CHICAGO – Place your order on a self-serve kiosk. Grab a seat at a sleek table or high counter. Take in the modern decor, sip your drink or check your phone using complimentary Wi-Fi. Soon, a server will arrive with a wire-rimmed basket. Nestled inside is the custom sandwich you ordered just minutes ago.
No, this isn't the scene at one of the latest upscale burger joints. This is McDonald's, making a big bet in the hopes of winning back customers who have been dining elsewhere. The effort is just one of the ways McDonald's aims to reverse a prolonged slump even as higher-priced chains from Five Guys to Shake Shack thrive.
What was a small test at four of its restaurants in Southern California, the Create Your Taste effort is expanding in a big way, rolling out to as many as 2,000 units nationwide in 2015, roughly one in seven locations.
The experience is vastly different from a typical McDonald's visit: Customers bypass the usual counter to place their customized orders on large flat screens. They can choose from a buttery toasted bun or roll, three cheeses, a variety of sauces and warm and chilled toppings. Then, they take a pager, take their seats, and wait for the food to arrive.
The Create Your Taste kiosk is "definitely not what you expect at McDonald's," said Morningstar analyst R.J. Hottovy. "The key question is whether or not consumers are going to be tolerant of the six- to eight-minute time frame it takes to make one of these burgers."
In the Chicago area, the burger option is $4.69 for unlimited toppings except for bacon, which is described as thick-cut applewood-smoked bacon, and costs an additional $1.
This particular restaurant opened in early December with two Create Your Taste kiosks near the entrance. The restaurant is about 8 miles from McDonald's Oak Brook campus, giving corporate employees and vendors an easy vantage point to observe how patrons react.
McDonald's brought Wall Street analysts to the location Dec. 10, giving many of them their first taste of the Create Your Taste experience.
"Overall we were impressed with the freshness, taste and open-faced presentation," Raymond James analyst Bryan Elliott said. Still, he questioned whether the price would be too high and whether the chain would need to spend more on labor for the process to work consistently.
The majority of patrons in the Chicago-area restaurant on a recent weekday appeared to have ordered Create Your Taste meals. Wire baskets of burgers, many served with wire baskets of fries, were seen on several tables in the restaurant. Hottovy said he liked a lot of what he saw, but "it all comes down to execution."
In fact, many of the chain's time-strapped customers won't be able to use Create Your Taste. It isn't available at the drive-thru, which accounts for about 70 percent of McDonald's sales in the United States.
