McDonalds and re-opening inside

Alpha8472
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Re: McDonalds and re-opening inside

Post by Alpha8472 »

Sadly enough the 6 foot rule is a minimum. The virus does not magically disappear after 6 feet. They have done videos that show the airborne particles swirling like a cloud more than 6 feet and lingering in the air.

The time that you are spending indoors breathing in the recirculated also matters. If you spend half an hour breathing the stale indoor air it is much worse than just spending a few minutes to pick up to go orders and leave. The length of exposure subjects your lungs to absorbing more virus particles. Your lungs are like a sponge and they soak up more particles as time goes on.

Also remember the eyes are where doctors have been infected even though they wore masks. When people talk there are tiny particles of spit that spray out and they can enter the eyes over several feet. I work in a pharmacy and I got a horrible eye infection when a customer angrily talked at me. My eye was so infected, I thought I was going to lose my eye. I have a permanent hole/gap in my eyelid where the infection ate away at my flesh.

I know it is paranoid, but I bought face shields from Walmart.com to protect my eyes. The face shields from Amazon took months while the Walmart ones arrived in days. People look at me weird sometimes, but I received a compliment on several occasions.

The franchisee in the Berkeley and Oakland, California area was sued by workers. The store made employees come to work sick and discouraged them from taking sick pay as required by law. Many customers and employees got sick including a 10 month old baby. The Oakland Temescal McDonald's had 25 cases including employees and their family members. The manager for 2 stores, 11 Oakland employees. The restaurant is reopening on Sunday. The affected Berkeley restaurant was always open.

These restaurants are scary as the franchisees push employees to work while sick. I would not want to linger in these restaurants if I can avoid it. I have seen many McDonald's add new wooden picnic tables outside in the parking lots or next to the buildings where there is shade here in the San Francisco Bay Area. Outdoor dining is allowed and it is safer for everyone.
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Re: McDonalds and re-opening inside

Post by storewanderer »

In my area I have been to two Wal Marts with McDonalds inside.

I also forgot McDonalds stopped all day breakfast but was reminded when I tried to make my first purchase at a McDonalds since this whole virus started. So I just left without purchasing anything.

Two different franchisees.

First one is about what you'd expect. The gate around it is 100% open. No order kiosks at this location. Plastic shields up at the counter, and caution tape roping off all of the dining area, which is still fully lit. The drink station is still self serve with customers helping themselves to drinks, leaning against it while waiting for orders, etc. I don't think this is a particularly busy location so there was no issue with crowding, plenty of space for people to stand and stay distanced.

Second one, which I just noticed from being in the store anyway, the gate around it, only about 3 feet worth of it is open and they only help one customer at a time. They have trash cans and other barricades up to keep the customer contained within the tiny little space that is open. The drink station is self serve but at this time the employees go back and forth to get drinks from it as that area is barricaded off from the customers. Also if employees need to exit the location they have to move the barricades (trash cans) and squeeze out the little space where the customer gets to stand to be assisted. Lights are mostly off in the dining area and order kiosks are closed. They have tables in front of the counter so you can't get too close to the counter (the credit card reader has been moved out onto the tables). This is actually a really busy McDonalds location and this set up appears to significantly hinder the amount of customers they can serve. This is really bad as people are standing around outside the McDonalds in a very busy line of Wal Mart exit/self checkout traffic. Might be time to carve a little window outside the building and just operate through it.
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Re: McDonalds and re-opening inside

Post by Alpha8472 »

I went to a Walmart in Tracy, California and the McDonald's was closed and apparently still is. The Supercenter is busy, but apparently they were not making enough to justify staffing the location.

There is a Walmart in Union City, California with a McDonald's that is open. It had tables and chairs piled up. It looked so awful. There was very little room to wait and very few customers. The self serve soda machines were employee operated. The menu was limited and it just did not appeal to me. The dining area used to be the main attraction. People are tired of shopping and they want to sit down and rest. This encourages people to buy food. Now that the seating is gone, people do not stop by to sit and they do not buy food. Sales are down, and the restaurant might as well just close.
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Re: McDonalds and re-opening inside

Post by cjd »

I went to McDonald's last night about 5:30. I didn't see anyone eating inside but one person was ordering at the counter.

