McDonald's — Restaurant in Ottawa

I'll occasionally go to Mc Donald's for the nostalgia of it, or if there are few other options available at the time. I am always let down. Not just by this particular Mc Donald's location, but by all of them nowadays. They have streamlined the ordering process and service can often be great, but the food is about as tasty as salted packing peanuts... If you're lucky! When the fries come "unintentionally" unsalted they have a flavor that I can only really describe as fried water. A good, simple, tasty burger is not a challenging thing to create, and yet somehow this multibillion dollar corporation fails miserably at this simple task. Honestly, take 80-90% of the other items off the menu and focus on doing well what they are supposed to be know for. They other stuff is just a distraction. Would you go to Subway and order a pizza? They've tried desperately to revamp their image but that doesn't make a difference to the drive through customer who just wants a good quick meal. They focus on trying to portray a healthy image now, but we all know what Mc Donald's is. And to be fair, a burger and fries every now and then isn't unhealthy. It's unhealthy when it's a daily routine. McDonald's job isn't to protect people from themselves by making a healthy tasteless version of their food. That's the responsibility of the customer. I hope to never be so desperate to find myself at the window of a McDonald's drive through once again. There are many much better options available. And though they may not have the nostalgia of the golden arches, they do have a couple things McDonald's hasn't had in 30 years, flavour...

I've been going to this location for 30 years and have had many great experiences, this is just about today. I will be returning in the future. I also want to preface this by saying I'm not mad at anyone, I understand that the staff are trying as hard as anyone right now.

Nearly ten minutes in the drivethru, AFTER ordering. The guy in front of us had multiple orders and took forever to process each one. Ordered three fudge sundaes, very simple order. And that's what we got, but they were obviously made as soon as they were ordered and left in the hot kitchen. The wait was bad enough, but they then handed us a tray of half melted sundaes. They should have known how long their orders were taking and waited to make the sundaes.

We didn't get angry. My wife asked (politely) about the condition of the sundaes as I was being handed the tray. They didn't give us a hard time, they offered to make us new ones and let us keep the others. Said they can't accept returns because of covid, which makes sense I guess. We were directed to the nearby waiting spaces and brought fresh sundaes a minute or two later. We took the half melted ones and put them in our freezer, so I guess this is kind of a win in the end. Ice cream for later. Good customer service. The replacement sundaes were good. I actually added a star as I was writing this because it was really more the guy in front of us that caused...

Food was great and was served by smiling and polite staff! Only reason the 2 stars on atmosphere is because even after eating in a perfectly clean store and perfectly clean washroom I was with my 3 year old daughter who tends to avoid climbing to high in the play area. This is where the issue becomes apparent, not only has the play structure been reduced in size and some of the fun things like the ball pit not being returned even tho covid restrictions has long been removed (in case that's why it was originally removed) the toddler area consists of two things first was a plastic chair like item that she didn't mind sitting in, but then when you turn the corner of what is already a very small space for toddlers well I think the picture attached speaks for itself. Not much of a play zone for toddlers.... basically, the toddler zone has nothing for them to do. She entered excited for what awaits and left let down that the promise for a fun time at Mc Donald's was reduced to some questionable shape object that's sealed to the floor and a chair. Update the playroom and I'll change my rating. Till then I only can recommend parents to not hype up their kids about the play room cause they will be let down. For a store with such amazing cleaning and staff deserving of a reward this should be look at and fixed by head...