Busaholic
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- 7 Jun 2014
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4O years ago today McDonald's opened their first U.K. restaurant in Woolwich, S.E. London. Although the occasion attracted quite a lot of local attention in the media it barely rated a mention in the national press, as McDonald's up to then was purely an American phenomenon.
I visited that McDonald's on its first Monday of opening, for the simple reason that every Monday evening at the time I packed up work in Central London and took a train to Woolwich Arsenal in order to attend a night class and had about an hour to spare in Woolwich before the class, time for a snack-type meal and a drink. There were no Wetherspoons in those days and local pubs chose to only provide crisps and a punch-up,so, until McDonald's opening, there was only really a limited choice of Wimpy Bar and the like if you wished to sit down. Another thing I also did on those evenings was purchase a local weekly paper, so I'd known the week before of McDonald's opening, also the reason why they'd chosen a once-famous but now down-at-heel suburb of London for their first British venture.
As I now rarely visit a McDonald's, and when I do just for a cup of tea, I'd like to explain what they were like when they started out, for the changes since certainly haven't been for the better from the customer point of view.
When McDonald's opened here and for the first few years all stores were run by McDonald's, indeed they made great play of not trusting franchisees to operate to their high standards! Those high standards included, for the first year or two at least before the policy was quietly binned, that all burgers were not made to order, as that would require people waiting too long for their food, but each variety would be cooked ready but once it had been waiting in the cabinet for a very short period of time it would then be chucked out. I seem to remember that period of time being as little as one minute, but my memory may be wrong on the exact period, but it was certainly within two or three minutes and was done with great ceremony so that all customers could see this! Immediately a replacement would be cooked.
The second thing that grabbed attention was the mouth-puckeringly hot apple pie, shaped like like a large spring roll and flavoured with cinnamon, quite unlike the traditional English version. The third were their milk shakes, actually made from full-cream milk and which were superb. What they now serve can't be compared in any way and contain some additive that makes me cough.
The reason why they caught on though, IMO, was from the very first with their Ronald McDonald character they wanted to draw kids into their restaurants, day and evening, with or without their parents, and get them hooked on the experience. In this they have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams, surely. Also in the early days, no matter how busy, tables were to be cleared and cleaned within a minute of departure, so there were always plenty of staff. In other words, McDonald's spent a fortune in getting their brand established before laurels were slept on.
Oh yes, why Woolwich? Well, they'd done their homework and discovered that the local inhabitants spent more per head on burgers and other 'fast food' (though that term had yet to be invented) than anywhere else in London. Wimpy Bar's retaliation? To put a pickled dill into their insipid product.
LOL.
I visited that McDonald's on its first Monday of opening, for the simple reason that every Monday evening at the time I packed up work in Central London and took a train to Woolwich Arsenal in order to attend a night class and had about an hour to spare in Woolwich before the class, time for a snack-type meal and a drink. There were no Wetherspoons in those days and local pubs chose to only provide crisps and a punch-up,so, until McDonald's opening, there was only really a limited choice of Wimpy Bar and the like if you wished to sit down. Another thing I also did on those evenings was purchase a local weekly paper, so I'd known the week before of McDonald's opening, also the reason why they'd chosen a once-famous but now down-at-heel suburb of London for their first British venture.
As I now rarely visit a McDonald's, and when I do just for a cup of tea, I'd like to explain what they were like when they started out, for the changes since certainly haven't been for the better from the customer point of view.
When McDonald's opened here and for the first few years all stores were run by McDonald's, indeed they made great play of not trusting franchisees to operate to their high standards! Those high standards included, for the first year or two at least before the policy was quietly binned, that all burgers were not made to order, as that would require people waiting too long for their food, but each variety would be cooked ready but once it had been waiting in the cabinet for a very short period of time it would then be chucked out. I seem to remember that period of time being as little as one minute, but my memory may be wrong on the exact period, but it was certainly within two or three minutes and was done with great ceremony so that all customers could see this! Immediately a replacement would be cooked.
The second thing that grabbed attention was the mouth-puckeringly hot apple pie, shaped like like a large spring roll and flavoured with cinnamon, quite unlike the traditional English version. The third were their milk shakes, actually made from full-cream milk and which were superb. What they now serve can't be compared in any way and contain some additive that makes me cough.
The reason why they caught on though, IMO, was from the very first with their Ronald McDonald character they wanted to draw kids into their restaurants, day and evening, with or without their parents, and get them hooked on the experience. In this they have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams, surely. Also in the early days, no matter how busy, tables were to be cleared and cleaned within a minute of departure, so there were always plenty of staff. In other words, McDonald's spent a fortune in getting their brand established before laurels were slept on.
Oh yes, why Woolwich? Well, they'd done their homework and discovered that the local inhabitants spent more per head on burgers and other 'fast food' (though that term had yet to be invented) than anywhere else in London. Wimpy Bar's retaliation? To put a pickled dill into their insipid product.
LOL.
