The word that best sums up my opinion of McDonald’s is ’’bittersweet’’--a little sweet yet also bitter. In other words, it has both good and bad aspects.
The Sweet:
Some good foods--I especially like the Big Mac, a filling meal at a reasonable price.
The decor is usually pleasant and uniformly clean. I’ve eaten at McDonald’s while traveling for business and pleasure in several states and a few foreign countries and have generally found each place clean and have never seen furniture in bad condition.
An efficient system--Although I’ve had bad experiences with orders being wrong or waiting too long, overall I’d say the system for the service is efficient. The drive-through is especially convenient.
McD’s has the best child playground of all the fast food places.
Child oriented--Children’s birthday parties and Happy Meals are big pluses when you take children out to eat. In fact, I sometimes order the Happy Meal for myself for a light lunch and save the toy for my Grandma’s Bag, a collection of small gifts to take when I visit a grandchild.
Programs such as the Ronald McDonald House, a house provided for parents to use when they have a child in the hospital. Another excellent program is the Older Workers program. In Cherokee, North Carolina there were three employees in their 70s. They worked a small number of hours every day but it was a way for them to earn some income and they did a lot to make this one of the best McDonald’s I’ve ever visited.
The Bitter Side
Some of the food is awful such as the french fries, which are usually cold and taste like cardboard. I’ve also often seen the salads with brown lettuce.
Customer service that ranges from apathetic to infuriating. I blame this more on management than the employees themselves as I’ve heard that working conditions are difficult and tense.
McDonald’s is known for mistreating teenage workers by scheduling them too many hours to be able to keep up with their school work.
To summarize, I’d certainly say that everyone should at least try McDonald’s. It’s not perfect, but then what is in this world?