Restaurants

LOCAL MCDONALD’S GETTING FRESH BEEF, CURBSIDE SERVICE

The changes are meant to compete with some of the higher-end burger brands.

Well, it’s been a slow news week what with Spring Break for much of Ashburn. But we wanted to share some interested tidbits about changes coming soon to a McDonald’s near you.

The popular fast-food hamburger brand has been trying to compete with what’s known as the “better burger” brands — brands like Five Guys, Burger 21 and BurgerFi that purport to offer higher quality, fresher food that the fast-food giant. To better compete with these brands, McDonald’s has announced they will be introducing fresh beef patties (versus frozen) on their Quarter Pounders starting sometime this year.

We spoke with a supervisor at the Ashburn Village McDonald’s. He said he expected the new refrigerated cooler for the fresh patties to be installed sometime in the next few of months. It will sit next to the grill and burgers will be cooked when ordered rather than cooked in advance as has been the practice. While the Quarter Pounders will be the first ones to go fresh, the smaller hamburger patties should eventually follow suit.

Also on the horizon for McDonald’s — the brand is rolling out a new ordering app for your phone. You’ll place your order on the app and, if you would like, the food will be delivered to your car when you arrive at the restaurant. This new feature is supposed to be available nationwide by the end of the year.

The CEO of McDonald’s demonstrates a new touchscreen ordering kiosk.

Finally, look for self-ordering kiosks in McDonald’s as stores get facelifts and make-overs in the next few years. The kiosks will allow you to order and pay from a touchscreen rather than standing in line for a cashier. If you select dine-in, your food will be delivered to your table. McDonald’s intends to have the kiosks in all U.S. restaurants by the year 2020.

Images: McDonald’s
3 Comments
  1. Jim A. 7 years ago

    Self ordering….well I guess that demand for $15 minimum wage didn’t work out so well!
    It will be interesting to see if the fresh burgers taste much different than the frozen ones. I think there was actually a little safer feeling in having a frozen burger, now there will be teenage workers handling uncooked meat. Ecoli could have a big year!

  2. BBintod 7 years ago

    Actually, what they said was that they would be using fresh beef on their Quarter Pounders at the majority of their locations. To which, Wendy’s responded with the fabulous comeback, “So you’ll still use frozen beef in MOST of your burgers in ALL of your restaurants?”

    http://www.adweek.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/mcdonalds-wendys-twitter-PAGE-2017.jpg

    So, don’t get hyped up for a burger made with fresh beef. If you don’t order a Quarter Pounder, you certainly aren’t getting it. Keep in mind to that your location might not be one of the majority of locations that will be serving it fresh.

  3. BurnedOut 6 years ago

    Kiosks are in addition to the registers, and those that may get freed up are now servers and such. As to Wendy’s, their patties have shrunk so much and become so tasteless since the original”Old Fashioned” days they have no room to talk. They are definitely in the where’s the beef from the square patties that was much larger than the bun and not just the corners. Wayback Burger is more like the original Wendy’s nowadays.

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