@frodo_35: NASTY!!! If I don't see proper handwaching, I will make a fuss and demand my cash back. I've been at restaurants where I've seen waiters leaving the rooms without washing their hands (or doing that pointless "stick them underwater for a second or 2" thing that frustrates me to no end) then go back on the floor. It's disgusting.

@SadiquaNero: Well, there IS a "sausage biscuit" taht is rather good, and their new thing is the "sausage mcgriddle", so it could have been an honest mistake. Don't know about the ham one though (and don't know why you like thos horrid things ;)

I'm not expecting perfection at McDonalds, the people that work there can make mistakes just like anyone else can at their job. People aren't perfect.

The only thing the store can do is offer to replace it if he brings it back.

A few weeks ago I went to Burger King fro breakfast. I ordered two bacon, egg, and cheese croissanwiches. When I got home, I found two croissanwiches with only three slices of bacon, no cheese or eggs.

Instead of taking them back, I said screw it, and made my own eggs, slapped some cheese on them, and they were ten times better anyway.

I also noticed I had been charged less for them, so somebody must have not understood my order.

"I'd like a Big Mac"

"Ok, what do you want on it?"

"Um, bread, meat and cheese?"

Gotta cover all your bases.

Hold up the line and double check- it's the only thing you can do.

My experience is that if it's a franchise, they could care less. THey just responsd with a "we'll forward your email" and you never hear back.

Has this ever worked for anyone?

I've become addicted to their iced coffee, which isn't great, but the best between my home and my job. This summer, 1 out of maybe 5 stops would result in a cup with 1/4" of grounds floating in the bottom. Really gross to suck up a straw full of coffee grounds. This would happen at one of two different drive throughs.

Two times I went to McD's corporate site, struggled to figure out why their contact form wouldn't work in Firefox, switched to IE, filled out the lengthy feedback form, and each time would get a generic:

"These are franchises and not owned by McD's. We've forwarded your email on to them" and, of course, never hear back.

So, I've just chalked up McD's as one of those 'you get what you get and no point complaining as it's a waste of breath'.

I'm now one of those people that sit in the drive thru window for 5 minutes after I get my order to inspect everything. ;o)

And nothing against the workers at McDs. It's a thankless job and given the output rate, there's always going to be a few mistakes. I just wish corporate cared.

Always check the product before leaving ... the joint will probably make it good, but that doesn't help much when you are 50 miles down the road.

Teenage idiots tend to be careless and make mistakes ... when they are old enough to stop doing that, a burger joint can't afford them.

I always tell them I'm diabetic before ordering a drink (I'm not). I have yet to receive regular Coke when I order Diet.

@PinkBox:

It's a good idea, and I have a reason why.

I went to a McDonald's here once and got a cheeseburger to go. When I got back to my office, I took a bite out of it and looked inside and it was BRIGHT PINK. I spit out my bite and called the store.

The day manager apologized and told me that what must have happened was when they made the switch from the sausage to the burgers from breakfast to lunch, someone forgot to turn up the heater thing. He also told me that that particular store was a training McDonald's. He said he'd tell the night manager about it and I could come back and get a free burger when I got off work. I did so and checked it and it was fine.

I don't go to that McDonald's anymore, though. Not just because I don't want to be the guinea pig customer, but I'm trying not to eat that stuff so much, and it's kind of out of my way now.

They were really nice about it.

"Robot McDonald's employees" that's what we need.

That's ok, even if there was a patty on the hamburger, there would still be no meat included.

*rimshot*

Thanks, I'll be here all week. Try the veal.

@Project_J187:

I worked at a McDonalds when I was younger. Well we all used to go behing the dumpster and hava grand old time, and come back in smiling and laughing. I personally did this when I worked there and it was quite funny. About 12 people came back and complained that their burger had no meat. JUST SAY NO PEOPLE!!!!!!!

As a vegetarian, I can only commend McD's on "sparing" an animal.

