Even though that's usual for kids, it caused some problems. For instance, my parents liked to put onions in the hamburger patties. I'm not sure why, I guess they saw it in a magazine it something. But I hated it. A hamburger is the simplest food there is, so adding in something I didn't really like just made it unappetizing. Of course - as with so many things parents do - I later realized it was actually not too bad an idea.
The other casualty of my dislike for mixed foods was McDonalds. Most kids love McDonalds as much as pop-culture programs them to. But their assembly-line burgers with their blur of condiments were just gross to me. Sure, over time I got used to food with a variety of flavours. Now I have relatively few foods that I hate, and no alergies or religious restrictions, so I don't really think about the ingredients of anything I order. If I order a fast food burger, it doesn't even occur to me to hold any toppings.
Anyway, it's taken a while, but here's how far I've come: Today I used McDonalds' custom burger kiosk. And there were several levels of irony.
- McDonalds, that paragon of standardization, is betting their future on personalization
- I get to choose my topings at McDonalds, 40 years after I could have used the opportunity
- Given the choice, I put lots of weird stuff on it
- I voluntarily added onions.
It was kind of fun, bashing pictures of food on the touchscreen, trying hard to look like I know what I'm doing. But more than anything, it was one of rare points when I honestly felt like I'm living in the future. Yeah, I'm using a computer to order at McDonalds; I'm George Jetson. That's why it seems futuristic. So many of the really mind-blowing changes in our society are totally new concepts, rather than a modern spin on old things. Like you never saw Facebook in science fiction. It never occured to anyone because it's not like anything that was around then. But ordering fast food is something that's been done for decades; doing it in a gratuitously-modern way is just how I envisioned the future.
The process was fairly easy. Though in retrospect, I would have expected an easier interface from McDonalds. It also wasn't as superfast efficient as you would expect from a collaboration between technology and the Western service economy. For instance, the machine had to tell me to get a locator beacon from the counter. (Okay, I'm not sure if that's what their called; I mean the thing that identifies who you are and where your table is.) I have to ask at the counter? That cancels the system's two biggest benefits: efficiency and not talking to people.
When the burger was delivered, it came on a rustic cutting board, with the fries in a precious little deep-fryer basket. It was like what you'd expect in a chain restaurant where you have to chose between sitting at the bar or grill. But on closer inspection, the cutting board was plastic. Oh, McDonalds, even in the future, you can't help but be McDonaldsy.
This is an interesting concept, and it could change how fast food works. I've always been interested in how McDonalds organizes itself for efficiency. At the tiny McDonalds counter we used to have in downtown Kitchener, you had a great opportunity to see how everything works, because most of the food preparation happened within ten feet of the counter. So you see them making the burger patties dozens at a time, watch the worker with the condiment gun firing at each open faced bun. And you see how they try to make the maximum number of offerings from the fewest possible basic ingredients.
But now, all they have to do is have the basic ingredients available, and leave it to the customers to figure out what things they want to create out of them. So maybe one day they won't bother trying to make up standard sandwiches. Instead of researching what people want and marketing it, they'll just concentrate on getting those basic building blocks to the restaurants as cheaply as possible.
(Only after typing "building blocks" did I realize they have created Lego-as-food.)
But I'm not sure that it's going to work out they way they intended. See, I never saw anyone else getting their custom burger. Sure, I was there well after the lunch rush (I wanted as few people as possible to watch me blunder through the process.) But there were still a lot of people going through, and many were using the self-serve kiosk, but it was mostly to order from the standard menu. So maybe this personalized, lots-of-choice isn't what people want from McDonalds.
They've been trying to cater to a sophisticated clientelle for a while. They're pushing coffee, they made nicer interiors, and suddenly all their restaurants look like they were designed by a Frank Lloyd Wright fanboy. (Speaking of which, if I have any readers in Pennsylvania, could you check on Fallingwater and ensure that it hasn't been turned into a Mcdonalds.) But I don't know if any of this has really changed the way people think about Mcdonalds. It's true that as I left after my meal, I noticed there was a Ferrari in the parking lot, which has to be a first. But mostly it was just people coming in and casually ordering standardized food, same as it ever was.
So perhaps they should embrace the way we see them. For instance, instead of the cheesy cutting board, here's my idea: develop a machine that prints out the burger containers and assembles them on the premises; you can upload your own designs, so your burger comes in a traditional container, but a custom one. That way, you're getting the fast food experience, but it's a modern take on it.
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