i’ve been seeing this for awhile now.
first i saw a video of a guy ordering mcflurry from mcdonalds but it was served unmixed. the server said the ice cream machine is broken but he ninja his way to the mixer without detection and mixed it himself. second one is when a friend working at cali said that they dont like ordering ice cream anymore cause alot of servers always say that the ice cream machine is broken. then last i saw a girl cosplaying a mcdonalds server whose motto is “the ice cream machine is broken”
is this a meme thing or a real thing??
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> is this a meme thing or a real thing??
Both.
The ice cream machines are often “broken” when in reality a lot of times the workers don’t want to fill them because they will later have to clean them.
So it’s frustrating for customers because half the time you can’t get the ice cream or shake. The customers go there, sit in the drive through, only to hear “it’s broken.”
Some say the franchises are made to contract with a sub par ice cream machine company and they really are flawed machines.
There are some articles that explain why the machines are down so frequently. Here’s one major reason that it was so common:
>All of McDonald’s soft-serve machines are made by one company, Taylor. And thanks to Taylor Company’s copyright on the machines, if one breaks, only Taylor is authorized to come fix it. In fact, it’s illegal for a McDonald’s location to try and fix it themselves or call a local handyman to take care of it for them. That means when a machine breaks, it’s essentially up to Taylor when it gets fixed, and there’s not anything your local store can do about it.
A few months after that article was written, McDonalds gained the “right to repair” so maybe this will eventually stop being an actual thing and fade into meme status.
https://www.allrecipes.com/article/the-real-reason-mcdonalds-ice-cream-machines-are-always-broken/
tl;dr – for the longest ass time McDonald’s bought one specific model of machine from one specific company. That model has a notoriously long cleaning time (4 hours per cycle), and also has a notoriously high fail rate to … self-clean. If it encounters an error then there’s some additional troubleshooting steps including just trying to run the cleaning cycle again.
It’s a bit of a meme.
As a former employee of the chain for a few years, some employees really don’t like wiping down the blender after each use when it’s busy.
Also, the soft serve machines themselves are a bit finicky. Any failure condition that would put them consistently out of safe operating range usually results in the machine being entirely locked out, and heavy repair of refrigeration equipment is far outside the typical skillet of employees in a restaurant. If something’s actually broken that needs repair, the downtime will be extensive.
The displays on them don’t walk you through the solutions for common minor errors cases (such as low product level in the hopper) so it can be mildly confusing when something needs to be addressed.
Also, they must undergo either a full disassembly or a 3-4 hour nightly heat treatment cycle. This annoyed me as we would have many people ordering ice cream at 4-6am, but leadership insisted the machine must be clear of that cycle by 10:30am, so starting the treatment cycle earlier than 4am was entirely necessary.
So actually… McDonalds is one of the few places that cleans their ice cream machines daily.. most places are absolutely disgusting and just fill ice cream mix on top of whatever they have left in them.. McDonalds requires employees to completely empty and flush the machines daily because otherwise youd have milk product that you have no idea when it is it has expired just mixed in with the new stuff.. but the flushing process takes a long time so they generally either start the process about an hour before close so that theyre not staying an extra hour past close just for that.. or the ones that are open 24 hours have to plan a specific time to do it when they have the personnel to spare to do it which is generally unfortunately not overnight.. that’s generally when they have the least staff.. they also generally wont fill it up too close to time to clean it because that wastes gallons of the mix.. so if they plan to clean it at closing time theyre not going to refill it an hour or two before just to have to drain and dump dozens of servings down the drain so they close the machine when it runs out..
As someone who did it for years, cleaning those machines takes literal hours. It’s easier to tell you it isn’t working than to say it is being cleaned because too many people think it’s a quick job and will want to wait. Workers don’t have time to hold someone’s hand and explain why it takes so long AND do the cleaning in between their other duties. People will outright argue over why the cleaning is taking so long and fcking contact the owner over it. Instead of dealing with that, having someone look over our shoulders to see what’s taking so long while they loudly complain that service sucks, it’s simpler not to deal with it.
ETA: This was at McDonalds.
McDonald’s has a real issue that they don’t want to correct. All their mcflurry machines are made by a single company which prevents repair of the unit through software they control. If you don’t get the company to repair it, it can’t be turned on again, even if the hardware is fixed. That kind of thing. The company charges a fortune for repairs and takes forever to come out.
If I remember correctly, there’s a right to repair lawsuit going on between a bunch of franchise owners and the manufacturer of the machine. Not sure the status.
