Today we start our journey on Bison Bites.
Our goal is to inform student athletes of quick places to eat before practices or games. We are focused on four categories: quality, price, efficiency and speed of service.
We rate for quality based on our senses: taste, texture, smell and appearance.
Price should be self-explanatory: the cheaper the price and the more you get for it, the better.
Efficiency is very important in determining our ratings since we are trying to get back to practice in time.
Location is possibly the most important factor in our rating, because if the food is good but too far, there is no point in going. To introduce Bison Bites to readers, we decided to start on a good foot and go to McDonald’s
Price, efficiency, distance: For our study, we went to the Mcdonald’s on Chagrin near Eton mall. The trip took nearly 10 minutes to get from BHS to the restaurant, but it is important to note that there was heavy traffic that day.
Now a 10 minute drive is a fairly short drive to and from practice. If you were to leave the high school at 2:50 p.m. and get to McDonald’s at 3:00, that would give you about 20 to 30 minutes to get your food and eat. This is one of the closest restaurants a student can go to, which gives it a tremendous rating in this category, a 7/10. The only negative about the drive is the constant traffic in the area.
We ordered two menu items: a six-piece chicken McNugget meal and a double quarter pounder. The total price was $6.
$6 is a very cheap price for a fair amount of food, especially for a student athlete who is too busy for a part-time job. Unfortunately, we did not track the exact time it took for the order to come out, but it was fairly quick.
Finally, after a drive from the school and a wait in the restaurant, the food arrived.
The McDouble is a classic burger with two well-done patties between two toasted buns and in the middle, a slice of American Cheese. It is a classic American meal with a nice meaty flavor and all the fixins to go with it
On the other hand, after finishing the burger, it is not surprising if a $4 burger could
mess up your stomach. Nevertheless, it is still a very good burger for the price.
Following that, we tried the McNuggets. The McNugget is a complex food made of 45% chicken and many other ingredients including natural flavoring, but it is delicious nonetheless.
I personally recommend a dipping sauce to go with it. I prefer ranch, but to be honest any sauce will do the job. It is a perfect ratio between crispiness and softness. The crunch from the first bite tells a story in the mouth. The nugget gives the feeling of generations that came before eating the same thing as you, showing that the culture of McDonald’s is not just food but a way of life.
Overall, McDonald’s proved a fair baseline to begin our Bison Bites journey. The restaurant had its pros and cons, with things like bad traffic and fairly artificial food, but also had speedy service and reasonable prices. All these things, good and bad, round out to a decent 7.6 out of 10.
