To accommodate the current trend for high quality coffee and the popularity of coffee shops in general, McDonald's introduced McCafés. The McCafé concept is a
café-style accompaniment to McDonald's restaurants in the style of
Starbucks. McCafé is a concept of McDonald's
Australia, starting with Melbourne in 1993. Today, most McDonald's in
Australia have McCafés located within the existing McDonald's restaurant. In
Tasmania there are McCafés in every store, with the rest of the states quickly following suit. After upgrading to the new McCafe look and feel, some Australian stores have noticed up to a 60% increase in sales. As of the end of 2003 there were over 600 McCafés worldwide.
Some locations are connected to
gas stations/
convenience stores,
[11] while others called McDonald's Express have limited seating and/or menu or may be located in a
shopping mall. Other McDonald's are located in
Wal-Mart stores. McStop is a location targeted at truckers and travelers which may have services found at
truck stops.
[12]Playgrounds
Some McDonald's in suburban areas and certain cities feature large indoor or outdoor
playgrounds, called "McDonald's PlayPlace" (if indoors) or "Playland" (outdoors)[
citation needed]. The first PlayPlace with the familiar crawl-tube design with ball pits and slides was introduced in 1987 in the USA, with many more being constructed soon after. Some PlayPlace playgrounds have been renovated into "R Gym" areas.
"R Gyms" are in-restaurant play area that features interactive game zones designed for children aged 4 to 12. Equipped with stationary bicycles attached to video games, dance pads, basketball hoops, monkey bars, an obstacle course, and other games which emphasize physical activity.
[13]The "R Gym" features the Toddler Zone, an active play environment with age appropriate games that develop physical coordination and social skills; the Active Zone, designed for children aged four-to-eight that promotes physical fitness through fun play; the Sports Zone which features a series of sport oriented activities to promote aerobic exercise for children aged 9-to-12; the Parent Zone which features seating and provides a monitoring area for their children; and the Dining Area which allows families to eat.
Redesign
A McDonald's in
Shenango Township, Pennsylvania just outside of
New Castle was rebuilt in 2007 with the new "Forever Young" look.
A refurbished stand-alone McDonalds in
Portsmouth,
England. Unlike international McDonald's,
British McDonald's are simply being refurbished rather than rebuilt.
In 2006, McDonald's introduced its "Forever Young" brand by redesigning all of their restaurants, the first major redesign since the 1970s.
[14][15]The new design will include the traditional McDonald's yellow and red colors, but the red will be muted to terra cotta, the yellow will turn golden for a more "sunny" look, and olive and sage green will be added. To warm up their look, the restaurants will have less plastic and more brick and wood, with modern hanging lights to produce a softer glow. Contemporary art or framed photographs will hang on the walls.
The exterior will have golden awnings and a "swish brow" instead of the traditional double-slanted
mansard roof.
The new restaurants will feature areas:
The "linger" zone will offer armchairs, sofas, and
Wi-Fi connections.
The "grab and go" zone will feature tall counters with bar stools for customers who eat alone;
Plasma TVs will offer them news and weather reports.
The "flexible" zone will be targeted toward families and will have booths featuring fabric cushions with colorful patterns and flexible seating.
Different music targeted to each zone.
Business model
McDonald's Corporation earns revenue as an investor in properties, a franchiser of restaurants, and an operator of restaurants. Approximately 15% of McDonald's restaurants are owned and operated by McDonald's Corporation directly. The remainder are operated by others through a variety of franchise agreements and joint ventures.
Not-so-traditional storefront of the McDonald's in
Times Square.
The McDonald's Corporation's
business model is slightly different from that of most other fast-food chains. In addition to ordinary
franchise fees and marketing fees, which are calculated as a percentage of sales, McDonald's may also collect
rent, which may also be calculated on the basis of sales. As a condition of many franchise agreements, which vary by contract age, country and location, the Corporation may own or lease the properties on which McDonald's franchises are located. In most, if not all cases, the franchisee does not own the location of its restaurants.
