Mcdonald's - Dale City

I came to get some food I got 2 medium burned fries didn’t noticed till I got home

Stopped by this location with my three kids and MIL due to its wicked awesome outdoor play place we saw driving by a few times. It was right after lunch at about 1:15 when we came in. About 3-4 cars in drive-thru and 4 patrons inside/outside on foot. Upon entry, the back of the house seemed more chaotic than what it should be for that many guests. Behind the counter was pretty unkempt, even with the kiosks handling the majority of the load. I also noticed the drive-thru seemed to be running slow for its volume as well. It explains a lot when, who I figured out later was the manager, was just leaning there against the food runway chatting it up with 1 crew member while everyone else was running like wild. She’d tune in long enough to bark an order then back to her chit-chat. I wonder how our meal would’ve gone had she been engaged? Hmmm. The interior is modernized and “relatively” clean. I say relatively because the drink station was unkempt and covered in old soda, an overflowing straw trash can, various items out of stock, and an ice dispenser that was either out of ice or malfunctioning with no signage. The floor in front of the order counter and soda machines were both tacky. The other thing was the bathroom. Not that any McDonald’s bathroom is a palace, but this one stunk of sewage. Probably a floor drain or something. Other than those things, the chairs were neatly organized around tables, they have these neat stools for the kids to sit on that’s kind of in a nook; so that’s a plus. It made it easy for me to get around and feed the kids and grandma. High chairs had been cleaned thoroughly but apparently missed the renovation as they seemed to have years of “stick” on them. I chose to let my 1.5 y/o son sit on a stool which proved to be a hindrance. The play place was updated and relatively clean. Looks like the concrete in the play place eating area could use a good power wash, especially with kids running around in socks and sometimes bare feet. Garbages outdoors were kept tidy and didn’t have much trash in them with the traffic in the area. Seems by doing that, they know how to keep pests at bay because there were no flies hanging around. The dining room attendant was working diligently to keep up with the demand outside. They should’ve had another keeping tabs on the inside. Considering lunch rush was barely over and there were ample customers coming and going; the food was not of standard and took a pretty long time (20 minutes from kiosk order completion to table). Fries were wimpy, deluxe double quarter pounder was pretty lukewarm and missing ingredients (they did get me the ingredients but just kind of slapped them on the same burger, adding to the time that it was exposed and getting colder), and the nuggets for the kids' meals were kind of hard. Grandma liked her QP’er and my one daughter liked her burger. They did skip the toy on my youngest boy's happy meal; which made a perfect landing pad for a broken heart. Seriously. Try watching your toddler's smile fade to tears when he can’t find the happy meal toy he’d been fantasizing about at the toy display case for the entire 20 minutes it took for the food to get there. The ice cream we got after was noticeably AMAZING, even by McDonald’s standards; saving one star on the food score. It was super creamy, tasted like it was chock full of fresh vanilla, the fudge and caramel were both hot and seemingly fresh, and although the Grandma McFlurry wasn’t stirred to the bottom, the top half was really good. I ordered extra of both the caramel and the cookie crumble and am skeptical that they added it. Maybe they just cut the measured portions way down. Who knows. All in all, I doubt I’ll go out of my way to go back. Pretty poor experience if you ask me. I don’t know what is happening to McDonald’s. I mean, not that they’ve always had the best quality or consistency, but this location really missed the mark. All this points to poor management. Oh. And we spent $70 overall for 5 people at lunch with dessert.

Drivethru made the best steak and cheese bagel I ever had from McDonald’s. Give them a raise. And he was playing young bleu the whole time. It doesn’t get any better.

Boy at the front counter with the mullet was super nice. He made sure my order was correct and had a great demeanor. Would come again.

I went to the drive-through and ordered fries and a fish fillet. My fish fillet was not hot and neither were my fries. My fries were cold and I was disappointed that’s all.