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by listenallyall 1664 days ago
"Better" for whom? McDonald's is massively successful with $200 billion market cap and its stock essentially only goes straight up. The franchisees have always had gripes with corporate, always want to save a few pennies, but these arguments are tiny in the grand scheme... most franchisees are also enormously successful and fantastically rich.

Nobody is forcing you to go to McDonald's, stick with INO if it makes you feel good. I love it too (CFA, not so much) but each restaurant has its own niche and each chain has found the style that works for them.
2 comments
danaris 1664 days ago
> "Better" for whom? McDonald's is massively successful with $200 billion market cap and its stock essentially only goes straight up.

And this is exactly the source of the problem: the idea that the purpose of McDonald's (or any other company) is to provide Number Go Up thrills to its stockholders, rather than to produce a good product, with the profit being the reward for doing so well.

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listenallyall 1664 days ago
What problem? McDonald's produces a terrific product that millions of people enjoy every day and that's why the stock does so well.

McDonald's goal isn't to produce the greatest burger in the world. It succeeds at the best combination of pretty tasty food, high menu variety, very convenient, generally quick, and low price. It is not #1 at any single attribute (maybe convenience) but the best overall combination.

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etempleton 1664 days ago
No doubt. I am not saying that McDoanlds is unsuccessful, rather that by customer satisfaction surveys In and Out wins. They also have, perhaps, a less scalable model of business and so can never grow to McDonalds size while also maintaining that quality.

Interestingly, Chick-fil-a has learned to scale and maintain quality.

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listenallyall 1664 days ago
This is just an opinion but CFA does not scale well. In my experience overall quality and service at CFA has dropped considerably, and not just at new stores, but older ones as well. Part of the issue is that CFA does not allow owners to own multiple stores, so every new store has a rookie on top. Well-trained, but not experienced.

Every INO is company-owned, overall I think it manages to keep quality pretty high at all it's stores. Of course part of that is due to the extremely limited menu, and also that INO has never been known for fast service. INO basically tells customers up front, we aren't convenient and we aren't fast and we don't sell anything except burgers... that's 3 areas of potential customer dissatisfaction that they take off the table. All that is left is price, which is good not great, and taste/quality, which, to its credit, INO is pretty fanatical about. Edit: and cleanliness/service, also strong points for INO

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