Ba-da-ba-ba-ba…I’m lovin’ it! Admit it, now you have the jingle stuck in your head, don’t you? McDonald’s is a fast food restaurant chain that was founded on May 15, 1940 in San Bernardino, California. Currently, its headquarters is located in Chicago, Illinois. According to McDonald’s Second Quarter 2020 Report, McDonald’s has about 29,000 locations in over 100 countries around the world. Also, according to the data company Scrape Hero, as of September 1, 2020, the restaurant chain has 13,816 locations in the United States, with 1,192 of those locations being in Texas and 81 of them being in and around the San Antonio area.
One of the best aspects of McDonald’s is McDelivery, their food delivery service. While the service has always been an important part of McDonald’s, it is even more so now since the coronavirus pandemic. I think that a video on McDonald’s YouTube Channel sums it up perfectly. The video says, “With McDelivery, McDonald’s comes to you. So, if you live in a house, apartment, condo, treehouse or houseboat, your home is now a McDonald’s.” Aside from using the McDelivery service to get your food delivered to your home, the service is great when you are at work and can’t leave to get lunch. With my family being a bunch of entrepeneurs, the McDelivery service came in handy while we working an artisan market this weekend.
Let’s talk a bit about how McDelivery got started. In the United States, it began in the latter part of 1993, in Virginia’s Tidewater region. About a year later, the service branched out into New York City’s Manhattan borough. In 2017, the McDelivery service reached the rest of the U.S., by way of Uber Eats, an online food delivery platform. Beginning on July 29, 2019, McDonald’s USA partnered up with Door Dash, an on-demand food delivery service, in order to reach more customers. Then, on September 5, 2019, McDonald’s USA announced a new partnership with Grub Hub, a local food delivery platform, as a means of finding new ways to best serve their customers. Lastly, on March 3, 2020, McDonald’s USA announced yet another new partnership, this time with Postmates, an on-demand restaurant delivery service. Today, McDelivery has grown into a global phenomenon with nearly 12,000 restaurants globally offering the service.
I mentioned the coronavirus pandemic briefly, but I did want to touch on it a bit more. McDonald’s released a coronavirus statement, where the company stated, “As always, our number one priority is protecting the well-being of employees and customers, and this principle guides each and every decision we make. McDonald’s and our franchisees are taking proactive steps to help ensure the safety in our restaurants across all our communities in partnership with local and national health authorities, and as the situation continues to evolve, so will our policies.” This is impressive because it indicates that the safety of their customers and their employees are a top priority.
So, how does McDelivery work, you ask? Well, it’s pretty simple really. You download the food delivery app of your choice and then choose your favorite foods from the menu. The only thing you can’t order are soft serve ice cream cones. Then, you pay for your order right in the app, a delivery driver is then sent to McDonald’s to pick up your food and they deliver your order right to you.
Did you know that McDonald’s has a huge social media following? Their Facebook page has 80,601,882 likes, their Instagram features 3,895,088 followers, their Twitter has 3,650,419 followers and their YouTube Channel features 35,370,836 views.
