McDonald’s is testing a fully-automated location with no human contact
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There's a fully automated McDonald's in Texas where you can go in, order your food and get your meal all without a single bit of human interaction.
Your food will still be cooked by humans but they're all in the kitchen where you can't interact with them, and this could be the future of fast food.
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If you've been inside a McDonald's at any point in the last few years you'll know that most orders aren't placed at the counter anymore.
You instead have to tap your order onto those screens they've had installed all over the place, with about half the time spent trying to get the screen to understand which option you're trying to press.
The most you usually get as far as human interaction goes is someone behind the counter shouting out order numbers for collection and them checking your receipt to make sure you're not just nabbing someone's lunch.
However, this new fully automated style of restaurant McDonald's is trying in Fort Worth, Texas, means you can completely cut out the customer service part of the experience.
TikToker @foodiemunster took a look inside this new style of McDonald's and honestly it's a bit eerie to step inside a fast food place that isn't full of the usual hustle and bustle of about a thousand people all trying to order at once.
The place only does drive-thru and takeaway so there's nowhere to sit down, and if you want you can place an order and receive your food without interacting with another human being.
Instead it all gets served through an automated delivery system which sticks your order on a conveyor belt and carries it out to you.
With nowhere for people to sit down and eat inside, the test restaurant is about half the size of a normal McDonald's.
There's also a spot where delivery drivers from the various takeaway apps like Uber Eats can pick up food for people.
Max Carmona, McDonald's senior director of global design and restaurant development, said the company was thinking about the needs of its customers and were 'finding new ways to serve them faster and easier than ever before'.
Being the only McDonald's to currently operate like this, the success or failure of the new restaurant could determine whether the fast food giant decides to roll the idea out on a much wider scale.
People who saw the idea were pretty split over the whole thing.
Some said they'd 'rather have this than the current rudeness of the staff', with plenty reckoning this sort of concept would be in place at 'every fast food restaurant eventually'.
Others joked that even in a new type of McDonald's they'd bet that the 'ice cream machine is still down', while some wondered who unhappy customers would yell at if not front-of-house staff.
Plenty were against the idea, with some saying they'd 'boycott McDonald's' if the fully automated concept caught on.
Many wondered what would happen to all the people who would lose their jobs, with some saying they still liked to 'hear voices and see faces' when they went to get their food.
More raised concerns about what you were supposed to do if your order was wrong as you couldn't really raise your concerns with the conveyor belt.
Featured Image Credit: foodiemunster/TikTok
Topics: US News, McDonalds, News, Food And Drink, Technology
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