Any food at the end of a long line of industrial processes is going to be bad. Fight me.

McDonald's ranks just above Arby's. It isn't cheap anymore, they have doubled their prices in the last 10 years completely divorced from inflation and you pretty much have to use a self-Order kiosk if you go inside.

I do live within a somewhat unreasonable drive of their corporate headquarters, so I can get the best version of McDonald's possible in America if I have that level of self loathing.

I absolutely 99% of the time will go to Culver's instead and pay like $2 more for a vastly better fast food experience despite having to drive 30mins round trip instead of 10 minutes.

I would love to try golden arches in a European country or Japan to find out how good McDonald's can actually be.

I know this was targeted at the US but Ill answer from my perspective as an Aussie. Maccas used to be a good option for a cheap but by no means healthy meal. I dont eat there anymore because I no longer eat meat and the only things I would consider buying are exorbitantly priced. $1 AUD for a hash brown was a decent price, $2 is ok but not great. $3.60 for a single hash brown is simply outrageous even before you consider they are 2/3 the size they used to be. Even if I did eat meat, there are far better, more substantial options available for the same price

USA here. I've gone to McDonalds twice in the past year. Here's the experience:

1. Wait in line at the Drive Thru for 15 minutes.
2. Get to the speaker, no one acknowledges me for several minutes.
3. Someone finally asks me what I want. I tell them and it's radio silence for several minutes, no acknowledgement that they heard me. The screen that shows my order is shattered.
4. "Pull around"
5. Get to the window, person opens it and holds out their hand for my payment. Doesn't tell me how much it is or confirm my order. Doesn't respond when I say "Hello, how are you?"
6. Get to the next window, wait several minutes.
7. Get my food. Person at the window doesn't respond to my hello, Doesn't even look at me.
8. Get home, fries are raw, order is wrong.

I go to Wendy's sometimes for the chili and it's a similar experience, but at least my order is always right. Taco Bell at least the people say hi, depending on who is working.

It's that bad everywhere!

It's somehow always disappointing, but comforting.

I will say, McDonalds in Japan was pretty impressive. The food was still basically McDonalds' flavors, but was made like they actually cared. All of our food looked like it did in the pictures, flawless bun and fries appearance. It was kind of jarring, since I couldn't recall the last time I had seen a US McDonalds burger that wasn't a loose-wrapper intentionally-squished disc of sadness, with ketchup splattered and leaking from the side of the bun.

Yes.

I gave up on McDonalds about 20 years ago. Wasn’t very good at that time. I’ve been told it got worse

It's possible to eat reasonably healthy at McDonald's or other fast food restaurants. But a lot of people are going to add fries and a sugary drink, or even a milkshake, exploding the calories to unreasonably high amounts. If you just have it every now and then, whatever, it's not going to kill you. I used to eat McDonald's a lot when I was younger and it was actually cheap. Their prices are so ridiculous now that you may as well just buy something that actually tastes good instead.

Yes. It's literal fucking dogshit in the USA and Canada now and for a long time. I was a trucker, sometimes I had to eat there for lack of options. The only time I ever found it passable was somewhere in Montana, Rocking i think, where they cooked it fresh after I ordered like the old days, it tasted like 1995.

It's bad in the same way cigarettes are bad. It's not good for you, but it's tasty on the way down (though this varies by location and one's taste). At the end of the day, it's wildly popular for a reason.

Personally, I prefer Rally's or Culver's. Neither are much better for you, but they're better than McD's.

I only ever get nuggets and fries there, and those always taste fine to me, I even look forward to it sometimes. can't speak on the rest of the food they serve. thier water taste like ass

Whenever I don't bring my lunch to work my only options are gas station food or McDonald's. Every time I go to McDonalds I get a cold meat patty on a hard bun, with the cheese somewhere on the side. The limp undercooked fries and bland nuggets that have the consistency of playdough.

I go to the gas station without hesitation.

Big Macs used to be cheap. Now you can go to the Taqueria and get a meal for cheaper

No, it's not but people have formed really strong opinions about it online since it became expensive.

They have some good chicken sandwiches and the burgers are ok. If you are hungry and traveling it serves food fast.

It doesn't taste as good as it used to so my kids won't eat it anymore. Which is good because it's gotten expensive enough to go to a diner instead.

Still it's fine. It's never been better than fine.

McDonald's is franchised to a whole bunch of individual owners in the United States. This is why you get such varying quality reports. Some franchisees are better at making the food tasty than others.

For example with French fries: to get good fries you have to keep the fryers at the right temperature, change the oil pretty regularly, and get the right amount of salt on the fries right when they come out. A bad franchisee will skimp on the oil changes, not fix the fryer thermostat, and he won't care what the 16 year old does with the salt

One thing that McDonald's is really good at with their franchise rules is food safety. It is quite rare for anyone to actually get food poisoning from McDonald's. Probably rarer than many fine dining places where a lot more people touch your food, and they use a lot of manual cooking processes.

I havn't eaten at McDonads in years. Maybe 1 time in 10 years+.

But its not about the taste, its about everything else. I don't really go to any of the major chain fast food places. Sometimes I will go to Taco Bell or Carl's Jr but usually I try to go to the locally owned or regional chains.

In my area there is a place called Zips thats an old fashioned burger place and Taco Time which is not mexican food but a weird PNW version. They have crisp burritos that are so dang good.

Generally I try to support local so thats why I don't go to McDonalds.

The fries are great. I will defend them wholeheartedly.

Everything else leaves a lot to be desired in terms of nutrition, flavour and cost.

I wonder how much of it is people's taste changing. As in people who didn't eat good food before starting to realize there's more to food than fast food so their opinion of McDonald's changing over time.

I ask this because in South America and Europe McDonald's has always been consistently the same taste since I can remember. There were a couple of random specific locations where the food was subpar, but in general it's been the same, a Big Mac is a Big Mac since I started going to McDonald's over 30 years ago and in every city I've eaten it (never been to the US though).

It'll be interesting to see how things change now that we'll possibly get flooded with unregulated meat from Argentina et al.

Pretty much all fast food here is absolute trash and insanely expensive.

From the sounds of this thread American McDonald's is Canadian KFC. Food quality fell off a fucking cliff to the point of being revolting half the time, and the price keeps going up

"It tastes good so it must be OK"

Big brain time

My bugbear with Mc'D's is how they now always ask you if you are using their damned app.

I know I shouldn't, and that they're just teenagers reading from a script. But I just can't help myself. Whenever they ask if I'll be using the app, I flippantly reply, "nah, I don't want Ronald reading my email."

It's definitely a gut bomb.