One thing I noticed was they have moved the credit card reader to an arm that can swing in front of the window or to the side for taking credit cards. I think this is the first time I've been to a McDonald's since coronavirus started so I'd assume they made this change to minimize handling of cards.

They were also making extensive use of the pickup spaces to keep the line moving. They had me pull to the third window to wait for my order, and the two cars behind me they had pull into the numbered parking spaces in front of the building.
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Re: McDonalds and re-opening inside

Post by Brian Lutz »

So far I have only seen one Walmart with an open McDonald's inside in recent times, and that was the Turkey Lake Road Walmart near Universal Orlando (seating was limited to a couple of tables near the counter, most of the seating area was still blocked off.) The two locations inside Walmarts near here (Lynnwood and Quil Ceda Village) both appear to have permanently closed, and neither is listed on the McDonald's website anymore. That said, the one in Marysville with a Subway inside does have that open, albeit with no seating. I have yet to see a McDonald's in this area with indoor seating open (a few locations have the counter open for takeout but no seating, most McDonald's locations are running drive-thru and curbside pickup only.) Wendy's did open indoor seating in some restaurants when they were allowed to do so back in June, but since the last round of restrictions in December all of them are back to drive thru only operation, and will probably remain so indefinitely.
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Re: McDonalds and re-opening inside

Post by storewanderer »

There are a few McDonalds with inside reopened in my area in NV (35% dine in capacity limit now I think it is) but most are closed entirely and drive through only still. All business and capacity related restrictions in NV will be lifted by May 1. These fast food businesses better get back to business and get their inside areas open again.

I did find a Jack in the Box with inside open today including dine-in (just four or five tables were available to use-nobody else was in there). First of those I've seen open inside since a brief period last summer.
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Re: McDonalds and re-opening inside

Post by wnetmacman »

All of my local McDonald's locations are owned by a single operator covering a large chunk of Louisiana. They have not reopened any dining rooms at all. All orders are either drive through or curbside.

For reference, the franchisee covers Lafayette, Baton Rouge, Alexandria and Lake Charles, IIRC. They do not cover New Iberia or Abbeville (4 locations), but control almost 100 locations.
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Re: McDonalds and re-opening inside

Post by pseudo3d »

Nearly all of the McDonald's in my area have reopened dining rooms, up to 50% capacity. I think the touch-screen menus are still non-functional, there's still the "sneeze guard" in front of the cashier, and of course, masks are required inside when not seated.
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Re: McDonalds and re-opening inside

Post by cjd »

storewanderer wrote: February 21st, 2021, 8:17 pm There are a few McDonalds with inside reopened in my area in NV (35% dine in capacity limit now I think it is) but most are closed entirely and drive through only still. All business and capacity related restrictions in NV will be lifted by May 1. These fast food businesses better get back to business and get their inside areas open again.

I did find a Jack in the Box with inside open today including dine-in (just four or five tables were available to use-nobody else was in there). First of those I've seen open inside since a brief period last summer.
It will take time for indoor dining to come back, particularly in states that have had it closed for a long time or really low capacity. Ultimately the public perception that indoor dining is a death sentence needs to go away somehow for that to really happen. Likely that will need to take for health measures to go away (if they ever really do), which of course is related to something much bigger needing to go away that may take years to pass.
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Re: McDonalds and re-opening inside

Post by jamcool »

The QSRs are going to a new store design that emphasizes eating out, not eating in....drive thru, take out, delivery services like Doordash (with dedicated lanes), with limited indoor seating. Fewer employees, easier to keep sanitized, easier to heat and cool. That trend was beginning pre-virus, along with the the “ghost kitchens”
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