McDonald’s Can Now Repair Its Own McFlurry Machines

Maybe this sounds familiar: You’re craving a McFlurry and you hop in the car to take a whirl through the McDonald’s drive-thru, only to be told that the machine is broken again. Well, McFlurry fans, I have good news for you! CNN reports that a new court ruling has determined McDonald’s restaurants now have the power to fix their broken McFlurry machines. If you’re wondering why they didn’t already have that power, buckle up, because it’s quite the McSaga.

Why are McDonald’s McFlurry machines always broken?

The ongoing issue of broken McFlurry machines has plagued fast food fans for years; complaints about these malfunctions could be considered an early meme of the social media era.

Some employees have divulged in online forums that the reason for the oft “broken” machines is that, on many occasions, they’re actually fibbing: The machines weren’t necessarily out of order, but they’re notoriously difficult to clean; removing all soft serve product from the machine at the end of the day and sanitizing the device is a time-consuming process. Thus, if customers come in for a late-night snack just before closing (who doesn’t love a 10 p.m. McFlurry?), the employees might already have gone through the production of cleaning the machine, and doing so again might cause them to stay late on their shift. Easier, then, to say that it’s “broken” and leave it at that.

But that’s not the whole story. An atypically large proportion of these machines really are broken across McDonald’s thousands of locations at any given time. That’s because Taylor, the manufacturer of the soft serve machines in McDonald’s restaurants, holds a copyright that prevents anyone from servicing the machine except Taylor technicians. This creates a bottleneck in service, leading to delays in repair. There are so-called digital locks on the devices that prevent any attempt to fix them without Taylor.

The problems are so widespread that one company, Kytch, created a device that would allow employees to bypass such locks and diagnose issues with the machines, offering potential fixes. McDonald’s blocked the use of Kytch and a multi-million-dollar lawsuit spun out from there, which The New York Times reported on extensively in 2022. It’s even been suggested that Taylor’s machines are intentionally fragile and prone to malfunction, since Taylor owns a monopoly on their repair.

Then, the internet was gifted McBroken, a useful website where McDonald’s fans can check if their nearest location has a functioning McFlurry machine. As of this writing, my nearest location’s machine is allegedly—you guessed it—McBroken.

Now, though, there is hope for us all, thanks to a new ruling by the government.

Sarah Tramonte for Taste Recipes

Why McFlurry machines might be broken less often in the future

A copyright exemption has been issued by the United States Copyright Office that would allow McDonald’s to employ third-party technicians to fix the busted machines. This was the result of a request made by both Public Knowledge, an advocacy group that seeks greater access to technology, and iFixit, a retailer of technology repair tools. Though the exemption wasn’t granted across the board, CNN reports that “commercial restaurant equipment received a narrow exemption.”

The implications of this ruling would affect thousands of McDonald’s locations nationwide, and might finally keep us from bracing at the drive-thru when we attempt to order frozen treats. As Public Knowledge pointed out, third-party repair companies will likely be eager to take up the new flood of McDonald’s work and get these machines fixed as fast as possible.

Meredith Rose, senior policy counsel at Public Knowledge, clearly had some fun while crafting a statement on the copyright decision: “It’s been a long and rocky road to secure a right to repair, and while there are plenty of dips and twists ahead, today’s decision from the Copyright Office will lead to an overdue shake-up of the commercial food prep industry. There’s nothing vanilla about this victory.”

“Today’s win may not be parfait, but it’s still pretty sweet,” Rose said.