Posted on 08/30/2019 11:36:18 PM PDT by Morgana
LITTLE FALLS - Many restaurants promise fast service. But, according to one local customer, a Herkimer County restaurant promotes speed eating, with a 30-minute time limit for dine-in customers.
"In 60+ years I've never been thrown out of a public restaurant until yesterday. The local Little Falls, NY, McDonald's has a new policy to evict customers after 30 minutes. 3 of us having coffee and lunch following Sunday Mass were asked to leave the restaurant after 34 minutes. Another table of 4 women were also evicted. The dining room was essentially cleared," said Jane Malin in a public Facebook post on Monday, adding "Not only was it insulting and embarrassing, it was ridiculous."
The Facebook post quickly drew hundreds of reactions, comments and nearly 1,000 shares as of Monday afternoon. Some offered explanations for the policy, such as diners staying too long and taking advantage of free wifi; others called it horrible customer service.
Malin didn't want to be interviewed on camera. She says the employee who 'evicted' her was very polite, and she asked the worker to convey her displeasure to management.
A spokesperson for Tom Clark, who owns and operates several area McDonald's restaurants, says he does not own or operate the Little Falls restaurant, and does not employ such a policy in his restaurants.
A public relations firm out of Pennsylvania sent a statement, which they attributed to the owner/operator of the Little Falls McDonald's. It did not address our questions, which included whether or not the policy was enforced when the restaurant wasn't full, and how it is enforced; do employees note the time every party sits and watch a running clock to make sure 30 minutes are not exceeded?
(Excerpt) Read more at wktv.com ...
How about a little civility in a situation like this? If the restaurant is not busy (people waiting for a seat), then an occupied booth is better than an empty booth, just for the optics. If the restaurant is busy (people waiting for a seat), then the civil customer ought to be sensitive to the situation and vacate as soon as possible. A little give and take between customer and proprietor would seem to be in order here.
There are seniors in my area who like to go down to the local McDonals, buy breakfast and mostly the coffee and sit around for several hours on a Saturday morning to just chew the fat. They don’t cause trouble so Mcdonald does not care. In fact if McDonalds ever did something this stupid they would just take their business to Wendy’s and that would be terrible in this economy.
Same thing happens at the casino. Busloads from Chinatown with only a few gamblers but dozens of “hangers-out”. Many of them not very sanitary. Some kind of scam, but I guess the business model works, because it continues.
Greedy geezers spend about 3 bucks and linger far too long, esp. during peak hours. They shouldn’t drive during rush hour either.
In this booming economy? That’s the beauty of having choices. If you’re unhappy with service at one retail establishment there are other places to go. One mans trash....yada yada
Eat it and beat it.
Anyway, I don't normally care how long people linger at tables when the restaurant is not full. But when it is full, it is disrespectful to tie up a table "to linger" when people are lined up waiting for a table to open up.
This happened recently at a small diner we like to go to for breakfast. They make some of the best omelettes in the area. Normally it's a 10-15 minutes wait at peak time but worth the wait. On this particular morning, as we were waiting outside, there was a 4-top occupied by four young women who had obviously finished their meals. Now they were just chatting, giggling and typing away on their smartphones. Finally we got in there and those girls were still at the table, just hanging out. They were sitting right by the window where there were people lined up outside but they didn't seem to notice or care.
Wow. Booting 7 people cleared the dining area? Sounds like SOMEbody can stand to use Weight Watchers.
A while back, McDonalds was positioning itself as a sort of community center.
I even saw someone who set up her office at a table and was doing business.
I’ve been known to do the same, but would also be cognizant of the need to leave when it gets busy.
This seems to me to be a non-problem that will easily “solve” itself. Unhappy customers will go elsewhere, happy customers will continue patronizing this place. If there are more of the latter than the former, the business continues as-is. If the reverse, the business will change its policy or close.
Thank you, I’ll be here with Intro to Microeconomics all weekend. Please tip your server.
I wish someone would apply the boot to the customer who ate my lunch the other day and stole 20 minutes out of my lunch hour.
I drive a lot so I buy fast food regularly. It wasn’t a busy day at McD’s when I ordered one sandwich and one drink, but they asked me to “pull forward” which means go park over there and wait while we take care of the guy behind you (and sometimes there is no guy behind me).
So I waited 20 minutes, then decided they’d forgotten about me. Many walk-ins had come and gone while I was sitting there.
I went in and was told that someone had come in and picked up my order.
Do people hang around waiting to get free lunches by claiming to be the person waiting in the pull forward slot?
McD’s had a ready remedy, so apparently this has happened before. I got a refund and they gave me a free sandwich in addition to it.
Next thing you know, someone will be hanging around for a chance to claim someone expropriated their lunch, so they can steal twice as much!
Seems a bit harsh unless there’s folks wanting to sit down to eat and no empty seats left...seniors generally get a free/discounted second cup of coffee.
Was eating at a diner once and two of us were put at the only available table - a 6-top as the place was full...shortly after our food was served, were were asked to move to a smaller table that had opened because a party of 5 had showed up - no big thing for us and they got some extra paying customers...
We take my M-I-L out for lunch every Sun. She is a slow eater and likes to linger as this is really her only time outside. We know that us sitting there makes a difference to the waitress too. We always leave a very good tip for her time. Actually, the waitresses have started welcoming us back when we arrive now.
Yhe Jack in the Box near my house in Phoenix, AZ has signs limiting dine-ins to 30 minutes. I have never seen it full, and I have never seen it enforced. Actually, I am still trying to figure out why Jack in the Box dominates around here.
I suppose such a sign would make sense there...otherwise you'd have homeless bums buying a $1 coffee and stinking up the place all day.
After full automation and Guaranteed Income:
I wonder if this problem will decrease, increase, or stay the same.
Gosh I WONDER.
Time to start going to Burger King or Chik-fil-a.
I eat in my car , with all the kids the place is FULL OF GERMS ,LOL
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