McDonald's Wins Over The French With Design, Atmosphere

This should probably come as no surprise, but the McDonald's restaurants in France are very, very different than the ones we have in America. Just how different? Well, for one thing, they feature fancy designer furniture, offer tableservice, counter service, and self service, and serve a variety of classic French pastries, as well as espresso drinks and chai lattes. An article in the Guardian today, suggests that the key to the chain's growth in France was this emphasis towards design, and versatility of food service. Apparently, 70% of customers, prefer to dine in as opposed to taking their food away, because they like the McVibe that much.

A McDonald's spokesperon notes:

"Food is important and obviously a priority, but McDonald's has invented a new type of service design: for us, it is about empowering our customers so they can decide how to use the store, decide how to order their food, and how to entertain themselves or their children."

When the fast food chain was originally introduced in France, the public generally loathed everything about it. After the company hinted that they might start using French cheese in their Big Macs, a union activist even set fire to a partially built store. Now, France is the second most profitable market for McDonald's outside the US, and number one in terms of dining check averages. That proposed McDonald's in the Louvre is starting to make more and more sense every day.
·Service Design [The Guarian UK]