It’s a McDonald’s phenomenon that has inspired memes, apps and even a government inquiry.
McDonald’s just introduced the Kit Kat Banana Split McFlurry, the newest flavor to join the ranks of its frozen treat offerings. In response, some folks took to social media to express excitement about it, while others posted about their disappointment with the treat, but there were plenty of people commenting about the the chain’s seemingly always broken ice cream machines.
“If that McFlurry machine is broken, I’m coming through that drive-thru window,” wrote one person under a post on X about the new treat.
“Given the number of broken ice cream machines, I have a better chance of getting McRibs out of season than I do this McFlurry,” posted another.
On TikTok, most of the posts under the hashtag #brokenicecreammachine are about McDonald’s, and the same goes for searching “broken ice cream machine” on X.
For its part, McDonald’s USA tells TODAY.com its sales data over the past few years has shown its shake machines are up and running around 95% of the time across the country, depending on the local restaurant. It also notes that it provides training resources for crew members and encourages regular maintenance check-ups to keep machines running smoothly.
So, where does the idea that its machines are always out of service come from?
The introduction of the ice cream machine
McDonald’s has been selling ice cream-based treats for nearly a century. Back in 1956, future McDonald’s CEO Ray Kroc made a handshake agreement with the Taylor Company to supply milkshake machines as McDonald’s exclusive supplier, keeping that partnership going almost 90 years later.
Since that deal, McDonald’s has added vanilla cones, sundaes and McFlurries to its menu, using Taylor’s ice cream machines to make them all.
Chatter about the McFlurry (which was added to menus in 1997) being unavailable due to broken machines in certain locations began to grow around the 2010s, as persistently as confusion over the treat’s now-retired hollow spoons.
The McMemes emerge
Around late 2016, jokes about McDonald’s ice cream machines constant out-of-order status started percolating on the internet.
One of the earliest instances is a viral video titled “Understandable, Have a Nice Day” which shows a man traveling through the drive-thru of an unknown McDonald’s to get an ice cream cone, only to be told the machine is broken.
In the years since, other viral jokes have popped up using various popular meme formats like Drake’s hit “Hotline Bling” and SpongeBob getting stronger.
Of course, Wendy’s took has taken multiple opportunities to shade its competitor’s frozen foibles — including dropping a mixtape.
McDonald’s itself has even joined in on the fun, tweeting in 2020, “we have a joke about our soft serve machine but we’re worried it won’t work.”
The tech world and government get involved
Taylor, the ice cream machine manufacturer, holds a copyright on its machines, meaning that if one breaks, only its repair people are able to fix it. So, in 2018, two friends created an app called Kytch that aims to help restaurant owners fix the glitches in the machines without having to call a technician.
(Taylor did not immediately respond to TODAY.com’s request for comment.)
And in 2020, a developer created a website called the “McBroken” map. The still-functioning site uses McDonald’s internal API (programming) to give real-time confirmation on whether your local McDonald’s ice cream machine is working or not.
Kytch’s popularity began to wane in 2021, according to the New York Times, when McDonald’s sent notices to franchisees warning them that the technology could lead to worker injuries.
Then, the U.S. government decided the phenomenon was serious enough to investigate.
That same year, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission reached out to McDonald’s franchisees to ask why their ice cream machines were breaking down so often. According to owners of these McDonald’s locations, the contraptions are overly complicated and difficult to repair when problems arise.
In 2023, iFixit performed a teardown of McDonald’s machines. It said the machine spit out multiple “nonsensical, counterintuitive, and seemingly random” error codes, but it couldn’t do anything to repair it because the law prohibits anyone but Taylor from fixing the machines. So, iFixit and the nonprofit Public Knowledge decided to petition the government to let them create the parts needed for people to fix the machines.
Then, in March of this year, the FTC and the Department of Justice’s antitrust division submitted a comment to the U.S. Copyright Office, seeking to extend the right to repair certain equipment — including commercial soft-serve machines.
“In the Agencies’ view, renewing and expanding repair-related exemptions would promote competition in markets for replacement parts, repair, and maintenance services, as well as facilitate competition in markets for repairable products,” the comment reads.
We’ll update this story if there are any developments on that front. In the meantime, you can still check the McBroken map to see if your local McDonald’s ice cream machine is working before you head out the door with an aggressive McFlurry craving.
