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In poor neighborhoods, McDonald’s have become de-facto community centers

theguardian.com

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Re: In poor neighborhoods, McDonald’s have become de-facto community centers

#261

Post by maxerickson »

ecommerceguy wrote: post #238

Most people don't realize it, but McDonald's is not a burger-flipping restaurant chain; it is one of the world's best real estate portfolios. Franchisees flip the burgers. McDonald's simply owns the best commercial property all over the world. Think about it, every town and city in the Country and many of the world, who owns the best lot on highest traffic intersection? McDonald's.

McDonald's is also doing product development and managing logistics.

And thinking about the franchises around here, they are certainly in high traffic locations, but they aren't particularly in advantageous locations compared to their competitors.

Re: In poor neighborhoods, McDonald’s have become de-facto community centers

#262

Post by the_af »

greenspot wrote: post #241
the_af wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, obviously this is a matter of taste, and by definition subjective, so I'm not saying you're wrong and I'm right, but... ...I'm speechless at our level of disagreement. This truly surprises me, to the point I've always assumed everyone acknowledged McDonald's food was trash, it's just that it's sometimes so damn convenient. To me, McDonald's burgers taste like cardboard. They definitely don't taste like meat. A…

on mobile, so i keep it short. re the fries you are misinformed, just google, either HN or Reddit, a guy there deconstructed the recipe, their way of preparing fries (they freeze them two times) is very sophistcated, better than frying fresh potatoes and not close to the cardboard fries McCain produces.

Ok, so they are not McCain like I thought. Maybe they have a sophisticated process, but what does it matter if their fries taste bad? I assure you, it's not "better" than frying fresh potatoes. I know so: my fries taste way better, and I'm no chef!

And aside from the fries, do you agree their frozen patties taste nothing like real ground beef burgers?

Re: In poor neighborhoods, McDonald’s have become de-facto community centers

#263

Post by greedo »

Spooky23 wrote: post #133

Not just in poor neighborhoods. I worked at one in high school... There were all sorts of regulars who'd stop in, especially in the morning. There was one group of WW2 vets who would come in every month.

When I worked for the Golden Arches in the early 80's, there was a daily group of 10 retired guys who ordered coffee, rarely a danish, and sat in a couple of tables for a few hours. They bitched about the weather, about politics, about "those damn kids" and especially when the price of a cup of coffee went up. It was a ritual in their day, and they weren't some downtrodden group; these were guys who had stories of WW2 that would chill you. They built this country and never considered Mickey D's with the disdain the current generation seems to feel.

Re: In poor neighborhoods, McDonald’s have become de-facto community centers

#264

Post by mjevans »

_Codemonkeyism wrote: post #119

What astonishes me, is how often poor people go eating in a restaurant (e.g. breakfast in the first paragraph) when making breakfast at home (or lunch) is so much cheaper (as a fun exercise we often calculate the prices of our home lunch). Although I have a nice income, 80% of the time I bring my own food to work because restaurants are too expensive in my opinion to regularly use them. As a side note: I have the sus…

Adding to this; there is also economy of scale.

Restaurants can buy in much larger quantity and receive a discount for doing so. It is more /resource/ efficient for restaurants to make meals as they disburse labor and ingredients over many households in one day, instead of a single household's resources and labor trying to use perishable items before they expire.

The main issue that comes to my mind is of the more perishable items: greens, vegetables, fruits, and baked goods.

I can, if I like, make my own rice at home, and bring in some fish to make sushi with. By the time I factor in labor and other costs I'm not actually sure that I've come out ahead of just going somewhere. For more complex dishes I don't think I do come out ahead.

The simple dishes, like a sandwich, I would honestly like to be able to make my self, but that doesn't scale down well. A family, sharing the bread, meat, and greens, is really required to make that more economic.

It would be so much easier if there were not-for-profit (or for very limited profit) places to buy freshly made things from.

Re: In poor neighborhoods, McDonald’s have become de-facto community centers

#265

Post by ececconi »

brianwawok wrote: post #225
cm2012 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

McDonald's has some healthy options, wraps, salads, etc. They are a lot less popular though.

Have you looked at the ingredient labels? They are still crap. Salad is Iceberg lettuce, may as well eat cardboard. Salad dressings are high sugar highly processed fat free crap. Wraps are made with HFCS and a bunch of preservatives. (Not saying most fast food is better, but McDonalds is about a 10/10 on the crap-o-meter).

You're wrong. The salad is a mixture of kale, romaine lettuce, and other ingredients. Looks like you haven't looked at the ingredient labels.

Southwest Grilled Chicken Salad: Ingredients: Romaine Lettuce, Baby Spinach, Carrots, Baby Kale, Lollo Rossa Lettuce, Red Leaf Lettuce, Red Oak Lettuce, Red Tango Lettuce, Red Romaine Lettuce, Red Butter Lettuce. Ingredients May Vary.

Source: http://www.mcdonalds.com/content/us/en/food/full_menu/salads...

Re: In poor neighborhoods, McDonald’s have become de-facto community centers

#266

Post by VLM »

dopamean wrote: post #175
meddlepal wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't hate McDonald's because it isn't organic or biowhatever. I'm also not concerned with elevating myself to some perceived class I don't belong in. I hate it because it tastes like garbage and is expensive compared to similar options. For a dollar or two more I can get a vastly superior burger, fries and shake at 5 Guys, Tasty Burger, Wahlburgers or whatever.

For people who don't have a dollar or two more the difference between McDonalds and 5 Guys is negligible.

