> My experience is that quality in McD is rapidly declining. We may agree was never a Michelin star restaurant

That's the thing with McDonalds.

You could go in to any store no matter where you was and know you got a consistent level of hygiene, cleanliness, good fast efficient service and while not gourmet food you knew the food you was going to get was a consistent standard. It was the reliable, dependable safe option in a list of unknown options. McDonalds was McDonalds know matter where you was.

Now it's no longer clean as they got rid of all the staff replacing them with screens. Stores are generally filthy with mess everywhere.

There is no consistent service as they got rid of all the staff and replaced them with screens that sometime work, sometimes don't, often out of paper for receipts/order numbers.

It's no longer fast as you need to mess about with broken screens, and repeatedly declining up sell options each step of the way vs giving a order at the counter and being done.

The quality now varies from store to store

It's no longer cheap. For the price of a McDonalds, in Australia I can go in to a Pub/Hotel and get a better meal if i get a special.

The last time I was in a McD (this year), it smelled faintly of feces, and yep it was a mess. It really did put me off going to any other McDonald's. I know that's one experience but prior ones had been trending in that direction.

The problem is they’re in an uncanny valley. They’re too expensive for low income customers and their food is too shitty to compete with other things you can get for the same price. Starbucks will give you food that’s similarly priced and much tastier and healthier. McD is disgusting.

For me it's the competition. So many competing chains and independent burger joints have sprung up and spoilt me. For 20%-30% more than mcd prices I can get something way way better.

To be clear you're getting a banging artisanal burger meal for about £10? You sure you're not downplaying the cost?

My local proper independent burger place is just under £20 for a burger fries and drink.

My family and I ate at one this evening. My son wanted to try to the McRib. I'm not sure he loved it, but it looked fine. My wife and I both had the $5 McValue meal, and we got a free medium fry because it was Friday. We shared one of the drinks because I'm not supposed to be eating lots of sugar. Some McD's don't have a drink station in the public seating area anymore, but the one we go to does. All in all, it was not a bad meal for like $15. I don't see any degradation in their quality at all. I think that quality is highly dependent on which one you visit and how well it is managed.

I’ve had McDonalds twice in the past 12mo. Once locally just because I was for whatever reason craving it, once on a late night last minute road trip in the middle of nowhere midwestern USA.

Hasn’t seemed to have a discernible quality difference since back when I ate it regularly a decade ago.

Prices noticeably up, but I refuse to use the app and am willing to pay extra for the privilege.

McDonalds tastes the same as it always has. Food consistency is what they excel at, along with owning valuable real estate.

Also, the quality of a fast food restaurant (cleanliness and service) is directly correlated to the median income of the area it is in. Wealthy suburbs will have much cleaner restaurants than inner city restaurants from the same chain.

I'd say you've just grown up and experienced decent food now. McDonald's is marketed to children and caters for the child-like palate: sweet, salty and acidic, like tomato ketchup.

When I grew up in the UK in the 80s/90s we ate typical British food. Potatoes every day, boiled veg, baked beans, beige protein things. Back then it was possible to have "Chinese" or "Indian", but it's all total shit: overly sweet, not spicy, greasy as fuck bastardised rubbish. Nowadays I can actually find real Indian, French, Italian etc. that is actually delicious. It's difficult to imagine going back to beige stuff I grew up on.

I think this is under-appreciated. The technology of food has progressed immensely in the last decades! Even recipes from the 90s don't hold up as well, because home cooks have access to more knowledge, techniques, tools, ingredients, foodstuffs. And of course if you look at photos of food and typical dining from the 80s you can sort of spot a difference visually as well.

Seems to be exactly the same quality at least here in the US, that it has always been.

In some ways the rest of the world's McDonald's are simply plummeting to the low quality of those in the US.

Here in Greece, we have so much good quality street food that McDonald's is street trash by comparison. I don't consider it food, there are only about eight or nine restaurants in the entire country and I think most people go there because of the novelty.

Please don't let Greece get too wealthy, the quality street food will get pushed out and replaced with overpriced yuppie food that all gets sourced from the exact same company!

Austria resident checking in - since I moved here I noticed the quality of McD’s is way, way better than in the UK. And apart from the regular menu being a whole different experience, you’ve got great quality coffee and cakes. It’s a whole world of difference.

Here in Sweden they changed their recipes a few years ago. I can’t stand the Big Mac now. Previously it at least felt kind of fresh although low quality. Now it has a weird freeze dried sensation to the vegetables :/

As of ~1 year ago, American-fast-food-in-France was still noticeably better than -in-America.