Duncan Edwards wrote:Fred588 wrote:...meal I can get a much better meal at a Chinese buffet, and that even has seafood. Whenever I am travelling, which is rare these days, I look for a motel within a half mile of a Chnese buffet and totally stuff myself.
For better or worse that "vending machine" look is going to be more and more of the fast food business. Many, including my beloved Chick-Fil-A, are getting everyone to order and pay ahead of time via their smart phone. In another ten years a McDonald's location probably will be a big vending machine with very few humans involved. There's really not much there that can't be automated right now if the price is right and robots don't leave safety pins in your McNuggets.
Bearing in mind that, from a good deal of experience, my views are biased so as to tend to see the majority of upper-level corporate management as not terribly bright and very weak on the ethical side it is part of that opinion that fast-food chains are caught in a sort of trap. They clearly see that the overwhelmingly large proportion of their costs are for labor. Therefore they want to cut that cost by automation. If only they could cut labor costs in half, and get the same price for a burger, profits could soar. What they likely do NOT see, because they are not looking or do not want to see, is that because their other costs, especially for the food material itself, is not that great, they will be prevented by competition from getting the same price for a burger. Thus, they will still be in the trap even fully automated. This is not to say that they have much of any alternative, just that running a business is complicated and tough.
The Chinese buffet has, of course, already automated to a large extent. There are no servers except for beverages and the menu is essentially the same for all. They don't even need the kiosks.
