McDonald’s Ice Cream Machines Will Finally Be Fixed for Good

It's 6PM on a Friday, it's 95 degrees outside, and you want nothing more than to pull into McDonald's and snag a vanilla cone. But the voice on the other end of the speaker lets you down with these words: "I'm sorry, our ice cream machine is down right now."

Boom, evening ruined.

But good news: This will no longer be an issue across America, as a change has been made that will end this problem for good.

The U.S. Copyright Office just granted an exemption that will allow third parties to diagnose and fix commercial food preparation equipment, such as McDonald's ice cream machines.

Before now, only people who were trained by and work for the brand that makes their machines, Taylor, were allowed to work on these machines.

So if a McDonald's ice cream machine broke down, they'd have to wait until a certified Taylor employee could make it out to the location to diagnose and fix the problem.

Now, anyone with the proper training can get under the hood, so to speak, and figure out and fix the issue..

The craziest thing here is how important ice cream is in America — the feds have gotten involved to try to rectify the issue!

The Federal Trade Commission and Justice Department note that there tends to be long wait times for authorized soft serve machine repairmen, and they charge "over $300 per fifteen minutes."

Meanwhile, restaurants can lose $625 in sales daily due to soft serve equipment breakdowns, the filing said.

If you are thinking that $300 per fifteen minutes is a good rate, join the club — we might be in the wrong business!

The new rule took effect on October 28, 2024. It will be interesting to see which McDonald's locations will come up with something new to say if they don't want to get your ice cream (just kidding).