As a Consumerist, I'm appalled that I didn't my money's worth.

I'm very torn right now.

I made a trip to McD's one night with my buddies, one of whom ordered a Big Mac. I don't know how it's even possible, but BOTH patties were missing. It was essentially shredded lettuce and pickles between three buns, with a smattering of special sauce - maybe a slice of cheese, too.

Luckily we ate inside, so he was able to immediately get it switched out, and we all had a pretty good laugh about it.

Can I ask those who know what's up with the peculiar elliptical patty on the Big Mac? It doesn't go the edge of the bun all the way around; only the longest part of the oval does. My burger came stacked so burger edges showed on all sides but not on both layers. AND, there was only one slice of cheese on it. That, a fries and a coke were almost $6? What is this, Zimbabwe?

I've found McDonalds corporate stores better than franchised.

I lived in the country for some years & cant tell you how frustrating it was to get all the way home & find out they somehow screwed up my order.

I learned to check the bag for everything I ordered (including the toppings on my burger) before I left the parking lot.

One thing that always drove me nuts was the tendancy of black servers to always put mayo on my burgers. I guess they think ALL white people must love mayo or something. Personally... I find it disgusting.

management turnover is high at many mcdonalds.

Fark the manager.

Seriously.

I had similar experience with a McD's while traveling. Grabbed my package in the drive thru and hit the Interstate only to find a burgerless, fixinless Big Mac. Yep, just plain bread.

So I drove to the next exit and looped around to return to McD. Might have taken me 15 minutes to make the entire trip.

Manager ArseWipe told me I had taken too long to return my defective meal... and besides how did he know that I hadn't eaten the meat, removed the fixins and returned the empty bun.

Oh yea.

My complaint to the Franchisee Owner went unanswered. My complaint to corporate did not. I received a lot more than a couple coupons for free burgers.

Think Manager ArseWipe still works for McD's?

People make mistakes. Especially at a fast food place that has 20 cars lined up around the drive through with more coming as soon as the light changes and the management yelling at the employees 90 seconds or less...when fries take 2:30 to make...yeah I quit after a week.

They gave us a plain Cheeseburger, no bacon.

The Rocket Surgeon in the back said but you said you wanted it plain.

I don't even know where to start with a comment like that.

@VigilanteKitteh: How about NOM NOM NO--NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO?

I've had worst happen. At Wendy's we ordered 8 Jr Cheeseburger deluxes. When we got home, we found that they had no meat. I drove back up to the store after calling them and after some looking around, we found the meat hiding under a pickle slice or a tomato slice. Remember, the ads, "Wheres the Beef?" Put a whole new perspective on them.

Too bad Zuke Zuke beat me to it with the Lethal Weapon Pesci quote. I had a similar situation about 3 to 4 years ago on a eat in order at a McD's. I walked up to the front and jokingly said, "I've always wanted to say this...where's the beef?" They all got a kick out of it, and was as gracious as could be. If he had done a take out order, I'm sure if he had called, and been nice, they would have taken care of him. Sometimes kindness goes a long way.

Actually, the McDonald's I worked at when I was a teenager (and liked the flexible hours and being able to walk to work in under 15 minutes) had a veggie burger option. It smelled awful, even compared to everything else in there. But that may be normal for veggie burgers.

Plain does NOT mean vegetarian. And 99% of minimum-wage employees can tell you that!

1. It is indeed a "plain" cheeseburger, but a "bizarro plain" cheeseburger.

2. The grease caused the patty to slide out.

3. The counter person mistook a "plain burger" for "Palin Burger," and hence what the OP got was white bread, cheese and assorted vegetable-based toppings, with no meaningful meat whatsoever.

@ViperBorg: Hey man, I worked fast food. I know that not everyone there is a stoner. Judging by personal experience, I would say my description is only about 40% of fast food employees, give or take.

