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This isn't the 1,333,765th "McDonald's Ice Cream Machine Dirty Secret!" story. Nope. This is a story about how to make sure the Rochester McDonald's you go to has a working ice cream machine.

First McDonalds Franchise Recalls Fast-Food Giants Beginnings
DES PLAINES, IL - APRIL 14: A Multi-mixer along with milkshake mix and syrup pumps are displayed inside the McDonald's USA First Store Museum April 14, 2005 in Des Plaines, Illinois.  (Photo by Tim Boyle/Getty Images)
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It's the brainchild of a guy named Rashiq (@rashiq on Twitter)

"I reverse engineered mcdonald's internal api and I'm currently placing an order worth $18,752 every minute at every mcdonald's in the US to figure out which locations have a broken ice cream machine."

That information goes to his website (https://mcbroken.com/) which is super simple. Just a map of the USA and McDonald's locations...green dots for ice-cream in service, red for ice-cream machine not in service.

https://mcbroken.com/
mcbroken.com
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No judgement, no preaching, nothing but the map and ice-cream machine reports. For instance, at the time I wrote this, all the ice-cream machines at Rochester McDonald's were working, but sorry, Byron...you'll have to shake a leg and get to Rochester for your fix.

Doesn't This Waste A Lot of Ice Cream and Make Extra Work for Employees?

It seems no...it doesn't make anyone working at a McDonald's waste time or waste ice cream. Rashiq Tweeted,

"to clarify how this works: mcdonald's keeps track which locations have a broken machine, I'm merely querying for those - no order gets executed, no ice cream is actually wasted Soft ice cream"

Click here to see if the McDonald's near you can serve you ice cream treats!

Good News Austin McDonald's Shake Lovers

https://mcbroken.com/
mcbroken.com
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2/3rds Good News Albert McDonald's Shake Lovers

https://mcbroken.com/
mcbroken.com
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A Mixed Bag for the Faribau-Tonna Region

https://mcbroken.com/
mcbroken.com
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Green Mean Go Winona McDonald's Ice Cream Cool Kids

https://mcbroken.com/
mcbroken.com
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Uh-Oh, MSP Has The Chicken Pox

https://mcbroken.com/
mcbroken.com
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And Just Plain Sad News For You, Story City, Iowa

https://mcbroken.com/
hmcbroken.com
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Click here to see if the McDonald's near you can serve you ice cream treats!

There Is A McDonald's Ice Cream Machine App, Too

CLICK FOR LINK
CLICK FOR LINK
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It may be available for Android as well as Apple, but the two ice-cream-machine checkers are not connected.

So No Juicy Behind the Scenes "McDonald's BUSTED" Ice Cream Info?

No. Because it seems 75% of the time there really it's legit maintenance going on. The other 25% of time the machine really is broken. Well, maybe 20%. People are human, after all.

Above I said "in-service" and "out-of-service" because it might be broken, but it could also be maintenance time, and until I saw this video, I had NO idea how much of a pain it is to clean it.

That may not be the EXACT machine used in McDonald's, but it give you a good idea of how huge a pain it is to clean, how long it'd take, and why you have a pretty good chance of running into an out-of-service machine.

As always, if you have a comment, complaint, or concern about something I wrote here, please let me know: james.rabe@townsquaremedia.com

What Have You Heard About Minnesotans?

This is so funny...and yes, I've heard a lot of people say this kind of stuff. Especially when I lived in Idaho.

Myths People in Other States Believe About Minnesota

When you tell someone that lives in another state that you are from Minnesota, have you ever been asked a weird question? Like, "Can you ever get a tan there?". That is one of the many myths that seem to be rolling around in the minds of people from other states. Some of the myths below are actually just shocking.

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