re: McDonald’s to phase out self serve drink stations by 2032

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They give all sorts of bs reasons but I’m sure the main reason is trashy people that ask for water and steal it. I’ve even seen homeless people bring their own cup or take one from the garbage to fill it up.

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I am sure that is one reason. I personally think McD is working to be completely (or mostly) automated with little to no workers. I cant think of anything in the day to day making of that food that a robot cant. Maybe 1 or two people on hand to monitor the operation, clean, refill supplies. Now you see them with the kiosks in them for you to place your own order or from a app...enticing you with rewards to use it...training you and testing the situation. One of the new ones by my house only has one person at the register now and they are also running food to tables because a lot are using the kiosk.

For instance...link below has a bot you can buy or rent for 1500/mo. That includes maintenance and no back talk/BS excuses as to why you cant show up for your shift. That's about 8.60/hr for a single fry guy a month at 40ish hrs a week that will do better than the HS kid....and you only need 1.

30k for French fry / burger flipper bot

I'd bet they are going to eventually stop offering free refills. I could see a drink machine that you pay and fills and delivers your drink. So basically you pay for a drink and get a drink, no more doing it yourself.

I can't imagine having a human available for pouring drinks is all that more efficient than the little you lose occasionally from people "stealing" free sodas. As said, once you add ice a 24 oz drink has very little soda so the cost per drink is pennies. At $12/ hour you have to make a hell of a lot of sodas to justify having an employee do it.

They phased out the old styrofoam cups years ago. I think there may have been a paper version in there at some point. Now they are all the clear plastic ones, from a water to a milkshake, so you can see what is in the cups. I think the only paper ones now are for coffee and there was never self service for that anyways. This is all about loss prevention and lowering costs. At least they are trying to do that, unlike some places that just continue to raise prices.

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I've heard the opposite, when we were in high school I had a friend work at a restaurant and the owner said that was a money maker. A $1.50 soda had something like $0.17 of cost in it. This was a while back so maybe stuff has changed.

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That's what I said. The cup is a big part of the 17 cents. Actually, more than the cost of the fountain drink. First job I even had was a drive-in movie concession stand. Our syrup concentrate was pricy, but it made many gallons of drink. We did not count inventory on drink or carbonation, only the cups. The manager said they were what we needed to control.

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Our syrup concentrate was pricy, but it made many gallons of drink.

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Soft drinks are one of the highest margin items in fast food. It all depends on how much ice is used, but assume 10 oz of liquid go in a cup with ice, that gives you about 375 servings per 5 gallon bag.

Even if a 5 gallon bag costs $100(I'm assuming it doesn't), you'd still make ~$550 on drinks at McDonalds. Assuming medium drinks(16 oz) end up with 10 oz of drink and are sold for ~$1.50(including tax). This is before cost of cup, lids, ice, but it's still a damn good profit margin.

Lots of assumptions there, but a little googling will tell you there is a lot of money to be made on those drinks, however, if everyone gets a free refill, it cuts that in half.

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I always heard that the cup costs more than the drink that goes into it.


I've heard the opposite, when we were in high school I had a friend work at a restaurant and the owner said that was a money maker. A $1.50 soda had something like $0.17 of cost in it. This was a while back so maybe stuff has changed.

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I have heard that if Mcy Ds could get away with it they would only sell cokes and french frys.

I work in commercial liability and so so many slip and fall claims are in front of self-serve fountains. I cannot count how many times I have paid out because someone busted their arse because some other customer spilled ice or soda. I have said for quite a while those would someday be gone.