And yes, I was part of the 40% :)

That being said, the original question was so inane that it begged for a sarcastic answer. Someone forgot to put meat on a burger. I'd bet that, statistically, it happens at about one mcdonalds PER DAY in the us.

this is a non-story except for the fact that mcdonalds was nice.

We used to yell that back and forth during school hours until the principal caught on and told us to stop.

It only took him a couple of weeks to understand what was going on...

They really seemed sincere about it, too.

Slow news day?

@Project_J187: I posted this above before seeing this question. As a former McDonald's employee, I must admit to making this mistake with a McChicken once.

The sandwiches are assembled upside-down. The ketchup, mustard, pickles, onion, and cheese go on the top bun, it's passed down the line where the meat goes on and the thing gets wrapped up. If they were waiting on hamburger patties, or just hit with a rush, one could get wrapped up without the meat quite easily.

@hexychick: People do-it's essentially a grilled cheese. Nobody should mistake "plain" for "no meat" though.

Your 19, struggling to make it in crappy economic times. No family except your girlfriend and a kid at home. Your stressed out about making ends meet, keeping food on the table, paying bills, and keeping a roof over your heads. Someone says "Two cheeseburgers, plain." Still stressed out, you make them normal and forget to put meat on one.

Oh, no, it was an accident.

Not everyone who works in fast food is high and doesn't give a shit about anything except getting laid and stoned some more.

Damn, sir. I hope you have some job security. I'd hate to see your job go overseas and you be stuck working at a fast food joint.

On second thought, maybe that's exactly what you need. Get the fuck off your high horse. /troll & asshat shutdown comment.

Yes, the manager was a jerk, and should have handled it better.

@SynMonger: It's not even just that. When I worked at McDonald's briefly in college we were downright mean to special orders - I know it isn't right and I feel guilty about it now but then it seemed really funny.

If a person ordered "Extra mayo" on their quarter-pounder instead of giving the caulk-gun-mayo-dispenser just one more squeeze I'd give it 3 or 4 - the thing would be overflowing with mayo.

Leaving the burger off of a plain burger and just giving the condiments would have been hilarious to me at the time.

Then again - I might have thought that putting peanuts on the sandwich of someone with foodborne allergies was funny back then too. I was a jerk.

@mdoublej: Actually, the sandwiches are assembled upside-down. The ketchup, mustard, pickles, onion, and cheese go on the top bun, it's passed down the line where the meat goes on and the thing gets wrapped up.

As a former McDonald's employee, I must admit to making this mistake with a McChicken once. It's unfortunate he didn't notice until he got home, and McDonalds should really send him a gift card to make up for it.

Just remember what Leo Getz (Pesci) said about drive-throughs in Lethal Weapon 2...

I suppose it goes without saying that I'm a vegetarian.

@ludwigk: Plain, as I learned in my days of working in fast food, means that the food should contain only what is in the title.

For example, a plain cheeseburger would have cheese and burger. Ignoring for a moment the fact that there is such a sandwich called a hamburger, if a customer wants meat on a bun, they'd ask for a plain cheesebuger without cheese. A customer should be able to reasonbly expect that what they explicitly say in the title of a sandwich would still be on the plain version. Otherwise, they should explicitly say to take it off.

@Project_J187: As a former McDonald's employee (my first job), let me explain:

The reason this happened is because the employees work, well... at McDonald's.

So we went back through the drive thru and say that we were just there and we had ordered 6 cheeseburgers. The girl at the drivethru got attitude saying that she knows we got 6 burgers - she personally counted them. She kept interrupting us, so we just drove forward to the window and said, "Yes, we did get 6, but I'm not sure I would call these 2 cheeseBURGERS."

She got really embarrassed and replaced the 2 bad burgers and gave us 2 more free.

@Project_J187: Anyone work at a Mcdonalds and can give a logical explanation as to how this could happen?

I don't work at McRotten's but laziness and carelessness are fairly good explanations.

I once received a burger and Burger King that had most of the mustard and ketchup were on the outside of the bun. I took it back to the counter and pointed that fact out to the manager and told her, "I want one that isn't a mess."

