Is There a Fully Automated McDonald's in Las Vegas?

I recently read that McDonald’s is testing restaurants without employees in Denver, Fort Worth, and Las Vegas. Where in Las Vegas would this be at?

That would be the McDonald's on Lamb and Lake Mead boulevards in the eastern valley. Is this the future of fast food?

Possibly. Employees are still involved and this location isn't fully automated. But McDonald's is testing part of its humanless system here.

Which part? We don't know. We can tell you this, though: Several attempts to get a human on the phone there went unfulfilled. We'll drop by in the near future and update this answer when we know exactly what's happening there.

From what we understand, the pandemic prompted McDonald's, and certainly other convenience eateries, to start thinking about speeding up its wait times, especially at the drive-thru.

The only "fully" automated McDonald's, in which customers don't interact with employees at all, is currently located in a suburb of Ft. Worth, Texas. The outlet has a dedicated drive-thru express lane, where an order placed on the mobile app is delivered via conveyor belt. This accelerates the process, since no one in this lane is placing an order, paying, or waiting for the food to be packaged.

Inside, customers place their orders at a kiosk and pick up their food from a dedicated shelf, also without interacting with any employees, who are working only on making and packaging orders.

As for Denver, that appears to be an internet myth, a juxtaposition of the Ft. Worth location and a Denver meme.

You can see a YouTube video of the "robo-Mickey D's here.

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[email protected] May-10-2023

Automated McDonalds

In the case of fast-food joints, Artificial Intelligence would be a vast improvement over the normal Natural Unintelligence one usually experiences there...

Vegas Fan May-10-2023

Mcdonalds

"where in Las Vegas would this be AT?" Sigh.
"Customers wouldn't have to interact with customers"-?

Dorothy Kahhan May-10-2023

Customers interacting with customers

We order from and eat in the car when frequenting fast food restaurants, so we never have to interact with other customers.

[email protected] May-10-2023

Other example

I heard an interesting story on the radio recently about a chain in Toronto that uses video clerks to take the orders.  The clerks themselves are based in South and Central America and the orders are automatically sent to people in the store who prepare the order and serve it.  I suspect we'll see more of these kinds of changes given the severe shortage of workers in this country and the strange unwillingness by many to allow people to come in and do the work that is needed.

[email protected] May-10-2023

So What Happens When...

The drive-thru order is screwed up as it is at least 50% of the time? I will take a pass on EVERY restaurant where I cannot speak directly to an employee face to face...

rokgpsman May-10-2023

Human dealers not needed?

Could be some day soon that casinos completely get rid of their table games that use human dealers and only have electronic versions of craps, blackjack and roulette. From the casino's point of view that would mean no worries about employee theft or collusion with players, no dealers calling in sick or quitting unexpectedly, no dealers complaining about players smoking around them, etc.

Question of the Day - 10 May 2023

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