麦当劳

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顾客一杯咖啡坐半天，麦当劳应该怎么办？作者：经济学人

They Thought McDonald’s Was Their Kind of Place

By SARAH MASLIN NIR January 29, 2014

顾客一杯咖啡坐半天，麦当劳应该怎么办？

SARAH MASLIN NIR 2014年01月29日

With its recession-friendly coffee prices, plentiful tables and available bathrooms, McDonald’s restaurants all over the country, and even all over the world, have been adopted by a cost-conscious set as a coffeehouse for the people, a sort of everyman’s Starbucks. Behind the Golden Arches, older people seeking company and conversation, schoolchildren putting off homework time and homeless people escaping the cold have transformed the banquettes into headquarters for the kind of laid-back socializing once carried out on a park bench or brownstone stoop.

与经济衰退匹配的咖啡价格、充足的餐桌，又有卫生间可以使用，全美乃至全世界的麦当劳(McDonald’s)餐厅，都被一群会算经济账的顾客当成了平民咖啡馆，或者说像是老百姓的星巴克(Starbucks)。在金色的拱形M标志下，老人寻求陪伴与交流、学生消磨做作业前的时光，无家可归者则进来御寒。这些人把餐厅的软垫条凳变成了某种悠闲社交的大本营，扮演了公园长凳或褐砂石楼的门廊过去的角色。

But patrons have also brought the mores of cafe culture, where often a single purchase is permission to camp out with a laptop. Increasingly, they seem to linger over McCafe Lattes, sometimes spending a lot of time but little money in outlets of this chain, which rose to prominence on a very different business model: food that is always fast. And so restaurant managers and franchise owners are often frustrated by these, their most loyal customers. Such regulars hurt business, some say, and leave little room for other customers. Tensions can sometimes erupt.

然而，主顾们还带来了咖啡文化的规矩：买一样东西就意味着获得了带笔记本电脑窝一天的许可。他们似乎在麦咖啡(McCafe)的拿铁上花着越来越多的时间，有时会磨蹭很久，却只在它的连锁门店里花很少的钱。但麦当劳的崛起，倚仗的却是与此背道而驰的商业模式，即快餐至上。因此，餐厅经理与店主常常被这些最忠诚的客户搞得焦头烂额。有人说，此类常客影响了生意，害得别的客人几乎找不到位子。有时还会爆发冲突。

In the past month, those tensions came to a boil in New York City. When management at a McDonald’s in Flushing, Queens, called the police on a group of older Koreans, prompting outrage at the company’s perceived rudeness, calls for a worldwide boycottand a truce mediated by a local politician, it became a famous case of a struggle that happens daily at McDonald’s outlets in the city and beyond.

过去一个月里，这样的冲突在纽约市达到白热化的程度。在皇后区法拉盛的一家麦当劳，管理层报警驱逐一群韩裔老人。一些人对他们眼中麦当劳的粗鲁无礼表示愤慨，呼吁展开全球性的抵制活动。一名地方政坛人士出面调停，暂时促成了和解。这一事件成为了知名案例，

代表了纽约及更大范围内的麦当劳门店时时面临的困境。

Stephen Lewis for The New York Times. Food stylist: Victoria Granof

Is the customer always right, even the ensconced penny-pincher?

客户永远都是正确的吗，即使他们一坐不起又不愿花钱？

The answer seems to be yes among those who do the endless sitting at McDonald’s restaurants in Crown Heights, Brooklyn; Midtown Manhattan; Astoria, Queens; and the East Village.

在布鲁克林皇冠高地、曼哈顿中城、皇后区阿斯托里亚及东村占领了麦当劳的人看来，答案似乎是肯定的。

If Mike Black’s friends are looking for him, they know to check the McDonald’s on Utica Avenue in Flatbush, Brooklyn, he said. That is where Mr. Black, who is in his 50s, spends hours opening and reading his junk mail.

麦克·布莱克(Mike Black)说，如果朋友要找他，就知道去布鲁克林弗莱布许的尤蒂卡大道上的那家麦当劳看看。在那里，50多岁的布莱克一坐就是几个钟头，在那里点开和查看垃圾邮件。

“I don’t eat fast food,”he said, arguing that his one coffee entitled him to all the leisure time he needed. “I just come here to hang out and deal with my mail.”

“我不吃快餐，”他说，并且认为一杯咖啡足以允许他消磨所需的休闲时光。“我就是来这里待着，处理一下邮件。”

A few miles away at another McDonalds, a fedora-wearing crew holds court daily in a