I’ve never been one to shy away from taking L to McDonald’s. If we’re travelling it’s perfect and he loves it as a special treat. There’s one everywhere you go, you know what to expect and it’s always great value. I was really excited to be invited along to a blogger event at the McDonalds by Norwich Airport.
Other than being very happy to be invited to an event in Norwich and getting to meet some local bloggers I was really excited to get to see behind the scenes. Finding out everything that makes #YourNewMcDonalds so great. The visit really was one of the highlights of my week.
First we got to look round the front of house area. Everything has been recently updated at the Airport McDonald’s and Kevin, the franchisee, and his team were happy to show us everything. From the digital ordering booths that I was already familiar with and love, to the Magic Table, something I hadn’t seen before, an eating area with games projected on to it. Things got a bit competitive!
I love the digital ordering kiosks, you don’t have to worry about quickly reading a menu and deciding what you want with a queue of people behind you. You can scroll through, looks at the options, actually see what each thing comes with and then customise your burger how you want without having to worry about your order getting lost in translation. This is perfect for husb who hates mayo and salad, so only ever ordered one thing previously as he never knew what sauces and fillings would come with what burger. No he can have a look, at his leisure, removing anything he doesn’t like. Perfect.
As a parent table service is the biggest new plus for me. I get to order, pay, then sit. My food will be brought to me and I don’t have to keep a child happy in the queue, juggle his bag, my bag, him and a tray of food. He loves to grab a seat with the tablets so he can do his colouring, I just like getting to eat in peace. Plus the Airport McDonald’s we visited has an outdoor play area, which is a real winner. OK, we don’t visit this one often, and not all locations have them, but when they do it makes a massive difference to us, especially as we are usually travelling when we visit one, so L has a lot of pent up energy.
I loved the digital display by the staffed order point too, it had all the job vacancies, information about the projects they support and information to dispel all those food myths that surround McDonald’s food. All the eggs are free range, the meat is all great quality and has nothing added, the cooking oil is even reused to fuel the delivery trucks.
There are so many other little things to help as well, like the air chargers for your phone, free wifi and the ability to buy the happy meal toys separately, something I never thought you could do. There is also the absolutely fabulous RMHC charity, but I’ll come to that later.
Then came the exciting moment we got to go behind the scenes and make our own food. First we had to get changed and had been provided with our own uniform and badges, which I was potentially more excited about than I should have been. Then off to wash our hands, something staff have to do every 15 minutes. Before getting our tour of the machine that is the kitchen. Everything is planned and designed for speed and ease.
As a customer you order you food and it arrives, quickly, I had no idea how that happened I just assumed they had a stockpile of burgers made up ready to go. That is so far from the truth. Every burger is made fresh, just for you. When you place your order the kitchen guys start making it, they toast the bun, add the toppings and insert the burger. Yes the burger patties themselves are waiting, but thanks to a clever system, never for long and as I discovered when my veggie burger had been used for an actual paying customer whilst I was faffing about popping my fillings on the bun, if that had happened in real life, my bun would have been discarded and started again as they deemed the 70 seconds remaining on the cook time too long for the perfect burger. Obviously I didn’t let them do this for me!
I loved getting to make my own food and see how everything worked, I was really impressed. Kevin’s team were so lovely and looked after us really well. They were all so happy and there was definitely some rivalry between the three stores Kevin is the franchisee for, which became very apparent when they started talking about their plans for the upcoming RMHC fundraising day taking place on October 21st across Kevin’s three stores. The stores will be offering face painting for customers, and staff will be dressing up, all to raise money for RMHC. We’ll definitely be popping along to show our support.
The charity Ronald McDonald House Charities (RMHC) provides free ‘home away from home’ accommodation for families with children in hospital. They have several sites and it really is a wonderful thing for the children and their families.
Disclosure – this is a sponsored post