Sunday, February 18, 2007

McDonald's: PLEASE Do Something About This

One of The McChronicles' pet peeves is when a restaurant, ANY restaurant, uses odiferous, industrial-smelling cleaning chemicals in the dining area. This is true for ANY restaurant.

We have suffered through countless table-top cleanups where the staff atomizes a chlorine-based spray onto the table and into the air. This seems to be required between customers at some places. And it really affects the customers' sense of taste, smell, and satisfaction.

We're all for hygiene and sanitary conditions, but something has to be done to protect the diner's experience.

Case in point. Over the weekend The McChronicles hosted a tasting at the North Utica, NY McDonald's. This restaurant, right on Utica's main drag, Genesee Street, and near the NYS Thruway (exit 31), is kind of cool as it is built in the retro style (complete with Marilyn Monroe, Elvis, juke boxes, and even a hot rod in the summer).

What wasn't cool was the fact that, right in the middle of our otherwise awesome lunch, a crew broke out a mop bucket and began swabbing the decks with the most pungent fluid we have ever experienced. Unfortunately, this diligent young man was not simply touching up a mere spill. No, he had his sights set on a total washing. The mop water simply reeked of who knows what. Everyone in our group was unable to continue eating. Note, in the picture, the woman across from us had to cover her nose while reading her paper.

Everyone wants things to be clean. But is there a way to keep the mop water from smelling incredibly disgusting?

The McChronicles: a blog about, not affiliated with, McDonald's.
Image: The McChronicles.

8 comments:

Glenn said...

I agree 1000 percent. I will not go back to restaurants that use nauseatingly smelling cleaning fluids.

Regards,

Glenn

Anonymous said...

I was in McDonald's today and turned to see a worker spraying copious amounts of "McDonald's degreaser" all over the drink machine, inside the nozzles, and into the ice despencer. According to an article I found, "potassium hydroxide in the fluid is so poisonous and corrosive it can kill people." What is up with that? I'm never going to draw a beverage at that place again!

Anonymous said...

Sanitizer solution is the same color and is what the nozzles get soaked in daily..all of the dishes, utensils, tables, counters, etc. get the same treatment. If someone grabbed degreaser it's their mistake and you should've brought it to the managers attention.

Anonymous said...

I've notice for years that McDonald's fries taste like the degrease they use to clean the fryer. I can't understand why no one else notices it and why McDonald's hasn't come up with a solution.

Anonymous said...

I work at Mcds. We spray everything with different chemicals. Sometimes the bottles break and we use different ones labelled differently but with chemicals that aren't as caustic. They are colour-coded: Purple-Degreaser, Pink/light yellow/clear-Sanitizer, Aqua Blue-Windex(or at least its used the same way), Oily Yellow-Grafitti remover, and dark blue-green is either dish soap or cleaner soap. Its not that we want to clean after people. It gets burdening after a while. By regulation (may differ by state) we have to clean up EVERYTHING at least once every 15 minutes (Az). ALSO, to whomever says the fries taste like degreaser, dont worry, we dont empty fryers. The oil will stay in there until it degrades then we insert a special pump that takes away the old oil for disposal while adding clean oil. From personal experience though i will say I have had tastes of degreaser mist when inhaled and its very astringent tasting and chemical scented. cheers

Anonymous said...

I work at a corporate McDonalds and I filter the vats daily. We only use one type of food safe cleanser that cleans the stainless insides of the vats. Then we use a sanitary cloth to get the cleanser out of the vats.

Anonymous said...

McDonalds fries and fried chicken sandwiches taste like degreaser. It is taste like eating poison.

Unknown said...

I was handed that solution today to wash windows while at work. No one gave me any warning as to what the potential problems were, so I used it in a rediculously small, unventilated area and ended up breathing it in. Needless to say, I didn't feel the greatest afterwards. The only person who knew about the adverse effects of the cleaner saw me using it just before I finished and she told me that another worker had gone to the hospital because of that stuff. Thanks for including the name of the chemical so I can do more research.