Couple kicked out of McDonald’s for sitting ‘too long’

This is a hard call for me, I mean, I think if there is no one waiting for a seat, what's the harm. But then it is a business, and if they aren't spending, then maybe an hour to sit and visit after their meal. I also think if they wanted to visit they can go to their home and entertain their company/friends.
 
"As an apology, McDonald’s corporate offered the couple two free small coffees,"

That's called adding insult to injury.:mad:
 

Well, McD's could put up a sign, now there's a plan. Just something like "no squatting for more than 1 hour after meal/coffee":lofl:
 
McDonalds is what's called a "Fast food place"; Eat and leave. The food is cheap and others want to be waited on and

then hit the road. Unlike a nice restaurant where your bill/check may run 3 or 4 X as much as McDonalds'.

It's similar to a cocktail bar where a patron nurses a drink for hours on end while others are waiting for a bar stool.
 
I think after a certain amount of time, it can be considered loitering. Even if there are empty tables, that doesn't mean that they need a customer using the restaurant as a park bench to hang out and people watch. I think if it was a younger group of teens, they'd be asked to leave before the elderly couple. I agree, two free small cups of coffee is insulting, lol.
 
Gael said:
"As an apology, McDonald’s corporate offered the couple two free small coffees,"

That's called adding insult to injury.:mad:
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Exactly.

It appears the couple even timed their "scrunch" to coincide with the low-traffic hours, and that mop-jockey that made the snide comment sounds like your typical punk teen working the job yet not learning anything from it.

Still, it IS a "fast food" joint. The problem is that there really aren't many old-fashioned luncheonettes / diners left, where you could sit for hours and schmooze, so a place like McDeath's becomes the substitute.

We have a little place up the block - Ferris' Luncheon - hole-in-the-wall place with fantastic food. It's got 4 small booths and maybe a dozen stools at the counter, but this guy does business! Especially around lunch time, you have to wait 20 minutes or so for him to make your order but the wait is worth it, and the prices are almost criminal they're so low.

But there's always some old soul or another sitting just reading the paper or watching the fly-specked TV on the wall while sipping a cup of coffee. I've only ever seen the owner ask a single person not to sit at a booth during the busy times (understandable), but the rest of the time it's "stay as long as you like".

It's an attitude like that that probably has kept him in business for so many years.
 
It's like that with us on Sunday mornings when 10 or 12 of us get together for breakfast. We have our meal, coffee refills and shoot the bull for awhile. But, when we see the diner filling up and folks starting to wait, we get up and leave. Otherwise, they wouldn't care if we sat there all morning.
 
Falcon said:
McDonalds is what's called a "Fast food place"; Eat and leave. The food is cheap and others want to be waited on and

then hit the road. Unlike a nice restaurant where your bill/check may run 3 or 4 X as much as McDonalds'.

It's similar to a cocktail bar where a patron nurses a drink for hours on end while others are waiting for a bar stool.
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I'm glad it's there and lots of folks can easily afford going there. Before McDonalds came to towns, there were the little cafes where people would sit and visit, but even those didn't allow loitering. I love to see people gathering and bs'n, there's a group that meets in a tiny town over here and they call themselves "The Spit and Whittle" group. I'm not sure but seems like my sis gave them their name. But they eat, sit a bit then go;)
 
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Diwundrin said:
We 'loitered' in a cafe once. We'd caught a train up to Lithgow to see the snow, just a round day trip. Well, the windows were too fogged up to see the snow around Katoomba etc and when we arrived in Lithgow we thought we'd die.

It was colder than anything we city folk were equipped to handle. We fled to a cafe and wrapped ourselves around hot drinks, then hot food, then more hot drinks. The cafe owner came over to chat and we told him what we'd done and had another 2 hours to kill before the return train left. He usually closed up at that time of day but said we could stay there if we liked and he just shut the door but didn't lock it so we could get out when the train was due. "Just give me a yell when you're leaving" he said. He left the wall heater going too. What a great man, he didn't have the heart to turn us out in the cold. We left him a big 'tip' which isn't done in OZ but was well and truly called for on that occasion.
I've never been back to Lithgow since, waaaayyyy too cold for me.
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More like the good ole days and small towns. Now, it's rare to find hospitality anywhere near that good;)
 
I think if I had been the manager, I would have been more patient considering they were there during a slow time of the day. Thirty minutes probably seems like 15 minutes for people that age.
 
Our business was located right next door to a fast food restaurant (Jack in the Box). We were neighbors for the 34 years we had our business-got our coffee there every day and ran over there to grab a burger or whatever on days we were too busy to go out for lunch. Over the years,there was always a person or two who would set up shop at a table or even two and stay there all.day.long. Rarely ever ordered food-sometimes a coffee that they would get refilled all day. Finally they put up a sign that no one was allowed to stay over 1/2 hour. Couldn`t blame them-their dining area was pretty small and this one guy in particular was getting pretty out of hand with the number of tables he would take up. But now I wonder,given that many of these places now advertise themselves as being "WiFi Hotspots" how they restrict people who want to use their computers there to study or whatever.
 
probably means like hogging Ina, where they have free wifi, sometimes folks will take advantage of it, and use it all day without purchasing anything, or purchasing little for the amount of time spent on the computer;)
 
That Guy said:
Isn't Starbucky's kicking the laptop crowd out now for glomming on the wifi?
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Oh maybe they are. We only have Starbucks here inside our Safeway store and I have to say I`ve never been to this Starbucks. I stopped into the one near our business a few times when we worked there but was never overly impressed given the cost.
 
We have McDonald's in the nearest town and sometimes go there for lunch after paying bills and shopping.
There are always people from the late breakfast crowd reading the paper and sipping a coffee.
People are lining up for lunch and the coffee folks are still sitting there taking up tables.
I have never seen anyone be asked to leave but it would help other customers if a sign was posted limiting visits
to 30 minutes after they receive their coffee and or food.
 
Yeah, that darned cat-selling epidemic is sweeping the country!

I wonder how many of these folks hanging out in Mickey D's are homeless? I've seen more than a few examples of that happening ...
 
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