Metropol

So, our McDonalds has had a big refit. The whole kitchen has been tarted up with black tiles and the menus are now plasma screens (with text that is too small to read).

However the big deal is it now has the free standing touch screen order points like you get in McDonalds in Europe. So you build your order on screen and pay before being given a collection slip.

However this is where it gets odd. In Europe (Germany + Italy) they have a dedicated collection till for these orders and the rest of the tills operate as normal. However in Dundee we have two standard tills taking orders, handing over a receipt and then directing people to the collection point.

Above the screen there is a plasma with order numbers lighting up.

This seemed to confuse everyone, although I don't think it was helping the staff weren't calling out the numbers and instead were calling out what people had ordered. Not sure if they had tried numbers without success on previous days but ho hum.

Does anyone else have this style of McDonalds? My visit was for breakfast on a Thursday morning with about 6 people in total in the queue. It'd be quite a sight to see during a lunch hour / post cinema rush.

There's one near us that is similar. They've put the screens where you order in such an odd place though - they literally are right in the way of where you'd queue for the counter (which most people still do). They clearly want people to use the screens rather than the counter, but you can't get to them easily because people are queuing around them. No one likes interrupting a queue.

The waiting area feels clumsy too - it feels like wherever you stand, you're in the way.

It feels like we're in the future and I don't like it

all new Phil wrote:There's one near us that is similar. They've put the screens where you order in such an odd place though - they literally are right in the way of where you'd queue for the counter (which most people still do). They clearly want people to use the screens rather than the counter, but you can't get to them easily because people are queuing around them. No one likes interrupting a queue.

The waiting area feels clumsy too - it feels like wherever you stand, you're in the way.

It feels like we're in the future and I don't like it

Yes that's exactly the issues I had, the screens are mid queue and there is no clearly defined waiting area hence the queue just becomes a mash of people.

Sutton in Ashfield has 'collection numbers' and a collection area, but only normal/manned tills. Seems to work OK.

Do they call out the numbers or the orders?

I think the big issue is that there is no defined queue for the two types of till, therefore you feel like you're pushing in even if nobody is at the self serve.

In Sutton? The numbers.

I find queues in McDonalds (with the exception of "fast lane") are a nightmare anyway; it's more of a scrum.

They've had this in Cardiff for about six months, pretty much as described, touch screens in random places, awkward waiting point that everyone has to go to, irrelevant of where they ordered, so those that want to pay at the checkout have to queue twice, once to pay, once to wait for their order.

I prefer to pay by cash, and have discovered there's a way of ordering on the touch screen and skipping the card payment, yet still getting a receipt, which you then take to the till, and all they have to do is action the order you've already entered. Handy if you have a big/awkward order and can't be bothered to go through it with the person at the till.

Bangor is the first McDonalds in NI to get the touch screen tills.

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/busin ... 23374.html

I must go into the Cardiff one at about 7pm on a Saturday after a Wales International to see how drunk people desparate for a cheeseburger get on with these new systems.

DOUBLE POST

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/whats-on/f ... s-10305292

It seems Wales' biggest media publisher has been blissfully unaware that this is going on under their very noses. And in Aberdare too apparently.

Contains images too to help visualise what it looks like.

Finally spotted the Argos style format in Uxbridge this weekend.

The young people seemed to have no issue using the touch screen POS, while there was a single worker at a till who did the bulk of the orders including mine.

However, it did appear to work as at one point there were 10 orders waiting and was very efficient. There was also two table ordering zones, although I didn't see anyone use that service, instead collecting orders from the collection area.

The franchisee was on the receipts, is this the case with all of the self-service restaurants?