A new report highlights tension between McDonald's and its franchisees due to a 36% rise in restaurant operating expenses since 2019, as the company's revenue-based royalty model conflicts with franchisees' need to cover store-level costs.
r/restaurantowners
“Trust me I know. Im building out my next kitchen right now.”
u/welchplug1 points · Sep 30, 2026View
What this signalsUser posts often show product pain before it reaches reviews or churn.
Topics
reddit-companycustomerFeedbackGet every Reddit signal for McDonald's and the companies you sell to, in the tools you already use.
Connect Autobound to Claude, Claude Code or Cursor with MCP. Then ask: “What changed at McDonald's this week?”
The Signal API returns Reddit signals for any list of companies as JSON, for your CRM, warehouse or app.
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This page shows a preview. The full reddit-company record in the Signal API and MCP can also have these 8 fields. Some fields are empty for some signals.
Company
linkedin_urlValue in the APIindustriesValue in the APIemployee_count_lowValue in the APIemployee_count_highValue in the APIrevenueValue in the APIdescriptionValue in the APISignal
signal_nameValue in the APIassociationValue in the APIGET /v1/signals/789d427e-105c-529a-a5f6-b1955b89be2e returns this record as JSON. POST /v1/companies/enrich returns every signal for mcdonalds.com.
{
"signal_id": "789d427e-105c-529a-a5f6-b1955b89be2e",
"signal_type": "reddit-company",
"signal_subtype": "customerFeedback",
"detected_at": "2026-09-30T01:57:15+00:00",
"company": {
"name": "McDonald's",
"domain": "mcdonalds.com"
},
"data": {
"nsfw": false,
"stage": "none",
"awards": 0,
"timing": "ongoing_state",
"topics": [
"franchise model",
"operating costs",
"profitability",
"pricing"
],
"post_id": "1wtsocr",
"summary": "A new report highlights tension between McDonald's and its franchisees due to a 36% rise in restaurant operating expenses since 2019, as the company's revenue-based royalty model conflicts with franchisees' need to cover store-level costs.",
"category": "pricing",
"comments": [
{
"url": "https://www.reddit.com/r/restaurantowners/comments/1wtsocr/comment/pcz0jnl/",
"depth": 0,
"score": 1,
"author": "welchplug",
"excerpt": "Trust me I know. Im building out my next kitchen right now.",
"posted_at": "2026-09-30T10:07:42.000Z",
"author_url": "https://www.reddit.com/user/welchplug/"
}
],
"evidence": [
"[post] Restaurant operating expenses have risen 36% since 2019 | The figure appears in a new examination of the tension between McDonald’s franchisees, which need prices to cover store-level costs, and a franchisor that earns royalties from revenue rather than individual-store profit."
],
"link_url": "/r/businesscashflows/comments/1wtsm8n/restaurant_operating_expenses_have_risen_36_since/",
"virality": "low",
"post_date": "2026-09-30T01:57:15.000Z",
"post_kind": "crosspost",
"sentiment": "negative",
"subreddit": "restaurantowners",
"post_title": "Restaurant operating expenses have risen 36% since 2019 | The figure appears in a new examination of the tension between McDonald’s franchisees, which need prices to cover store-level costs, and a franchisor that earns royalties from revenue rather than individual-store profit.",
"prominence": "core",
"source_url": "https://www.reddit.com/r/restaurantowners/comments/1wtsocr/restaurant_operating_expenses_have_risen_36_since/",
"entity_role": "vendor",
"post_author": "zexolyn",
"upvote_ratio": 0.9230769230769231,
"mention_count": 4,
"mention_surge": true,
"subreddit_url": "https://www.reddit.com/r/restaurantowners/",
"total_upvotes": 11,
"comments_total": 2,
"total_comments": 2,
"event_date_text": "since 2019",
"post_author_url": "https://www.reddit.com/user/zexolyn/",
"signal_category": "feedback",
"comments_included": 1
}
}
curl https://signals.autobound.ai/v1/signals/789d427e-105c-529a-a5f6-b1955b89be2e \
-H "X-API-KEY: $AUTOBOUND_API_KEY"curl -X POST https://signals.autobound.ai/v1/companies/enrich \
-H "X-API-KEY: $AUTOBOUND_API_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"domain":"mcdonalds.com","limit":20}'Long text fields are shortened on this page.
Looking up one signal by its id is free. Enrich costs 2 credits per signal returned; a call with no results is free.