Tag Archives: mcdonalds

Travel/Food

Fast food controversies

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By: Ian Larson

Fast food companies have had their fair share of controversies. They have had problems with their food, leaders, ads, and more. Controversy can ruin companies completely, but these chains are still popular today.

McDonald’s had a controversy once because their coffee was too hot. A woman sued McDonald’s for almost 3 million dollars over their hot coffee being too hot. This case actually became pretty popular because of how ridiculous it sounds. It turns out that multiple people were actually injured because of how hot the coffee was. Stella Liebeck, the woman who was suing McDonald’s got 3rd degree burns from spilling the coffee and actually got hospitalized. McDonald’s decided to lower how hot their coffee is served to prevent future injuries.

There were people claiming that Taco Bell’s beef was only 35% meat. This would mean that their beef wouldn’t actually be beef according to USDA standards. However, Taco Bell quickly disproved these claims in their marketing, but this didn’t erase what people thought and they still have a reputation for fake meat.

Papa John’s is a fast food chain loved by many, but it turns out that “Papa John” wasn’t such a great guy after all. John Schnatter, AKA Papa John, was confirmed to have used the N-word on a conference call. John Schnatter decided to resign because of all of the hate coming towards him. This event scarred Papa John’s and made a lot of people think negatively about the chain.

One of the craziest controversies in fast food history was Krispy Kreme making poor choices with the letters they used. The donut shop Krispy Kreme decided to create a donut decorating club in the UK that they called the “Krispy Kreme Klub”. They promoted it to people calling it “KKK Wednesdays”. The abbreviation “KKK” is more often used to refer to the Ku Klux Klan, a hate group in the US. This promotion was made in the UK and was definitely unintentional but still was a very bad look for the company.

Editorials/Student Voice, Travel/Food

Why is McDonald’s a popular fast food restaurant?

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By: Grace Lopez

McDonald’s is such a popular fast food that anyone can eat. This fast food is most known for their fries, chicken nuggets, hamburgers etc. McDonald’s was created in 1940 and from then to right now business has been booming and a lot of people really like McDonald’s. McDonald’s could be really affordable and really expensive for some people, but a lot of people really like the food.

Not a lot of items on the menu have really changed through the years. Little kids really only mostly go to McDonald’s for Happy Meals. They only really like the toy that’s inside. When I was little I also only wanted the toy.

Some people have different nicknames for McDonald’s like, Mickey D’s, McDirts, Macas and more.

McDonald’s also has a mascot: Ronald McDonald. He dresses up like a scary clown and a lot of people are really scared of him.

When me and my friends always try to go to another place to eat we always end up going to McDonald’s because it has a lot of different locations and it’s never too far from anywhere we go so that’s how they get the popularity from being so famous.

At McDonald’s you can also collect points from your visits and can earn free food and that’s how McDonald’s really knows how to advertise and get a lot of people to go there.

About three McDonald’s open a day and that’s how there are so many McDonald’s fast food restaurants around the world. The most popular McDonald’s, in Orlando, has an aquarium and an arcade and that’s how they get a lot of visitors and the popularity goes up everyday.

Travel/Food

Fast food secret menus

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By: Ian Larson

Many fast food restaurants have secret menus available only to the people who know about them. Just ask for any of these items and you’ll probably be able to get them.

First are the secret items at McDonalds. McDonald’s has many secret menu items that are available at most locations. One of these items is the apple pie McFlurry, which is a McDonald’s apple pie blended into a McFlurry. There’s also the grilled cheese which is just 2 of their burger buns with cheese in the middle. Another item is the Big McChicken, which is a Big Mac, but instead of buns it has McChicken patties. McDonald’s actually has many more secret menu items, but I thought these were the most interesting of them.

Another fast food restaurant that has a secret menu is Burger King. You can actually order a BK ham and cheese sandwich on a sesame seed bun. You can also order another classic type of sandwich by getting the BK BLT , which is BLT toppings on a Whopper. Can’t decide between fries and onion rings? You can order “Frings”, half fries, half rings.

Five Guys also has their own secret menu. One option is the cheesy fries which are just Five Guys fries with cheese melted on top. Another cheesy item is the patty melt with buns grilled just like a grilled cheese sandwich. If you want some fries that are unique but don’t want the cheesy fries, you can order the well done fries that were fried longer and are more crispy.

While there are many other fast food restaurants that have their own secret menus, the last one that will be shown here is Chick-fil-A. One of the Chick-fil-A items is the buffalo chicken sandwich where buffalo sauce is added to their spicy chicken sandwich. A drink you can order is the root beer float. The last item you can get is the chicken quesadilla. The chicken quesadilla is chicken and cheese in a tortilla.

Getting To Know/History

The history of McDonald’s

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By: Ian Larson

Photo by Jaskeerat Singh on Pexels.com

McDonald’s has become the largest fast food chain in the world through all of its many successes and challenges.

According to Britannica, the first ever McDonald’s drive-in restaurant was opened in San Bernardino, California in 1940 by Maurice McDonald and Richard McDonald, who were brothers. Then, in 1948 they changed the idea of the restaurant to have the purpose of selling lots of food for cheap.

They later made 10 more restaurants because of the success they had. They also created a system that they called the Speedee Service System, which had an area for self service.

In 1961, a milkshake mixing machine distributor, Ray Kroc, decided to buy out the McDonalds because he saw that the idea for the restaurant was good and could be improved on.

Ray Kroc began standardizing McDonald’s restaurants so that they could be run the same way. The McDonald’s company had many changes over the next few years.

The McDonald’s mascot that we know and love today, Ronald McDonald was introduced in 1963. Ronald McDonald was a clown, which was a slightly controversial decision because of people being scared of clowns and this being marketed to kids.

In 1968, the iconic Big Mac was added to the menu all over the world. The Big Mac later became McDonald’s second highest selling choice on the menu, only behind french fries.

McDonald’s introduced the drive-through window to their restaurants starting in a McDonald’s in Arizona in 1975, which was a great success for the company and would become a staple of McDonald’s restaurants in the US and Canada.

McDonald’s was growing so fast in the 1990s that it quickly became the most popular family restaurant because of how cheap the food was and the fun environment for people of all ages.

McDonald’s did face some challenges and criticism. Many people associated McDonald’s with the increase in obesity around the world. McDonald’s tried to counteract this by creating vegan burgers called McVegan and McPlant.

After all of this, McDonald’s is still expand to this day and isn’t showing any sign of stopping soon.