But yeah it’s common for McDonald’s to have their machines down for months, to the point it’s become a popular meme.
I quit even trying to order ice cream at McDonald’s because their machine was always “broken” like a decade ago. I think the employees just don’t like cleaning it or dealing with the machine or something.
Unfortunately it’s a real thing. The machines have a lot of built in sensing that puts the machines into a “broken” status, even if the machine is perfectly fine.
However it almost certainly guarantees a service call to the manufacturer of the ice cream machine, because “they’re the only ones who can service the machine”.
The people who built the machines have built failure modes into the machines that would normally be fixable by any competent technicians, but require insider knowledge to actually fix or rectify.
This is such a real thing. I went to Arby’s and asked for a shake and the guy was like, “Uh, sorry to McDonald’s you, but our shake machine is broken.”
It’s like 50/50 trying to get ice cream from McDonald’s and I don’t know why. My first job was at a drive in where we had specialty shakes and dipped cones and I freaking wished our machines would break once in awhile and they never did.
Here’s the real answer, in the form of two articles:
https://www.foodandwine.com/mcdonalds-ice-cream-machine-broken-8627641
https://www.npr.org/2024/11/02/g-s1-31893/mcdonalds-broken-ice-cream-machine-copyright-law
I only order ice cream a couple of times a year, if it’s super hot a vanilla cone through the drive-in just hits right. The ice cream machine has never been broken. But it’s definitely a thing. And I’ve heard some employees lie and say it’s broken because they hate dealing with it.
Speaking of cleaning those machines…
My daughter worked at McDonald’s and said they accidentally left an old cleaning rag in a machine.
I bet those were yummy milkshakes
My ex went around to “fix” a bunch of McDonald’s. These were the worst stores. It’s not the cleaning time or waiting for it to “warm up.” These things legit break down all the time. It was the one thing that drove him nuts. He’d just text “Ice Cream Down” and I knew it was going to be a rough day for him.
It’s a real thing. Once an employee told us one reason they say it’s broken or “down” a lot is bc they clean the machine at 9pm so if anyone orders it they just say it’s not working.
It’s a whole THING. There is even a documentary about this.
It comes down to McDonalds corporate greed.
McD’s forces the franchises to buy the ice cream machine from them and only get them serviced by a company they own. The service company charges exorbitant rates for service, so many times the restaurant owner just says “screw it” I won’t fix the machine.
A lot of interesting comments, I won’t say it’s misinformation….
Mcdonalds contracted a custom built combo ice cream and shake machine. McDonald’s also wanted less employee involved maintenance. Taylor built this unit, built thousands for McDonald’s. Even their competing equipment company made the same unit for McDonald’s. McDonald’s now only has to clean their ice cream machines twice per month, instead of nightly .The machine pasteurizes all the product in the barrels and hoppers nightly. The machines, often from a lack of maintenence,fail their temperature checks on the pasteurization. The machine locks out until it is cleaned or the cycle completes the checks. This is where you get the “it’s broken” excuse. It failed food safety checks and they can’t serve it. As far as service goes. Taylor only requires service on units under warranty and units that need food safety certificates once a year like the grills and ice cream machines. Plenty of other 3rd party companies service these units, i have contracted them in my remote area of work plenty of times. They are actually very robust machines, that the owners make money hands over fist with. They complain because they won’t change the blades and seals and the machines performance slips. Most managers I knew were aware how to bypass failed cleaning lockouts, so keep that in mind.
McD execs agreed to a bad contract with Taylor, the ice cream machine vendor. McD franchisees got/are getting screwed. Execs probably got raises and bonuses.
I’m surprised there hasn’t been a class action suit by the franchisees.
I used to be a kitchen manager at McDonald’s.
The ice cream machines are proprietary to their manufacturer, and only the manufacturer can send a tech to fix it. That said, they don’t actually break down all that often when cared for properly. I managed my store for 2 years, and we had our ice cream machine break down once and that was when my other night manager and I were switched to days for breakfast training and the night shift crew wasn’t properly cleaning the lines.
More often than not, they just don’t want to clean the machine. It’s honestly not that hard to clean, but quite messy with a lot of small pieces that need to be cleared of syrup or else risk clogging and fucking up the machine. It’s kind of a vicious cycle.
But yeah, 9 times out of 10 the machine is not broken – night shift just doesn’t want to clean it again.
