up with the goings on lol.

Anyway back to the food. The carrier bag might have been huge, but it was rather oversized for the salad, which was large but not huge, and turned out to be less of a salad, and more of a bowl of iceberg lettuce. The chicken was nice, coated with a spice coating that seems to be trying to copy KFC, but not quite managing it. The chicken was moist and the fillets were a decent size. The kids chomped down their Happy Meals with the usual gusto, and since they hardly touched the sides on their way down, I can only presume that they enjoyed them :0)

I think it'll be a while before we go back again. If I wanted a bowl of lettuce I could have done that myself, and the kids were hungry again within an hour, so it wasn't money well spent. The toys of course were as usual very irritating and ended up in the bin as soon as the kids weren't looking.

Summary: Save your money