There's Never Ice Cream at McDonald's

I work at in an independent living facility as a dietary aide (a fancy term for a waitress). Recently, our ice cream machine broke down. Some mechanism inside it wasn't working properly, thus rendering our ice cream a liquidy mess.

After an enlightening conversation with the technician, I found out that the company that makes our ice cream machine basically has a monopoly, and it can be found in a large number of fast food restaurants, including McDonalds.

I also found out that they were very expensive, ranging from $5,000 - $14,000, and maybe even more expensive than that.

We have to break down our machine every day, but I learned that the more expensive models need more time to set up and break down every day. According to my exclusive source (Ice Cream Machine Technician), it takes at least four hours every day to break a Taylor ice cream machine down to clean it or to perform basic maintenance. There are also dozens of individual parts once you actually do break it down. Obviously, no one wants to deal with that.

I also learned that certain ice cream machines have a self-pasteurization feature, meaning that you can just keep adding to the machine without the ice cream going bad or having to actually break it down.

Maybe I'll look more into this later, but for now, I think this video was really helpful in explaining why the ice cream machines at McDonalds are always broken.

Until then, I think I'll just enjoy my local custard shop instead.