Tuesday, January 17, 2006

China's NEWEST McDonald's Drive-Thru Rocks!

The McChronicles recently reported on the opening of China's first drive-thru McDonald's. To quote ourselves, "This is a big deal." So, we ran right over to China to check it out.

While in China The McChronicles uncovered China's second and NEWEST McDonald's drive-thru. This little secret is in Shanghai's Wai Gao Qiao commercial zone. According to our sources, the brand new store opened very recently. It sure sparkles like brand new - we spotted it from pretty far away (it stood out in a sea of relatively bleak-looking industrial buildings). Those golden arches looked awesome.

Not only is it attractive, but it is in a great location. Wai Gao Qiao is a place where tons of suppliers, sales people, and more drive to meet with a huge collection of manufacturers that populate the zone. The new McDonald's sits just within the custom gates (visible in the video below). It is a great spot to grab a bite to eat either before or after a big meeting or long road trip.

Notable items:
  • When we were there the place was rocking. The dining room was packed and the drive-thru line was long.
  • The drive-thru moved much slower than those we are accustomed to. Remember, the restaurant just opened. We are 100% sure that the Chinese penchant for operational excellence will sort this out very quickly.
  • Instead of having the customer order through a remote speaker, this drive-thru features a real person taking the order. Our Indian contributors tell us that this is the case there as well. In fact, there was an abundance of crew and security staff. It is typical, in China, for any such establishment to have a team of security on hand.
  • Our Chinese (Mandarin)-speaking staff assure us that the entire transaction was totally professional - and that great service was provided. This can be witnessed in the video.

The McChronicles had to edit together several small video clips to make this video as our camera only records up to 3 minutes per burst. And, embarrassingly, we totally blew it at the last minute and didn't capture the final step of the transaction. Apologies - please excuse us.

Trust us - the transaction ended in a great way. The crew was very, very professional and the food was awesome. We were hungry and quite anxious to test this new store.

So:
Line Wait: forever
Order Wait: a bit too long
Quality: Excellent
Service: Excellent
This experience was so fun and rewarding that we didn't need to find the FIRST Chinese drive-thru. We had found the NEWEST!

The McChronicles: A blog about, not affiliated with, McDonald's.
Images: The McChronicles

Top: drive-thru entrance
Middle: drive-thru order taker waiting for the next car
Bottom: video of drive-thru experience

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

---'The drive-thru moved much slower than those we are accustomed to'---

Well, that wouldn't be so bad, so long as it meant your order was going to be correct. I wonder what the stats are on the percentage of errors across McDonalds restaurants by country?

I don't really mean to 'bash' McD's drive-thru, but i been the victim of way too many incorrect orders - even ended up starting a McDonalds Drive-thru Experience blog for the world to share their experiences and comments on it.

Anyway, just stumbled on this post and thought i'd place a comment. Cheers!

sAN jOSE aIRPORT said...

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pay per head said...

Thank you! I didn't know they picked up on it until I saw your comment.