Steve Hankins

Business Transformation | CIO | CFO | Life | Sports

[Steve Hankins @SteveHankins]

@pillsizedpunk @parkmudoon I know what the call was. It was a "i'm looking for something to call" call. In the Steph landing zone call the shooter moved their feet into Steph's space. Neither was a careless encroachment into the landing space. Just regular defense. No "close out" type violation.

[Steve Hankins @SteveHankins]

@VanMottola @slmandel Raise more money.

[Steve Hankins @SteveHankins]

Every improvement McDonald's has made has taken them down the wrong path. A "quick" stop at the drive through now takes 20 minutes. Selene is right on about the overall experience. No playroom for the kid, no families, no dad's bringing the kids to give mom some space. They've forgotten almost everything that made it work.

[Selene Mariposa @Selene_Mariposa]

McDonald's is spending 8.5 billion dollars to find out why families stopped coming.

I can save them the 8.5 billion.

They took out the playground.

The plan, announced Wednesday at investor day. Better food, faster service, new equipment, AI tools, hospitality training, and a bigger push into chicken and beverages. They call it Next. The goal, they say, is making customers feel more comfortable.

Wall Street loved it so much the stock fell 5 percent to its lowest since 2022.

Over five years McDonald's shares are down 3 percent. Burger King's parent is up 14. The owner of Taco Bell and KFC is up 13.

This is not a hamburger problem. This is a McDonald's problem.

So let us talk about who used to eat there.

Parents. That was the whole business. Parents at 5:40 on a Tuesday with three kids in the back and nothing thawed at home.

You did not go for the burger. You went because your kids could run screaming through a plastic tube for 40 minutes while you sat with a coffee and experienced silence.

That was the product. The food was the cover charge.

The first PlayPlace opened in 1971 in Birmingham, Alabama, and for fifty years it did one job. It made small children demand to go to McDonald's.

Then 2020 arrived, every play area in the country closed, and a great many never came back. The equipment came out during a remodeling program named Experience of the Future.

The Experience of the Future turned out to be a touchscreen.

Their own chief executive said he did not know if ball pits were in their future.

Sir, you were not selling ball pits. You were selling forty minutes.

So now there is no counter, no playground, and no reason for a seven year old to want to go. A screen, a window, and a bag.

And for that we pay prices that require a moment of reflection in the parking lot.

For thin, overcooked, oddly uniform pucks that taste like a memory of beef.

I did not love them because they were good. I loved them because I was eight and there was a slide.

And have you seen the new buildings.

The old ones were unmistakable. Red roof, yellow arches, legible from a highway at 70 to a child who could not yet read.

The new ones are a flat gray box with a small logo and a drive through wrapped around it. A regional claims office with a fryer.

They removed the color, the characters, the counter, and the playground, and then hired consultants to find out why it no longer feels like anywhere.

Which is why, when I have to eat fast food, I go to Chick-fil-A.

Not for the politics. For the competence.

They have led the customer satisfaction index for fast food eleven years running, and average 8.5 million dollars per location against McDonald's 4 million.

More than double, while closed on Sundays. Fifty two days a year with the lights off, and still double.

A seventeen year old hands you a bag and says my pleasure and means it about 70 percent, which is 70 percent more than a touchscreen has managed.

McDonald's is spending 8.5 billion on hospitality training.

Chick-fil-A earns 8.5 million per restaurant by just having some.

So here is my consulting proposal, free of charge, on behalf of mothers everywhere.

Put the playgrounds back.

Not a nostalgia campaign. Not a retro cup. The structure. Tubes, slides, a door the kids cannot open from the inside, and a bench where a tired woman can sit.

And understand what you are buying, because it is not lunch.

A six year old does not know your food is bad. He has no basis for comparison and no functioning palate. He thinks the burger is incredible because he is standing in a castle made of tubes.

That is the window. That is the only window you get.

You catch them before the taste buds arrive, and thirty years later they drive past your sign, feel something they cannot explain, and pull in anyway.

That is not a menu strategy. That is imprinting, and you shut it down in 2020 to save on cleaning.

Eight and a half billion dollars for AI tools and hospitality training.

Or a slide.

🦋

[Steve Hankins @SteveHankins]

Frank Broyles was always ahead of the future. Hunter is always behind. Also, his coat is silly and has always signaled to me that he sets himself a step removed from Arkansas football history. Even Jeff Long wore the proper solid Razorback red coat.

[On3 @On3]

NEW: Arkansas AD Hunter Yurachek tells @Brett_McMurphy the football program isn’t where they want it and he’s "not going to make excuses for that."❌

"Coach Silverfield and I have a plan. We believe in that plan, and we are committed to doing what it takes to build a championship-caliber program at Arkansas."

Story: https://t.co/JY0IOohctm

[Steve Hankins @SteveHankins]

@AdamFord92 Excellent article and analysis.

[Steve Hankins @SteveHankins]

Not a bad design. 71 misses his block, puts guy in KJ's vision and he doesn't stand in to make a good throw. Throws fading backwards. Not a left hand, right hand issue. Right guard out slow, but would have made block with a good throw. Could have been a big play or a five yard game. Depends.

[Steve Hankins @SteveHankins]

I haven't watched the movie. Brandon's story, to me, was one of work ethic and determination taking him from someone that little was thought of to fantastic achievements. That's a notion that can apply in any area of life. If memory serves, he was a graduate student the last year he played and possibly had achieved a master's degree in something. I remember the night and day after he died clearly. I felt he made a poor decision to be driving at that time on a road that had some weird construction going on. I had recently driven that road in the daytime and felt there were some dangerous areas. Perhaps his achievements contribution to some over-confidence. Perhaps he just made a driving mistake. At any rate, your post was in poor taste could possibly be viewed as a marketing effort for your business.

[Steve Hankins @SteveHankins]

@_The_Prophet__ I was told in the 80s how stupid I was to think that one day the world would run on a network of computers.

[Steve Hankins @SteveHankins]

Once every house on my street got a new roof from a storm except mine. I was the only house on State Farm. I complained on Twitter and finally got my roof handled. It was obvious their inspectors were intent on finding reasons not to replace my roof. Local agents have no say. #StateFarm

[Clay Travis @ClayTravis]

This is awesome.

[Steve Hankins @SteveHankins]

@jamescal2026 stocks

[Steve Hankins @SteveHankins]

@felixprehn TUTORIAL

[Steve Hankins @SteveHankins]

@LEAPTRADER_ Leap

[Steve Hankins @SteveHankins]

@BojanRadojici10 Prompts

[Steve Hankins @SteveHankins]

@BoucherNicolas Masterclass

[Steve Hankins @SteveHankins]

@BoucherNicolas Claude

[Steve Hankins @SteveHankins]

@BoucherNicolas Claude

[Steve Hankins @SteveHankins]

@BoucherNicolas CFO