It's Likely That Your McDonald's Ice Cream Machine Is Dirty, Not Broken

It's become an extremely relatable meme by now: McDonald's ice cream machines almost always seem to be "broken," per The Seattle Times. Go to McDonald's craving a soft-serve sundae or a McFlurry, and you'll likely hear the words, "I'm sorry, the ice cream machine isn't working today." And you dejectedly walk away, wondering if and when you'll ever get that coveted McDonald's ice cream.

The Great McDonald's Ice Cream letdown is such a common experience at this point that it's tempting to wonder why the popular fast food chain even has ice cream machines if they're seemingly inoperable a majority of the time. Does the McFlurry machine really break as easily as McDonald's employees claim it does, or do they all just really not enjoy making the McFlurry? Or could the "breakdown" issue be something else entirely? The truth behind the "broken ice cream machines" is surprising and much more complicated than it initially sounds — especially for anyone who comes to McDonald's just for their frozen treats.

Think it's suspicious that McDonald's can never give you ice cream when you want it most? As it turns out, the issue has nothing to do with the ice cream machines themselves, which actually seem to do their job just fine. According to Reader's Digest, the ice cream machines at McDonald's actually take an extremely long time to clean, so if an employee tells you that the ice cream machine is broken, it might just be running through its hours-long cleaning cycle. 

This is still beyond inconvenient for customers who adore McDonald's frozen treats, but it might be comforting to know that they — at least — clean the machines. Of course, "Our machine is dirty enough that we have to clean it now" doesn't sound as appealing as "Oh, sorry, it's just broken today," so maybe the employees' white lie makes sense. While you can rest assured that McDonald's thoroughly sanitizes their machines, they just can't serve ice cream while it cleans, Newsweek explains. 

McDonald's ice cream machines typically take four hours to sanitize, which might make the lack of ice cream throughout the day make sense. But why can't they run the cleaning process during closing hours? It turns out that the McDonald's ice cream machines sanitize whenever they're programmed to, and Mcdonald's employees do try to set the machines up to sanitize while the store is no longer openly serving customers, Wired reports. The machines, called Taylor machines, are far from perfect, though. They're extremely glitchy, so McDonald's employees sometimes have to restart the cleaning process.

If that doesn't work, they are then expected to call in a Taylor company technician — not a standard mechanical worker — to work on the machine until it sanitizes properly again. So it's not that McDonald's doesn't want to dole out McFlurries all day; it's just that their ice cream machines can be really, really terrible at doing their jobs, and they need to sanitize for several hours, too, The Takeout claims. The next time you can't get a McFlurry, remind yourself that the machine is probably just being cleaned so that when you finally get your hands on your McDonald's ice cream, it'll be the healthiest possible.