McDonald’s is ready to shake up the fast-food industry its dominated for decades with a flurry of new tech innovations in the coming year.
Read more: The secret reason why a McDonald’s Coke tastes the best
Golden Arches go high tech
Almost half of America eats McDonald’s in a given month, according to new findings from 24/7 Wall Street. To be precise, 49.8% of people visited one of McDonald’s 14,259 stores in April 2016. That makes it the most visited restaurant chain and the second-most visited store of any type behind Walmart.
Now looking ahead to 2017, McDonald’s plans to roll out self-ordering kiosks and mobile ordering to all of its more than 14,000 stores across the country, according to a Bloomberg report.
The introduction of technology into a low-wage business like fast food always comes with the fear of lost jobs. To balance those fears, McDonald’s has announced something that breaks with tradition even more than new technology: Table service!
That’s right, your local McDonald’s plans to actually create jobs in a technological era by having servers. Those servers will bring the food you’ve ordered on a kiosk to your table. No word yet if tipping will be allowed or if it will be discouraged.
Currently, table service is in place at 500 McDonald’s locations across the country—in places like New York, Florida and Southern California. The first phase of the 2017 table service rollout will take place in the Boston and San Francisco markets, Bloomberg reports.
After that, it will be spreading across the country!
Ever wondered what it’s like to work at McDonald’s?
Speaking of workers at McDonald’s, one U.K. employee wants you to know being an employee is probably not like what you think.
‘I work with people I would aspire to be like, who have strengths in areas I wish I had, who have overcome situations I never could and who have the determination to not fade away on handouts but rather step up and work for their living unlike a huge number of people in this country,’ Mike Waite wrote in a Facebook post that quickly went viral.
He adds that he’s hoping one day to be a manager at a McDonald’s location. It’s not a dead-end job, Waite says, but ‘part of the beginning.’
Waite’s words of wisdom have garnered more than 57,000 likes and been shared nearly 9,000 times since being published back in May.
McDonald’s offers tuition reimbursement
Did you know McDonald’s is one of a handful of fast-food restaurants that offer employees real tuition reimbursement for real college credits through its Archways to Opportunity program?
Archways to Opportunity has two tracks: One track is for full-time restaurant managers or staff of a participating franchise owner/operator. Under this plan, you get $1,050 in tuition reimbursement each year if you work a minimum of 30 hours per week.
The second track is for restaurant crew (including maintenance), part-time managers or part-time office staffers of a participating franchise owner/operator. They’re all eligible for $700 in tuition reimbursement each year if they’ve worked with the same franchise owner/operator for at least nine consecutive months and for an average of 20 hours per week.
Read more: 6 fast food restaurants that offer tuition reimbursement
