McDonald's Cafe

I noticed construction on part of the local McDonalds, part of the front wrapped with plastic so that the business could be sealed off from what looked like after-hours renovation.  “That’s for the new McCafe,” I was told by the bright, cheery blond girl behind the counter.  “We’re going to compete with Starbucks!”

Interesting, I thought.  “Can’t wait to try it,” I told her.

Skip ahead a couple of months.  I go into the McDonalds and sure enough, over to the side of their regular food counter, is a new high-tech coffee device.  Signs are all over the store for their new cappuccino in various flavors.  This time, instead of the bright cheery girl at the counter, I get a bored, unhappy, slovenly girl about the size of a mouse on stilts.

“I’ll try one of your mocha cappucinos,” I tell her.

“Oh,” she says.  “Uh.”  She has to call a manager over to ask her which button to push on the register.  Then they and a couple of the other employees have a quick huddle, and a big guy with dull eyes and a slack jaw, he seems to have been elected against his will to be the one to have to deal with the new coffee machine.

He doesn’t look happy.  In fact, he looks frightened.

Shuffling up to the coffee machine, he flips open instructions printed in large type right at his eye level, glued to the front of the machine.  I sneak a peak at it — very small words outlining the process in simple steps with lots of pictures.  Pick up a cup.  Squirt flavor syrups in it.  Pour in something from bottle A.  Put it under nozzle.  Etc.

He goes through the steps slowly, acting as if he’s diffusing a bomb.  When the steam part happens, he’s very tense.  So is everyone else behind the counter.  I suspect a mishap with the machine sometime in the recent past is to blame, but, who knows.

He finishes the mocha cappuccino, or what passes for one at McDonalds, and hands it over with relief.  Then he hurries back over to the fry bins, which is where he would have rather have been in the first place.

I take my McDonalds mocha cappucino over to a table and sit down.

Is it going to be any good?  I have my doubts, but, I try to remain positive.  I take my first tentative sip.  Then another.  I sigh, let it sit for a bit, and take a third.

Am I surprised?

No.  I throw the rest of it away and leave.

Starbucks has nothing to worry about.