Unfortunately having once been a starving student, and also being well off financially, the only thing worse than being well off and having an awful burger for dinner, was being poor and not only having an awful burger but knowingly blowing my valuable and hard to replace $5 on it. Why now rather than saving up two more dollars to go to Culvers, I'm going to have to save up $7 ...

How middle/upper class people think poor people think, and how poor people actually think, are often two different things. Also middle/upper always confuse poor vs working class along the "everyone beneath me is a prole and they're all alike" model.

McDonalds is more a working class place than a poor people place. Working class people don't think in terms of "saving up" for $5 because they have an income stream and McD simply fits that budget. They might "save up" for and plan ahead for $20 at a sit down dinner. But not McD. Its affordably cheap for them.

I guess what I'm talking about is the difference between urge based spontaneous spending for working class or above, vs planned saving up for actual poor people.

Re: In poor neighborhoods, McDonald’s have become de-facto community centers

#267

Post by 3pt14159 »

dreamdu5t wrote: post #243
jernfrost wrote: post #157

Bizarre how the article seems to present this as a hopeful and positive thing about McDonalds. To me it is just another indicator of how broken American society is. A fast food place serving terrible and unhealthy food is becoming a gathering place for poor people who are probably the ones most in need of a healthier and better lifestyle. It is also a sad reminder of how society has gone so utterly wrong when the che…

What makes it a cultural wasteland, exactly? Where are people supposed to be socializing, if not the place they like to eat? Mass production is what enables McDonald's to provide good food at super cheap prices. Probably the best food value for your money in the entire USA. McDonald's food isn't unhealthy as part of a balanced diet. It's no less healthy than chipotle if you're getting a soda. I don't eat there but Mc…

This is where I'm currently sitting:

http://i.imgur.com/n77GGsK.jpg

It's a small restaurant that sells food for a dollar or two more than McDonalds. It's a 10 minute ferry ride from downtown Toronto, and after the work day ends (very soon) it will be full of people talking and laughing.

I'm not going to judge somebody that loves McDonalds going there, but I am going to long for a society where we have less mass produced, race to the bottom, crap. I want artists and greenery and real forks and cups. I don't want to be around a bunch of unheathy food wrapped in wax paper. I don't want to be around shitty "John is gay" graffiti on poorly lit washrooms.

How is there even a discussion here? Can't we hang out in parks and eat veggie loaded wraps? Can't we get people off of transfats and sugar?

Re: In poor neighborhoods, McDonald’s have become de-facto community centers

#268

Post by eli_gottlieb »

kristianc wrote: post #120
stcredzero wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People finding community of some form is not just a good thing, it's an essential thing to human life. It should always be lauded. However, there is a lot of socioeconomic and sub-cultural in-group/out-group judgement in US society, all of which feels absolutely justified by those doing the judging. http://www.vox.com/2016/4/21/11451378/smug-american-liberali... In reality, it's all exactly the same sort of crap that…

> Knowing, for example, that the Founding Fathers were all secular deists. Knowing that you're actually, like, 30 times more likely to shoot yourself than an intruder. Knowing that those fools out in Kansas are voting against their own self-interest and that the trouble is Kansas doesn't know any better. Knowing all the jokes that signal this knowledge. Doesn't Vox exist to perpetuate this kind of nonsense? It's unde…

Yes, Vox does exist to perpetuate that exact liberal nonsense. That's why Emmett Rensin, a communist, critiqued smug liberalism there.

Re: In poor neighborhoods, McDonald’s have become de-facto community centers

#269

Post by eli_gottlieb »

DarkLinkXXXX wrote: post #109
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. I have noticed a strange flip-flop over the last 30 years or so. While the most prominent in and out groups have changed, the folks who used to talk the most trash about outsiders are now much more reticent. Now many of the folks who used to complain about getting put down are now the ones (mostly in private, but many times in public) with all the trash talk, i.e., acting like they always thought all the oth…

Political jargon already has a term for this. When someone claims to be a member of political demographic A, but his ideals are more closely aligned with, or he secretly supports political demographic B, he is said to be a crypto-B. For example, liberals might hyperbolicly call Trump a crypto-fascist, and Sanders supporters might call Clinton a crypto-Conservative, or a crypto-neoliberal. Granted, it's not used in ma…

>For example, liberals might hyperbolicly call Trump a crypto-fascist, and Sanders supporters might call Clinton a crypto-Conservative, or a crypto-neoliberal. Granted, it's not used in mainstream political discourse much, but I hear it more on the fringes, and it probably has some academic use.

I don't think that there's anything particularly crypto about Clinton's neoliberalism. She helped create the New Democrats. She may not use the term "neoliberal" on the campaign trail, but the house intellectuals of her own movement applied it to themselves.

Re: In poor neighborhoods, McDonald’s have become de-facto community centers

#270

Post by pbhjpbhj »

Pxtl wrote: post #170
smokey_the_bear wrote: post #6

McDonalds is the only restaurant I enjoy eating at with my 2 and 3 year olds. Every other restaurant is a slog to get through the meal. Honestly I'd eat there more often if it weren't for the social stigma of it. (I live in Berkeley). I am pretty sure the cheeseburger, apple slices, and chocolate milk are not much worse, and probably better, than the typical fare on a slapped together kids meal. When I was a kid, my…

Yup. If there were more eateries that made as much effort to be kid-friendly as McDonald's (and I'm not talking about the food, I'm talking about the toys and the playplace) I'd get out more. It's actually quite frustrating because my kids and I are vegetarians and while the wrap suits me just fine, my kids get stuck with their mediocre grilled cheese sandwiches (vegetarian children are still children - they think th…

Isn't the whole thing with fastfood that you can take it anywhere - so grab some and go to the community playground?
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