what if a certain restaurant you manage is now bein crowded with lots of oldies as your regular customers?

Question

let's say you manage a McDonals Restaurant which is one of the best fast food chain in the country. suddenly, you notice that almost all of your customers are senior citizens who sits in for a cup of coffee, chatting with friends and seems to stay from two to five hours. you are so worried that the image you are projecting with your restaurant is a "fast food resto" and normally customers are expected to "eat and run". you are also concerned that your restaurant might come to be known as an "old people's resto" -- which might discourage some younger customers. what are the possible ways to do to cope up wuth this problem? thankz so much!!

Answer 1

put on music that young people appreciate (and somehow annoys old people).

Answer 2

You can be sure that if the elderly people are at that restaurant the food must surely be good. That should be a compliment to any restaurant. Why would anyone want to stay at a restaurant for 2 to 5 hours just to see if an elderly person was still there visiting? I could almost be certain that there are still lots of empty tables and chairs in those restaurants that are available for the younger as well unless the younger are just wanting to "hang out there" overtime just as they are accusing the older people of doing.

Answer 3

first and for most, i think its great that a senior citizen has a place to sit and feel safe, that show you are running a respectable place......
if you are concerned about what type of clientel you have or want to have then may i suggest a one hour time limit posted at the doors, for paying customers, but remember that includes everyone, but being a mcdonalds i am not sure its allowed, mcdonalds is for everyone, any time i have gone to a mcdonalds most are in and out and over half the tables are empty, you could also set up a section of tables that are open and close off the rest, when the younger hits ie after school etc, then open that area up to them, but i dont think in my mind by having a lot of seniors will prevent younger ones from going to mcdonalds,

my self personally i would rather have seniors sitting around then the possiablity of teenagers overtaking the place, (not directed at all) ie: carring on, being loud, disturbing others, blocking your toliets etc etc, (not directed at all teenagers)

what ever you decide good luck

Answer 4

used to work there adn some thing happened. the older generation would come in fore breakfast during the work week and have breakfast. let thme be....they don't hurt anybody there. it's there time to soicalize with others. maybe that's the only time that they can "chill" with their age group. they ARE old, so what are you going to do? kick them out?
if people want to eat and run, they'll eat and run. if they feel that the older generation are taking up too much room (lets just say 2 small tables and there's a total of 16 small tables and 8 boths; thats not taking too much space) then they have to deal with it, but if 1/2 the place is filled with seniors, than go to them (table by table ANSby who's been there the longest) and explain that your manager asked you to ask them to leave....that they are loitering.

Answer 5

That's a good thing. If the Seniors are enjoying theirselves, then you're doing just fine. I'd much rather have settled down senior citizens crowding my restaurants instead of younger folks anyday. When I say younger folks, I mean (Children, Teens, Young Adults).

Answer 6

You could expand your restruant and divide it into 2 sections, one for senior citizens and one for younger citizens.

Answer 7

As long as your monthly profits are good, I see no harm.

You might start pushing kids birthday parties to attract young families.

Answer 8

McDonald's should be able to solve a problem like that. a company that size should have consultants of some kind to refer to.

also your business can be manipulated with good marketing tactics. your target market is decided by you and away you go with a marketing campaign to attract who it is you desire.

Answer 9

its fine if young ppl dont like who cares old ppl should be happy before young ppl

Answer 10

The McDonalds in my area has a bunch of older people who go there for breakfast during the week. Kids usually aren't there for breakfast (and are in school), and working people come and go but don't stay. It can create the impression that the only people who stay are elderly people, but if anyone counted the seats in the store they'd see that the elderly people only take up a few tables at any one time.

Many McDonalds customers don't want to go there and sit in. They drive through or come in and take it out. Some do eat and run. In other words, I don't think the old people are keeping customers away. I think they're taking up tables that weren't going to be used anyway. (I know the McDonalds in my area. I see how it works.)

The elderly people who are very visible at my local McDonalds during breakfast hours during the week work do not keep other people away. I've gone there myself, and when my kids were little I'd bring them. No adult is going to be discouraged from going to a restaurant because old people are there, especially a place like McDonalds, which has Happy Meals and toys for kids.

I doubt they would discourage most teenagers either; but I do know that the McDonalds in my area had to get rid of its outdoor tables because teenagers were hanging out in and around McDonalds and doing questionable things in the parking lot.

If you are honest about the number of tables in your store and the number of tables those elderly people take up, and if you're honest about the fact that even if they leave the tables may not be taken up anyway, is the problem really a matter of worrying about losing business? I don't think so.

I don't think a place like McDonalds is ever going to be seen as anything other than McDonalds - and that means everybody of every age goes there. If you had "Fred's Lunch Counter" it may become a place for elderly people. If you were managing a Hooters it would be different again. Nobody expects anything but "everyone" at McDonalds.

Mothers with children would rather bring their children to a place where there were elderly people in the building than a place where a bunch of teenagers were dropping f bombs all through the meal. Business people do their thing and don't seem to care if elderly people are in one section of the restaurant. A whole lot of teenagers wouldn't care if there were elderly people in the place either.

In the McDonalds in my area time of day makes a difference about who goes there: Mornings are old people. business people, and women who are on their way to shop. Afternoons are business people, after-school kids, and miscellaneous others. Late afternoons/early evenings tend to be parents with their little kids and workers on their way home. Evenings tend to be teenagers, although there aren't all that many; and other than that my McDonalds is pretty empty at night.

If you have visions that your store is ever going to be a swinging hangout for kids I don't think that is going to happen. Its McDonalds. It is not supposed to be just for teenagers. Even if your place were to turn into a swinging hang-out for teenagers, they will drive others away if their numbers are enough to make the restrooms the mess teenagers do, the tables and floors the mess teenagers make, and the talk the kind of talk that teenagers tend to do in loud voices.

I think you overestimate the degree of objectionable that most people find elderly people.

Even teenagers who just want to mind their business and eat somewhere usually don't mind old people being there. Its the ones that want to claim a place as their own teenagers-only hang-out who would object to the old people; and, again, do you want them instead of everyone else?

I think the way it works is that teenagers will go to a place that everyone goes to, but "everyone else" is less likely to go to a place where only teenagers go. If what you and McDonalds want is a swinging hang-out for teenagers and bathrooms with paper towels stuffed in the drains in the sink and mysterious stuff all over the counters and more and more carved words in the bathroom stalls and whole packages of french fries dropped under the tables along with open ketchup packets and straw wrappers then maybe someone ought to ask the elderly people to leave.

If what you and McDonalds want is a place where most customers don't care who the other customers are as long as they aren't loud-mouthed and laying down on the benches and shoving each other then just consider those elderly people are not of anyone's concern.

If their staying for hours is using up seats I would think that you and whoever you answer to at McDonalds could agree to politely ask them to limit their stay.

Finally, just a note: I used to stop in at the local McDonalds mornings for breakfast and coffee by myself. There were times when I was the only one in the place with brown hair (they all had gray, silver, white and blue), and a few times because I was alone I had people come ask me to join them. I would notice that I heard them talking about their medications, who died, who was still in rehab, and which grandchild was staying at their house; but - you know what - I thought it was so nice that they had this chance to get away from their medications and doctors and husbands who just got out of rehab and just have that time with friends to chat and laugh before they headed back home.

They did not stop me from going there or from bringing my children there or from going there with a friend.

I think that McDonalds has a strong enough image that no matter who its customers in any particular store are its image will stand alone and for itself. If, by any chance, you have the image of the eating place in the tv show, Happy Days, in mind for the store you manage, that isn't going to happen. Its McDonalds. Its always going to be Big-Chain McDonalds.