McDonald's facing flak from all sides as Northamptonshire drive-thrus start to reopen

McDonald's is facing flak from all sides ahead of reopening its Northamptonshire drive-thrus.

The burger giant finally opened 15 drive-thrus in the county today — 24 hours after its app told customers that three were open when they weren't

Northampton and Wellingborough were among a string of locations where hungry customers were told drive-thrus were open only to find they were 24 hours too early.

More complaints flooded social media about those drive-thrus that did open closing without notice after being swamped with cars, tailbacks blocking main roads and entrances to residential areas and litter.

McDonald's smartphone app appeared to show drive-thrus at Northampton's Riverside Retail Park plus two in Wellingborough among 168 reopening yesterday (Tuesday June 2).

But a list of sites posted later on the company's website showed no drive-thrus reopening in Northamptonshire.

Similar issues were reported in Portsmouth, Wigan, York and Preston.

McDonald's did not respond to Chronicle & Echo calls for a statement by Wednesday morning.

The company finally published a list of 497 drive-thrus opening today about an hour before they were due to start serving at 11am with five Northampton drive-thrus, two in Wellingborough, plus outlets in Daventry, Towcester, Wellingborough, Kettering and Corby all in included.

But they also have issued a warning on social media that those queuing could have a wasted trip.

Their tweet said: "We are working with local authorities and police and we may determine it necessary to close drive-thrus if there is local disruption or puts the safety of our employees and customers at risk."