Am I the only one that found that French fries illustration to be terrible? Cheesy picture that purports to be a "chart", that shows 2 values, plus the cryptical legend "French fries do not reflect actual earnings-per-share gains." And I'm not even much of a Tufte fanatic myself.<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chartjunk" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chartjunk</a>
One thing I admire McDonald's is its willingness to train its workers. One of my colleague's teenage daughter worked for McD's when she was in high school, and later worked for another fast food joint and she was able to identify many operational inefficiencies.<p>Another thing is McDonald's never got stuck in the idea that its core brand is about burgers, or expanding its menu is bad mantra.<p>The McHappy meals for example, guaranteed regular clientelle because of its collectibles. But the parents didn't want burgers. So the business altered its menu to keep the parents happy.<p>In contrast, Burger King's menu has remained static.
Reminds me of this excerpt from <i>Iacocca</i>:<p><i>[...] my father had opened a hot-dog restaurant called the Orpheum Wiener House. It was the perfect business for somebody without much cash. All he really needed to get started were a grill, a bun warmer, and a few stools.<p>My father always drilled two things into me: never get into a capital-intensive business, because the bankers will end up owning you. (I should have paid more attention to this particular piece of advice!) And when times are tough, be in the food business, because no matter how bad things get, people still have to eat. The Orpheum Wiener House stayed afloat all through the Great Depression.</i>
Business might be great, but TIL McDonald's borrowed $109M directly from the Fed as part of the Commercial Paper Funding Facility invoked after the Lehman collapse and was in debt to the Fed for 223 days.<p><a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/data-visualization/federal-reserve-emergency-lending#/McDonald%27s_Corp" rel="nofollow">http://www.bloomberg.com/data-visualization/federal-reserve-...</a>
McDonalds has a really bad rumour in Sweden. Yes people eat there, but people are starting to change mindsets I've noticed. Subway and such a bit healthier alternatives are becoming more popular.<p>Wort to notice is that what McDonalds is earning money on is not really the food, it's the real estate and speculation around these. IKEA do the same thing: "We want t build a building here" - who wants to have a store nearby? <i>bids</i> by other companies and regions who want people to come there more often and pay tax.
"win" being the operative word here.<p><i>cost-conscious consumers are flocking to fast-food eateries</i><p>The economy isn't doing well at all, and people are flocking to the cheapest alternatives. That's why Walmart, Dollar Stores, and McDonalds will always do well in desperate times.<p>It would be nicer to see people purchasing raw ingredients and cooking food at home. I can't imagine the amount of bad health effects that are going to hit the nation in 10 years if this behaviour continues.
Has anyone own or run a McDonald franchise? How's the experience? Does it require lots of work? Or just require passive monitoring? How's the cost vs payout?