Use this trick before heading to your local McDonald's restaurant
How to Tell If the Ice Cream Machine Is Broken Before You Head to McDonald’s
Published on Oct. 09, 2024
There’s really never a bad time to enjoy a McDonald’s McFlurry, milkshake or ice cream cone. When you’re on the go and need a snack or sweet treat, McDonald’s ice cream always hits the spot. However, the McDonald’s ice cream machine, also known as the McFlurry machine, has a reputation for being out of service, often when you’re craving ice cream the most.
If you’ve ever felt let down by your local McDonald’s ice cream machine, you’re not alone. But one incredibly creative and resourceful McDonald’s fan launched a web-based tool that can help you avoid the disappointment of finding out the ice cream machine is broken once you’re already in the drive-thru line—once and for all.
Here’s everything you need to know about the ingenious website, McBroken.
How can you find out if a McFlurry machine is broken before going to McDonald’s?
If you want to avoid arriving at your local McDonald’s restaurant only to discover its ice cream machine is broken, pay a visit to McBroken.com before you grab your car keys. The website shows all McDonald’s locations in the United States on a map, and each one is represented by a either green, red or gray dot. McDonald’s locations with a working ice cream machine have a green dot, while locations with a broken machine get a red dot. If the status of the ice cream machine is unclear, you’ll see a gray dot.
You can also see statistics along the right side of the map that tell you what percentage of ice cream machines are broken across the country and in major metropolitan areas, like New York, Seattle and Los Angeles.
How does McBroken work?
Designed by software engineer Rashiq Zahid, McBroken tracks which McDonald’s locations had broken ice cream machines based on information pulled from the McDonald’s mobile app.
When a restaurant’s ice cream machine is working properly, customers are able to place orders for menu items containing ice cream via the mobile app. However, if a particular restaurant’s ice cream machine is broken, those same items will be marked as “currently unavailable.” Zahid created a program that would identify the status of all of the country’s ice cream machines by automatically checking the availability of these menu items through the mobile app.
McDonald’s ice cream machines are solely responsible for producing all of McDonald’s frozen desserts, including soft serve cones, sundaes, shakes and McFlurries.
How accurate is McBroken?
McBroken tracks the status of McDonald’s ice cream machines across the country, and it’s pretty accurate. I was curious about how up-to-date the information on the website really is, so I put it to the test.
I checked the status on McBroken against the availability of ice cream treats in my McDonald’s app. Lo and behold, I found matches across the board. All of the locations where ice cream is available in the app had green dots on McBroken, and the ones that said “currently unavailable” had red dots.
While I am sure there is always a margin of error, it seems like McBroken is a pretty reliable site for finding out if the ice cream machine at your local McDonald’s is up and running. Now, excuse me. I’m off to grab a cone.
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