McDonald's — Restaurant in Washington

Negative review below - Skip past the excessive blah, blah to read how happy I was after a return visit...

After several (very) positive visits to this location over the last several weeks, this night was an unexpected poor experience. - - I was not greeted at the drive-thru 'cashier' window by a friendly expression - verbally or aesthetically. After paying in cash, my change was simply handed back to me in a pile - - with no verbal confirmation of that amount. - - Was asked if I would like a receipt and I replied "No - that's ok". End of conversation, with no instruction which of two windows to proceed to... No problem, so far - No big deal. After receiving my five cheeseburgers, I left the location and hopped on the freeway, in less than one minute. - Shoved my hand in the bag and pulled out what immediately felt like to be a room-temp burger. First bite, the cheese was even 'cold'. - I ate the room temp burger because I was starving, but threw away the other four cheeseburgers. Now - I don't want an apology, or a free meal, or anything to that effect. I'm just hoping this will reach the owners of this location and they make it a point to step-it-up a couple of notches with customer service and quality control of food that's made ahead of time and sits until it gets 'cold'. -

According to 'askusa(dot)gov' :

If ground beef is refrigerated promptly after cooking (within two hours; one hour if the temperature is above 90 °F, it can be safely refrigerated for about three or four days. If frozen, it should keep its quality for about four months. When reheating fully cooked patties or casseroles containing ground beef, be sure the internal temperature reaches 165 °F or it is hot and steaming.

Didn't want to take a chance though - with the rest, as it 'did' take me another 15 minutes to get home. The real point of all this though is that 'I' do not wish to eat a 'cold' cheeseburger. You expect to be handed food that is 'hot' and at the bare minimum 'warm' to the touch as you grab it in its wrapping.

It's difficult to find happy, ambitious teenagers to work on a Saturday night - I get it. But at the same time - starting pay is $12.00 per hour and the average McDonald's Crew Member hourly pay in Utah is approximately $13.62, which is 8% above the national average. Federal minimum wage is STILL $7.25/hr.

So please don't hand me room-temp attitude and cold food. I'm a local here, but this is a county that bends over backwards to accommodate a HUMONGOUS influx of tourists from all over the world. And after several BAD experiences with other McDonalds locations recently in this county after going many years without eating at any of them - I was hopeful this 'newer' location would continue to prove that McDonald's can STILL provide you with decent fast-food at a very reasonable price for most items. Now - I'm a pessimist, yet again. - - Sorry, McDonald's but you dropped the ball tonight.

EDIT: November 05, 2022

Returned this morning for breakfast and was greeted at the Drive-Thru with a friendly voice, a 'Thank You' after receiving our order and with a smile at the Drive-Thru 'pay here' window.

Sausage & Egg McMuffin® and a large Coke substituted for coffee. - The muffin was toasted perfectly, the hash brown wasn't greasy like so many other McDonald's and the Coke actually had 'fizz' in it.

This breakfast and the service more than made-up for my prior visit! I will continue to visit their location, as they really are the best of all the McDonald's I've visited in the last 10 years.

Changing my 1-star...

This is the worst experience I’ve ever had at McDonald’s. I was tired of the bad service at the other Washington location and since this is a new location, I figured the service would be better. I was wrong. I spent $35 for bad food and bad service. Save yourself the hassle and just go to Culver’s like we should have. They were understaffed and didn’t pay attention to the lobby. We waited over 30 minutes for our food. I asked for fresh fries because they had fries sitting under the hot lamp in the boxes going stale waiting to be served. We got old/cold fries. I ordered a chicken sandwich and the fillet was obviously old. To ask for a remake was to sit and wait another 20 minutes. One gentleman got so tired of waiting he just abandoned his paid order and left. We ordered a shake with our meal and it was set off to the side waiting for our food to be ready, which means it was half melted by the time they served it to us. The other frustrating thing is there is no self serve drink station…why!?!?! With this service it’s impossible to get a refill too. I understand the current employment challenge, but this...

Would give a minus five stars if I could. Worst McDonald's I've ever been to. I could have eaten across the street at Black Bear and had a sit down meal for how long it took me to get a take out order inside the location. One person waiting counted 14 cars through the drive-thru in the amount of time it took them to serve four people inside the store. No one at the register at all (I was there 40 min) and only one of the electronic order machines was working. I counted at least eight individuals working in the back but no one seemed to be able to figure out how to serve a handful of customers while also handling the drive-thru business. When I finally did get my food it was cold. I will never go back. I had a similar experience at the location in hurricane so I think I'm done with McDonald's since they are obviously done with how they do efficiency training and customer service. In-N-Out can handle 10 times the amount of traffic in half the time, The food is hot and the...