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Posted on 09/25/2026 7:53:23 AM PDT by Red Badger
McDonald’s is spending billions of dollars to boost its franchises, an effort to cement its title as the leader in fast food amid growing competition.
The chain announced Wednesday that it will invest $8.5 billion by 2036 on a series of initiatives, including remodeling restaurants, retraining its 2 million employees and adding new menu items to target high-protein eaters.
About $5 billion will be spent in the next three and a half years alone, a combination of capital support as well as rent relief for franchises.
It’s all part of a multiyear strategy to win back diners and capture more market share. Last month, McDonald’s reported its slowest quarterly growth since 2025. The chain had blamed the decline on launching too many promotions, plus inadequate customer service and its massive World Cup promotion failing to attract eaters.
The new strategy, called “Next,” aims to make the chain “the first choice for more customers, more often — while making our restaurants stronger and easier to run,” CEO Chris Kempczinski said in a press release.
McDonald’s troubles are part of broader economic issues affecting all dining chains, with rising food prices causing customers to dine out less. The chain’s stock has fallen about 20% for the year.
What’s new? In addition to rent relief and capital support, some of that multibillion-dollar spend will be used for remodeling restaurants. McDonald’s mandates its franchises remodel every decade.
Images revealed on Wednesday show expansive dining rooms, bigger play areas and improved lighting. There are also redesigned kitchens that will use new AI tools to improve speed and efficiency, which the company said it expects to earn each restaurant an additional $100,000 in cash flow via savings.
McDonald’s also focused on changing its menu as it combats new competition that includes a revitalized Burger King, ...
(Excerpt) Read more at lite.cnn.com ...
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Also, you order on a screen in English but the screens in the kitchen and prep area show your order in Spanish to the staff.
My beef is I can get better food elsewhere for the same price or less. And the cheeseburgers are crap anyway.
Look for POV videos on youtube from Stephen Patula who is the owner of a McDonalds and also works the line and records what he’s doing.
HIS McDonalds is spotless. The amount of attention to detail and the efficiency with which they get things done is staggering, and it makes you appreciate fast food. The videos are addicting.
I see ... the price isn’t the problem for you. The quality of the product is the problem for you.
That makes the price irrelevant ... crap at any price is still crap.
Private Equity is the culprit why fast food sucks today. Example is Roark Capital. They have total or partial ownership in many fast food chains nowadays. 3G Capital owns Burger King, Popeyes, Tim Hortons, and Firehouse Subs.
“...with rising food prices causing customers to dine out less,”
That is a generalization. Depends on where. In my city in middle TN the drive thru is always busy. In most fast food places.
Delivery is constant.
The McD near me starts at $13.50 per hour.
Steak ‘N” Shake uses beef tallow. They even sell it.
They also desperately need to get out of their insane contract with Taylor, so that Taylor will no longer be extorting every franchisee over the ice cream machines.
Now show wages.
McDonald’s going under? HA HA HA HA HA
Eventually but no where near that.
What's with all the McDonalds that I've seen in the past few years being painted a depressing grey or black on the outside?
When the McDonald brothers opened their original drive-in (and later revamped it into
their speedy self-service hamburger stand in 1948), federal labor standards were vastly different.
The federal minimum wage established by the Fair Labor Standards Act was just
40 cents per hour in the mid-1940s, and increased to 75 cents per hour by January 1950.
Because the first location focused on extreme volume and low cost—selling famous 15-cent hamburgers, 10-cent fries, and 20-cent shakes————
labor costs relied heavily on streamlined assembly-line processes rather than a large crew of hourly waged car-hops.
Sorry. I meant general wages at the time for customers.
Yes its how they can spending billions to make major changes.
Gouging for profit in action.
A lot of it going around now days.
It seems it’s the same building. Taco Bell, BK, McDonalds, etc. So if one goes out of business, another can move in at much less cost. Still ugly AF though.
It seems that everyone remembers 15¢ hamburgers at McDonalds, but I can recall 10¢ burgers in the early ‘60s when my neighbor’s dad would buy a bag of 10 hamburgers for a $1.00. Cheeseburgers where 15¢.
With reinvested dividends, a $500 IPO investment in McDonalds in 1965 would be worth over $15 million today.
Bring all-day breakfast sandwiches and hash browns back, and I might think about doing business with them again. Also, they briefly offered their deep-fried apple pies for the 250th celebration, but now they’re back to their crappy, cardboard-tasting apple pies.
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