When I received the replacement, it wasn't a mess...because all it had was a bun and a burger, nothing else.

I demanded my money back and went elsewhere.

@FightOnTrojans: I can has cheezburger, w/o burger? Seriously, wtf? I knew mcd was crap, but this is a new low...

To answer your question: when any restaurant makes 1000 hamburgers every shift, and this goes on for a number of days, the statistics will catch up with you eventually. Also, sometimes customers may order a meatless hamburger, which could then get switcherood with a regular one.

If you do something enough times, eventually every thing, no matter how unlikely, that could possibly go wrong, will.

@FightOnTrojans: haha I get it, it's as if you posted in the heat of passion (hence the '1' mistake instead of !), but then in an ironic twist, you type out the word 'eleventyone' as a knowing wink to your audience that yes, indeed, yuo are being facetious.

Well done sir, well done.

Now granted, this was TOTALLY MY FAULT for just not reading carefully enough before i ordered, but i was still miffed. So i wrote out a complaint on their web feedback form, gave my contact info, and hit send.

two days later i got a personal call from the manager of that branch apologizing that my dining experience wasn't 100% to my satisfaction, and offering me a free lunch there.

whatever else may be said about mcdonalds, that experience left me convinced that they do care about giving good customer service.

Icanhavecheeseburger?

Many times, McDonalds restraunts get very busy and are understaffed in an attempt to cut corners and save money. Cheeseburgers and double cheeseburgers are very popular, and it's not uncommon to be making a chain of like eight of them in a row at any given time, so once in a while things like this happen.

@xerotope: What McDonalds has a vegetarian burger option?

One Saturday afternoon my wife and I purchased a dog from a private seller to bring home for the family. It was a hard time for everyone with the eventual passing of her grandmother and all, so the pooch was supposed to be that lovable cute thing we all cling to when we get sad. To make a long (and unrelated) story short, the pooch went pyscho and ran us all out of the house. It took a lot of effort, but we finally got the devil dog in a kennel and dropped it off with the Humane Society.

After that, we headed to McDonald's.

(This is where I offer something up that relates to the story, the beginning more or less sets my mood and why I reacted as such)

So I head over to McDonald's with my wife, and meet up with her family that is all there from spending time at the nursing home with the ailing grandmother, and that headed to McDonald's to distract the kids while we got rid of the dog. My kids were outside playing in the McDonald's Play Place, and I was about to go in and order, when, to my astonishment, my kids were running out of the Play Place covered in urine. Two things:

a) McDonald's never supervises these places - they should.

b) Sadly, I was the only parent (there were five families there) that actually had the balls to tell McDonald's that their place was unsanitary.

Everyone was evicted from the area while they sent works in to clean. They didn't do that great of a job, and the thought of them going back and immediately serving food without washing hands has forever forbid me from entering that establishment (or any like it, really) again. The only "fast food" that I'll eat comfortably is Subway and Quizno's type food. I have to be able to watch my food be prepared. Otherwise, I'll pay more to get fully cooked pizza from a local place or a chain, or go out to eat. I haven't lost 10 pounds, but I'm sure my heart is thanking me.

lol, very appropriate

@MissPeacock: Meh... it all comes from some part of a cow so I'm fine with that.

Plus, I think double cheeseburgers are the best thing in the history of the universe.

One must be specific. Should mention the wrapping, too, next time.

@m4ximusprim3: Your post made me laugh out loud.

@Project_J187: Imagine this:

You're 19, with no education and no future. You're stoned off your ass working at a fast food joint and thinking about how you might have gotten laid last night if you just didn't puke steel reserve and McNuggets all over her dress.

someone says "2 cheesburgers" up! you get out all of the stuff, and, in the midst of wondering whether or not you should try to call her back anyway, you forget to put the meat on one of them.

My god, how could this happen?

@Coolmatt49: just tell them no mustard or ketchup. I always order mine without pickels and I've never had a problem.

