McDonald's — Restaurant in Winston-Salem

Three Stars for the Golden Arches, Zero for the Experience McDonald's, Stratford Road, Winston-Salem — 3:45 PM, April 3rd

Let me preface this by saying: I came in peace. I came hungry. I came with the McDonald's app pre-loaded and a heart full of hope. I selected “dine-in” like a responsible citizen, walked through the doors of the Stratford Road McDonald's, and foolishly expected efficiency, cleanliness, and—dare I say it—a little dignity.

Instead, what I got was a masterclass in disappointment with a side of “what in the actual french fry is going on back there?”

First off, I checked in with the friendly guy at the register and told him I had a pickup for dine-in. He kindly directed me to the “pickup line” where I queued up behind two other lost souls. I started a stopwatch, because if there's anything I’ve learned, it’s to measure expectations against reality.

While waiting, I overheard a manager proudly tell a customer, “We’ve got five stars because we get food out in under 3 minutes.” That’s a bold claim, ma’am. It’s now framed in my mind like a motivational quote in an office… that’s been on fire for at least a week.

Then, a horror short film unfolded before my eyes. An employee named Sophia, in the frenzy of rush hour, turned too quickly with food in hand and dropped it all over the floor. The kicker? She threw some away, but—wait for it—put the rest in Happy Meal boxes to serve to customers. I wish I were making this up. My jaw hit the floor faster than those nuggets did.

Trying to be discreet and helpful, I pulled the register guy aside and let him know what I saw. He thanked me and returned to business, and I resumed my lonely vigil at the pickup counter, slowly questioning every life choice that led me there.

When my food finally arrived, 11 minutes and 48 seconds later (not counting the time I’d already waited in line), I was gifted my “dine-in” meal in to-go bags. Because clearly, reading order types is extra credit around here.

And as a cherry on top of this Happy Meal of Chaos: my cookies were shattered into oblivion. Crumbs of hope, really.

I took one last look around, clutching my paper bag of regrets, and left. I couldn’t bring myself to sit and eat. Not after seeing what I saw. Not after waiting longer than it takes to cook an actual meal at home.

McDonald’s, you pride yourself on fast service and efficiency. Today, you delivered chaos, confusion, and crumbled cookies. I’m disappointed. I’m frustrated. I’m mildly traumatized. But mostly? I’m just really, really sad I didn’t go to literally...

What can I say it's a typical McDonalds although this one is particularly old and not upgraded to the new model. They have only one order Lane and are not 24 hours. Their drive through register printer head is either dirty or damaged as the receipt is totally illegible and upon bringing the concern to their swing manager I was told that she doesn't know how to get me a proper receipt, she claims the new printer is on order and that I'd have to call another manager after 7am. I ordered the sausage gravy biscuit combo with a sweet tea (which they now charge extra for) along with 3 creamers (it's a TikTok thing).

The food was actually pretty fresh the gravy tasted good and biscuits seemed freshly baked. The tea was properly sweetened although I'd still like to know why the company feels that they should literally fill the cup from top to bottom with ice. I'm pretty sure I ordered tea and not a large cup of ice with a sprinkle of tea.

I'm not a fan of McDonalds anyway but I know enough about them to know when one isn't to standards and this one is definitely not up to standard. I think the biggest thing this store has is it's location because if it wasn't so convenient I'm sure people would find...

Waited 35 minutes for cold, old food. Medium fries were half full, stale and cold. Chicken nuggets were old and cold (didn’t even eat them) I asked for 3 hot mustards, luckily I checked the bag to see they forgot my sauce. Imagine ordering chicken nuggets and not getting a single sauce. my husband got a hot fudge sundae that they filled 1/4 of the way with ice cream. We had a code for 20% off and the manager gave us a sorry excuse that the codes don’t work on the app because “the app was updating “ the app worked fine. She didn’t even try to put the code in the POS system. The night crew is trash, the drive through is trash. It shouldn’t take 10 minutes to get a simple order, ESPECIALLY if it’s old, cold food. They have young teenagers who don’t care handling the food so obviously the service and quality of the food is going to be TRASH. They need a entire new night crew. I suggest to just stay home before coming to this McDonald at night, we went a 9pm so it’s not like we went minutes before closing. There’s no excuse to wait this long and not have...