MCD, interesting article from today's Independent (London)
McDonald's looks back for a future
By Leo Lewis and Raymond Whitaker
18 March 2001
Ah, the 1950s – that era of chrome and tailfins when mad cows hadn't been heard of and vegetarianism was akin to Communism. The hamburger giant McDonald's wants to bring them back.
Battered by the BSE and foot-and-mouth crises, Ronald McDonald is going retro. Tomorrow, in the small Midwest town of Kokomo, Indiana, the company is opening the first of a planned series of restaurants based on the traditional American diner. If it catches on, the look may rapidly be rolled out across the McDonald's empire.
The company's US president, Alan Feldman, described the new diner as "a test that fits into our overall strategy to capture more meal occasions". Translated into English, that means McDonald's must do something to distinguish itself from rival burger chains in the US, where the competition is cut-throat.
It would be a welcome boost for the fast-food giant if it could recreate the days of pony-tails and bobby sox, when a hot date consisted of taking Peggy Sue to the diner in your Chevy convertible.
The Fifties was the decade when the chain began its explosive growth from Dick and Mac McDonald's hamburger stand in San Bernardino, California, thanks to the entrepreneurial genius of Ray Kroc, who met the brothers when he was selling them milkshake mixers.
McDonald's now operates in 119 countries, feeds 35 million people a day and opens a new restaurant every three hours on average.
Business is flattening out, however. Last week the company warned that its first-quarter profits would be markedly worse than Wall Street expected.
Ray Kroc launched the first franchised McDonald's in the Midwest, and that is where the company is trying out the new concept, called "McDonald's with the Diner Inside".
Lashings of chrome have been used to give the Kokomo outlet an authentic Eisenhower-era look, and a new menu of traditional diner favourites has been created to go with it.
McDonald's usual range of burgers, fries and squared-off fruit pies will be supplemented by no fewer than 122 new items, including diner classics such as meatloaf, chicken-fried steak, Belgian waffles and triple-thick milkshakes.
In another departure, the menu will change significantly between breakfast, lunch and dinner; but one of the biggest innovations is that, rather than queuing at the counter, you will be able to telephone your order from your table and have it brought to you (although the company will not allow tipping). Will the diners also have a jukebox full of Johnny Ray and Peggy Lee 78s?
More diner-style McDonald's are expected across the US very soon, with expansion to Britain and the rest of Europe also in mind. Although the Kokomo restaurant has been purpose-built, the company says that it can easily refit existing outlets in the new format.
The venture is the latest in a series of new strategies for McDonald's, which is doing its best to diversify from problem-ridden beef. Next month it is even going into the hotel business in Switzerland, opening two Golden Arch hotels near Zurich airport. These will be distinguished by having chairlegs in the familiar arch shape, while residents will wake up beneath bedheads with the big-M logo.
In the US McDonald's has branched out into Mexican restaurants, taken over a pizza chain and bought an ailing diner chain called Boston Market. But in Europe, where it earns a third of its revenues, it has been hit particularly hard by collapsing sales of beef burgers.
Last year McDonald's bought the Aroma chain of coffee shops in Britain, and followed that in January by taking a 33 per cent stake in the trendy sandwich chain Pret à Manger, clearly signalling its desire to break into the more upmarket side of the fast-food business. But non-beef alternatives in its own outlets, such as toasted ham-and-cheese sandwiches, have not pleased its customers.
independent.co.uk |
