00:00Christina, just walk us back to what the new strategy McDonald's is embarking on. What has it articulated?
00:07Right. So as you mentioned, for years, McDonald's was actually shuttering on net new stores. Between 2015 and 2021, they closed a net of more than 900 McDonald's.
00:17Many of them were inside Walmart. And over that time, the pandemic happened and people started to move more to the suburbs and the exurbs.
00:26And McDonald's realized that there were customers out there that it wasn't capturing. Their goal is to be within a five-minute drive of as many people as possible.
00:37So what we've seen in recent years is a multibillion-dollar global expansion where they're opening new restaurants in places where they've determined will be a fruitful spot for them to reach more of these exurban and suburban residents.
00:52That is incredible, this idea that McDonald's has not reached saturation in certain parts of the U.S. market. Why is this happening right now in 2025?
01:03Yeah, I think it's been since the pandemic they're following this population migration.
01:08For example, a state like Texas has seen two million new residents since 2020.
01:13And so McDonald's is looking at places like Dallas and the suburbs ringing Dallas as new location, you know, perfect spots for them to build new locations.
01:23And in fact, they've built more than 40 locations in the Dallas area since 2020.
01:28Yeah, you traveled to North Texas, the areas north of Dallas, all those suburbs that are spread out along the highway for this story.
01:36What do people think about the explosion of McDonald's there?
01:40It's a complicated topic, as is the sort of general growth in that area.
01:46Many people moved out beyond the Dallas city limits to be around farmland, to be in sort of more wide open spaces, to not have as much traffic.
01:58At the same time, you know, it's convenient to have a McDonald's near you.
02:02I talked to a bunch of parents who were taking their kids to dance practice and, you know, all the normal things that parents do.
02:08And it's convenient to be near a restaurant like McDonald's.
02:12Also, when McDonald's comes, other restaurants often follow.
02:15So in general, I think people were wary of recreating the full big business atmosphere that they had been trying to escape.
02:24And at the same time, there were many people grateful to have life a little easier, a little more convenient, able to go through a drive-through and get nuggets on your way to dance practice.
02:33Yeah, makes sense.
02:34You mentioned something that struck me as interesting.
02:36Is McDonald's an early bird or is it a latecomer to this idea that it's going to plant roots across these master-planned communities in northern Texas?
02:46Often in many cities that are experiencing rapid growth, McDonald's is one of the first businesses.
02:52And in this instance, they're playing a little bit of catch-up.
02:55They're not always the first business to open their doors.
02:58I talked to a realtor in Texas who said McDonald's is often 8 to 10 years ahead of the wave.
03:04And in this case, they're not quite that early.
03:06But at the same time, these towns in north Texas are experiencing incredibly rapid growth.
03:12And these McDonald's are well-positioned to take advantage of much of that growth that has not yet actually happened.
03:19Okay, you talked about how people inevitably will end up going to McDonald's because it's convenient.
03:23It's there.
03:23How are the new stores doing overall?
03:26It's tricky to know for sure.
03:28McDonald's doesn't release a lot of data specific to the new stores.
03:32We looked at some third-party data that showed that there wasn't quite as much traffic in these new stores as some of the older established stores in denser areas.
03:41McDonald's says that's pretty normal, that that often happens and that they catch up in the next two or three years.
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