For its entire history, if you’ve wanted McDonalds, you had to get out of the house, wait in line, and otherwise interact with human beings. But no longer! McDonalds has decided to get into the delivery game, and piping hot Big Macs can be yours, every day, without your ever having to leave the house.
Building on a January experiment in several Florida cities, McDonald’s has officially expanded its partnership with Uber Eats to Phoenix, LA, Columbus, and Chicago. That’s over 1,000 restaurants (of a total 14,0000) participating. And don’t worry, the food is as fresh as it would have been had you taken the trip to Mickey D’s yourself. Your order is prepared when the driver shows up so your hash browns will still be piping hot and the cheese on your burger properly melted by the time it gets to your house. (If you don’t live in these areas, call your friends that do and demand they start ordering; McDonald’s is planning on expansion, but that definitely relies on the success of you lovin’ this venture.)
This move is particularly interesting because it’s more or less McDonald’s admitting that if it wants to keep its customer base, it’s going to need to change, and fast. The former king of the fast food hill is under assault by higher-end competitors, has become the butt of jokes from hipper chains like Wendy’s (and yes we know that is a patently absurd statement, but this is 2017), and is currently dealing with bizarre scandals ranging from the Vatican branch exploiting the homeless to anti-porn groups demanding it install filters on its WiFi to fix a non-existent problem.
Long term, this could mean the era of drive-thru and park-and-ride junk food shifts to a customer convenience model where we pay somebody five bucks above actual cost to deliver a raft of burgers to our homes. That might have real consequences for everything from the food industry to real estate, since the future of McDonald’s might be one centralized burger shack. But for now, just indulge in breakfast.
(Via The Verge)