The UK business model is different, in that fewer than 30% of restaurants are franchised, with the majority under the ownership of the company. McDonald's trains its franchisees and others at
Hamburger University in
Oak Brook,
Illinois.
In other countries McDonald's restaurants are operated by joint ventures of McDonald's Corporation and other, local entities or governments.
As a matter of policy, McDonald's does not make direct sales of food or materials to franchisees, instead organizing the supply of food and materials to restaurants through approved third party logistics operators.
According to
Fast Food Nation by
Eric Schlosser (2001), nearly one in eight workers in the
U.S. have at some time been employed by McDonald's. (According to a news piece on Fox News this figure is one in ten). The book also states that McDonald's is the largest private operator of playgrounds in the U.S., as well as the single largest purchaser of
beef,
pork,
potatoes, and
apples. The selection of meats McDonald's uses varies with the culture of the host country.
Controversies
Discarded packaging
Mcdonald's in calle Gran Via,
Madrid,
SpainAs a prominent example of the rapid globalization of American
fast food industry, McDonald's is often the target of criticism for its menu, its expansion, and its business practices.
The McLibel Trial, also known as
McDonald's Restaurants v Morris & Steel, is a prime example of this criticism. In 1990, activists from a small group known as
London Greenpeace (no connection to the international pressure group
Greenpeace) distributed leaflets entitled What's wrong with McDonald's?, criticising its environmental, health, and labor record. The corporation wrote to the group demanding they desist and apologize, and, when two of the activists refused to back down, sued them for
libel in one of the longest cases in British civil law. A documentary
film of the McLibel Trial has been shown in several countries.
In 1999, French
anti-globalisation activist
José Bové vandalized a half-built McDonald's to protest against the introduction of fast food in the region.
[16]In 2001,
Eric Schlosser's book
Fast Food Nation included criticism of the business practices of McDonald's. Among the critiques were allegations that McDonald's (along with other companies within the fast food industry) uses its political influence to increase its profits at the expense of people's health and the social conditions of its workers. The book also brought into question McDonald's advertisement techniques in which it targets children. While the book did mention other fast-food chains, it focused primarily on McDonald's.
In 2002, vegetarian groups, largely
Hindu, successfully sued McDonald's for misrepresenting their French fries as vegetarian.
[17]Morgan Spurlock's 2004
documentary film Super Size Me said that McDonald's food was contributing to the epidemic of
obesity in society, and that the company was failing to provide nutritional information about its food for its customers. Six weeks after the film premiered, McDonald's announced that it was eliminating the super size option, and was creating the adult
happy meal.
Anthony Bourdain on his show,
No Reservations, has criticized McDonald's among other fast-food restaurants for its culinary blandness.
The
soya that is fed to McDonald’s chickens is supplied by agricultural giant
Cargill and comes directly from Brazil.
Greenpeace alleges that not only is soya destroying the
Amazon rain forest in
Brazil, but soya farmers are guilty of further
crimes including
slavery and the invasion of indigenous peoples’ lands. The allegation is that McDonald's, as a client of Cargill's, is complicit in these activities.
[18]Arguments in defense of McDonald's
A McDonald's resturant with a
Playplace in
Moncton, CanadaIn response to public pressure, McDonald's has sought to include more healthy choices in its menu and has introduced a new slogan to its recruitment posters: "Not bad for a
McJob". (The word McJob, first attested in the mid-1980s
[19] and later popularized by Canadian novelist
Douglas Coupland in his book
Generation X, has become a buzz word for low-paid, unskilled work with few prospects or benefits and little security.) McDonald's disputes the idea that its restaurant jobs have no prospects, noting that its CEO,
Jim Skinner, started working at the company as a regular restaurant employee, and that 20 of its top 50 managers began work as regular crew members.
[20] In 2007, the company launched an advertising campaign with the slogan "Would you like a career with that?" on
Irish television, outlining that their jobs have many prospects.