Coronavirus and Empty Restaurants

[pseudo3d]

I went to a McDonald's in a Walmart in the San Francisco Bay Area and for the entire week they had no chicken sandwiches, no tenders, no quarter pound beef, no pies, no salads, etc. All they had was the fish filet, nuggets, and the hamburger. There were virtually no customers most of the time that I was there.

Is this place about to close? Are other stores in a similar situation?

I haven't seen any McDonald's in a supply crisis, sounds like they didn't bring in the trucks to that store, but it also sounds like a situation where someone didn't care or employees made products "disappear" somehow. In actual supply shortages, store-bought products are often used...I know of a location of a major pizza chain that, while normally well-managed, had to buy a few pre-packaged salads from Walmart after their own boxes ran out.

[Alpha8472]

There really is no reason to go to McDonald's now, if they are serving such a limited menu. The pies and chocolate chip cookies were the only good items.

[veteran+]

I went to a McDonald's in a Walmart in the San Francisco Bay Area and for the entire week they had no chicken sandwiches, no tenders, no quarter pound beef, no pies, no salads, etc. All they had was the fish filet, nuggets, and the hamburger. There were virtually no customers most of the time that I was there.

Is this place about to close? Are other stores in a similar situation?

I haven't seen any McDonald's in a supply crisis, sounds like they didn't bring in the trucks to that store, but it also sounds like a situation where someone didn't care or employees made products "disappear" somehow. In actual supply shortages, store-bought products are often used...I know of a location of a major pizza chain that, while normally well-managed, had to buy a few pre-packaged salads from Walmart after their own boxes ran out.

I have seen a few stores in San Diego and Los Angeles with product shortages. My son's kids insisted on McD's.

[jamcool]

McDonald’s has its own “captive” suppliers - like Golden State Foods-instead of dealing with the big food producers or foodservice companies. So it is odd that they would be out of stuff

[Brian Lutz]

Up here there have been some items removed from the menus temporarily (for example, I don't think they're serving breakfast food outside of breakfast) but I haven't heard of any specific shortages here. For their part I don't see anyone else limiting their menus (I've recently been to Taco Bell, Wendy's and DQ) but they probably don't have the same supply chain constraints.

[SamSpade]

In Oregon and Idaho,
lettuce is now Big Mac shred style only (no leaf). I don't remember seeing salads or yogurt parfaits available to order.
The full McCafe selection was still available and smalls were still $2.
I could order quarter pounders with modifications, but the tomato slices were romas (I believe those go on salads), usually they have a "beefsteak size" tomato.
The franchisee in Idaho Falls charged for lettuce but the one in Mission, Ore. did not.

[mbz321]

For their part I don't see anyone else limiting their menus (I've recently been to Taco Bell, Wendy's and DQ) but they probably don't have the same supply chain constraints.

The Taco Bell's near me in Southeastern PA have notices up that they have temporarily discontinued serving the breakfast menu (not that I think it is something that is popular around here to begin with..we have Wawa for quick breakfast junk food).

[storewanderer]

McDonald’s has its own “captive” suppliers - like Golden State Foods-instead of dealing with the big food producers or foodservice companies. So it is odd that they would be out of stuff

McDonalds may have gotten screwed up by eliminating the all day breakfast. Maybe demand on these other items went up as people traded breakfast items for those items, and they did not prepare for that properly. Or order sizes went up so their forecasting got out of whack. I was by a McDonalds today that had its inside closed and the drive through had about 20 cars waiting, paying, or in the two spaces outside the drive through where they park cars to wait for orders and this was today at like 4 PM.

It also appears they are allocating items based on location sales history. Given how everything has changed so much over the past six weeks it will be interesting to see how that works out.

https://www.businessinsider.com/mcdonal ... icy-2020-4

[Alpha8472]

The Taco Bell restaurants in my area that do not have drive thru windows have all closed. These were very popular locations near busy shopping centers such as Whole Foods. Now they are completely dark. One is a classic 1970s Taco Bell with the brick Mission style look. It is one of the last ones left. This restaurant may never reopen again. I hope that it does not get bulldozed.

The other Taco Bells in my area have stopped breakfast and have closed the dining rooms. Taco Bell is taking cash on a sterilized tray so that employees do not have to touch the money.

[BillyGr]

McDonald’s has its own “captive” suppliers - like Golden State Foods-instead of dealing with the big food producers or foodservice companies. So it is odd that they would be out of stuff

It may depend on how much of the process they do. If, for instance, they only buy beef and make the burgers out of it, they'd have the same problem as anyone else if the facilities doing the slaughtering were not operating or had less capacity.
I suppose even if they do it all from start to finish, they could have issues of their own if workers have become ill, be they in production or transporting it to the restaurants, as some of those fields aren't ones that would be easy to just start in without some types of training to get replacements if needed.