It's very sad that, as consumers, we expect so little from our cheeseburgers that while casually handling the flat two-piece of bread concoction that we don't stop and think to ourselves "hey, this flat pathetic looking thing is missing something."

No, we merrily chomp away only to find that our burger has been de-burgerfied, or non burgerfied actually.

Someone needs to start a website, something like makeitlooklikethepicture-dammit.com.

@crouton976: What? No, it's not.

Giant death star brought down by chain reaction from exhaust port? Epic Fail. Economy brought down by unhindered greed and financial sorcery? Epic fail.

$.45 cheesburger without patty? forgetful teenage stoner making 50 cheesburgers at once and fucking one up. NOT epic.

Additionally, I wonder if both burgers were minus meat.

There was a Panera here that was inclined to screw up but won my heart when they actually sent an employee over to my office (okay, it's all of a block and it was a nice day, but still) to bring me the cookie I'd paid for and they'd forgotten to include.

From now on, I tell them, "Can I get a double cheeseburger with just cheese, pickles, onions, AND TWO BEEF PATTIES on it."

Not only that, but if more than a couple complaints are filed about a specific location, the owner/operator will be required to do substantial re-training AND may lose out on some bonuses, etc. So DEFINITELY call the customer satisfaction line, because not only will it make up for this bad situation, it will likely make the next visit better as well.

And yeah, you're better off without the meat..

Had this happen to me once. Unfortunately it was like 2AM, I was three sheets to the wind and I after my wife was nice enough to drive out there at 2AM, I wasn't going to ask her to drive me over there a second time, so I just ate the bread and the 99 cents. The bun is probably more crucial when you're drunk anyway.

My guess is that it just got missed in the shuffle because they're working really quickly back there and don't have time to double check everything. I once got a big mac with only one patty when I was about 15 years old. I was eating in, so I just walked up to the counter and had them make me a new one. No biggie.

To be fair, it did say on the box "100% pure beef".

Haha... I think it's funny that a bite was taken out before noticing the missing meat.

I never bite into a burger without checking out the insides first. You never know!

Looks like they did you a favor if you ask me :)

You'd think they'd notice when they went to put the pickle on top of the burger and...

@xerotope: Okay, who honestly orders a vegetarian friendly BURGER at McDonalds?

Not to fault the poster, but giving $20.44 probably confounded everybody.

Had the very same thing happen to me several years ago. Went in the store to complain, and was told point blank, "its no big deal, we do it all the time" I was then told to "have a nice day" Havent been back to McDonalds since, and I took my purchases of about $500 a year in fast food to their competitors.

Mcdonalds just sucks. If you don't have a employee over 20 including managers its just a problem waiting to happen. Up untill about 3 monthes ago I ate at the local Mcdonalds almost daily. They got the order right about half of the time. I could never understand how they screwed up so much with out me ever getting more out of the screw up. I became so disgusted when I watched a manager empty the trash can in front of me tie up the bag and toss it aside and then go scoop up my fries without washing her hands I asked for my money back right then and there. From her look of annoyance it was plain to me she did not think she had done anything wrong. This was a crowded store at lunch time and I saw at least 4 people leave without ordering after the exchange the manager and I had. I now take my lunch to work and have lost 10 lbs. Thanks Mcdonalds you found a way to save me money and lose weight to.

It's always best practice to check your order before you leave.. In a place that has an assembly line process, they're bound to miss one once in a while...

Should the picture be that old lady yelling "Where's the Beef?"

...where's the beef.

Considering it was McD's, I didn't exactly expect white glove service - so the form letter was right in line with what I was figuring I'd get. But the fact of the matter is that they did right by me.

Stuff like this happens, but at least McD's makes an effort to rectify things. :-)

Same thing happened to me at a Braums store. Even called the Customer Support number and it was disconnected. I guess it was my fault for not checking but hell, who checks to see if their hamburger has meat in it?

That picture needs a frowny face.

:(