Something I’d like to add as a former employee of McDonald’s. A lot of the time when they say the machine is broken it’s just down for heat cycling because they aren’t doing the proper cleaning cycles at night.
When I work there if you didn’t clean the machines every 36 hours it would shut down. We cleaned it every night and if you didn’t clean it that night around noon the next day it would shut down until cleaned again.
So if you have doubts about whether it’s actually broken or not maintained will get the frequency of how often it’s shut down or back up.
In case anyone didn’t say it, sometimes it’s down just because it has to be refilled with mix and it isn’t cold enough yet. That happened a lot during the summer when we’d get busy and run out of ice cream. The refills were basically bagged flavored milk that you poured into the machine and it took time for them to freeze enough to be used as ice cream or milkshakes, and rather than explain that, we’d just have to say the machine was “down.” People would get more mad if we just said we ran out, so letting them think it was not working was usually easier. Some people would get nasty about it and I would pour the runny mix into a cone and show them instead of arguing.
Before folks get their knickers in a knot: this is the same reason why you will usually get a margarita on the rocks in a busy bar instead of blended. Time management.
It’s funny though. You never pull up to a McDonalds and hear them say
“Sorry. The hamburger machine is broken”
It’s been about 9 years since I worked at McDonald’s but I remember our machine had to be taken apart for cleaning every 14 days and it would lock up until it went through the entire cleaning cycle or if the internal temp dropped below a certain level before the cycle was over. The turnover at McDonald’s is so high getting someone properly trained and keeping them there was a pain. Also the company that made the machine was the only one allowed to do real work on it if something actually broke
This is McDonalds specifically.
The machine enters a maintenance cycle every so often, which takes quite a while to complete. This cycle is (from an employee perspective) unpredictable and inconsistent, and as a result employees will typically just say that the machine is broken, even though that’s not exactly the case. Further, the employees often don’t do the stuff that they are supposed to do to keep the machines operating at peak performance.
Combine it with the contract only allowing the vendor to work on the machines when they do go down hard, and you’ve got a situation where they are unavailable more often than they should be.
The Taylor machines are complicated and easily misassembled by neophytes and the diagnostics are hidden. A company called Kytch developed a system to remotely monitor the machines but got caught up in a lawsuit.
https://intellectual-property-law.blog/articles/kytch-v-taylor-trade-secret-litigation-involving-mcdonalds
Yes. It’s just McDonalds and it’s a semi intentional business decision.
They don’t pay me enough to work that machine too
Mechanical Thermodynamic Cooled Dessert Dispenser Engineer here – so what had happened was, the manufacturer wanted a one-in-all machine to do all the dessert things. Well, we built it. They didn’t consider that such a request would make a machine so complicated and maintenance intensive that it would require a level of proficiency that would make the Apollo Program looks like a Lego set, and shockingly enough employees at the McJobs couldn’t be convinced to McBother with it for a less-than-livable wage.
From what I know:
I work at a DQ and their machines are made by the same company who makes McDonalds. The ice cream machines are a pain to clean if you’re not used to it so they might have done it earlier and it’s not out back together. What is more likely is bc it’s a pain they’re not cleaning it properly. If the machine goes without being properly cleaned (isn’t left open to dry over night, doesn’t reach a certain internal temp, doesn’t run a full cycle) in 3 weeks it shuts down and a repair tech has to come and clean it for them and reset it
Check out https://mcbroken.com/ for a real time map.
Lazy employees who have already cleaned the machine for the day, will lie and say it’s down instead of re-cleaning the machine
You can check if its broken it happens so often
https://mcbroken.com/
The real reason is staff want to leave and they’ve already cleaned out the machine. It was just a thing everyone did until it became a meme
No idea
They want to offer the idea of having ice cream available. But they don’t want the expense of having ice cream available. Cause people willing to go there for ice cream aren’t going to not get something when they’re there. ?
The machine isn’t made well, and the cleaning process can error out easily. someone made a youtube video all about it. apparently over filling or under filling the water can easily throw the errors too.
so certain locations either have bad machines or staff doing it wrong, and hardly ever have their machine succeede.
There was one near my old house that never had their machine working the little I went there.
and I would be going specifically to get my daughter an icecream
There are a myriad of situations where it’s not possible to get ice cream from McDonalds. The machine is rarely actually broken, but when it does something that temporarily renders it unable to dispense ice cream (which is often) we would just tell people it’s broken.
It’s usually not broken, but when you say the machine is broken people rarely question that explanation and you can get back to your job.