McDonald’s expands self-service kiosks, says cashiers will still take orders
McDonald’s is widening self-service kiosks, but Lisa McComb says cashiers are still on the floor. For crews, the real shift is from ringing orders to fixing them.
McDonald’s has widened its use of self-service kiosks in U.S. restaurants, while spokeswoman Lisa McComb said cashiers will still take orders and that the kiosks are meant to work as another service option, alongside mobile and web ordering. The rollout changes what a cashier does on shift.
At store level, that means less pure order-taking and more guest recovery. Crew members are more likely to be pulled into lobby flow, troubleshooting a frozen screen, correcting a missed modifier, guiding customers through customization, and helping keep lines moving when some guests still want a human at the counter. Workers can be reassigned from cashiering to tasks such as bringing food to customers and improving the guest experience.
About 95% of McDonald’s restaurants worldwide are owned and operated by independent local business owners, and McDonald’s has more than 44,000 locations in more than 100 countries. That setup leaves franchisees carrying much of the staffing burden, and some operators have argued that labor savings are needed to keep prices from rising further. One franchisee called minimum wage increases and labor costs a crisis, sharpened by California’s fast-food wage law, which raised the minimum wage for many fast-food workers to $20 an hour on April 1, 2024.
In 2019, thousands of restaurants were getting a new look and feel under McDonald’s Experience of the Future concept, which included digital kiosks and table service. In November 2020, McDonald’s launched Accelerating the Arches with digital, drive-thru and delivery as core priorities. In 2024, McDonald’s said a new universal software platform would run across the mobile app, loyalty and in-store kiosks. In September 2024, McDonald’s began testing kiosks that accept cash and dispense change, extending a chainwide self-order kiosk rollout that started in 2020 and had previously pushed cash-paying customers back to the counter.
In 2025, McDonald’s said systemwide sales topped $130 billion in 2024 and loyalty sales were about $30 billion.
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