McDonald's Customers Unable To Order Food After Global Outage

McDonald's customers worldwide experienced an unprecedented moment Friday: CNBC reports that McDonald's restaurants across the globe experienced a technical issue that led to services being temporarily suspended, leaving customers unable to order.

McDonald's Australia was the first to report the issue and took to Twitter/X to inform customers. "Earlier today, we experienced a technology outage which impacted all of our restaurants," read the post in part. "This wasn't related to a cybersecurity event and most restaurants have now re-opened and are serving up all your faves."

Dear customers,

Earlier today, we experienced a technology outage which impacted all of our restaurants.

This wasn't related to a cybersecurity event and most restaurants have now re-opened and are serving up all your faves.

A huge thank you to our customers and our...

— McDonald's Australia (@maccas) March 15, 2024

An hour later, McDonald's Australia posted again to X, noting that all of its restaurants had "re-opened," signaling that some had shut down due to the earlier technical issue. McDonald's Japan similarly posted to its X account to inform customers that operations at its restaurants nationwide were temporarily suspended.

Downdetector, a website that reports app and website outages and technical issues, had a spike in reports about McDonald's app and website. The reports on Downdetector came throughout the morning Friday, and a map on the website showed many reports coming from New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Seattle. CNBC reports that the UK also experienced this outage.

Downdetector also pulls in posts from social media, where some noted the outage had reached Sweden and Germany as well.

Although McDonald's did not get into specifics about what caused the global outage, the company made it clear across multiple statements from its global teams that the issue was not due to a cyberattack of any kind. Rather, the brand notes the outage was the result of a third-party provider and a change in configuration.

McDonald's Global Chief Information Officer Brian Rice issued a statement to the brand's Global employees, franchisees, and Development Licensee partners which was also made publicly available on the corporate website. The statement reads:

"At approximately midnight CDT on Friday, McDonald's experienced a global technology system outage, which was quickly identified and corrected. Many markets are back online, and the rest are in the process of coming back online. We are closely working with those markets that are still experiencing issues. Notably, this issue was not directly caused by a cybersecurity event; rather, it was caused by a third-party provider during a configuration change.

Reliability and stability of our technology are a priority, and I know how frustrating it can be when there are outages. I understand that this impacts you, your restaurant teams and our customers. What happened today has been an exception to the norm, and we are working with absolute urgency to resolve it. Thank you for your patience, and we sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this has caused."

Per the brand's statement and various posts on social media, it appears the issue had been resolved and the majority of McDonald's restaurants around the world are back up and running. Despite the temporary McBlackout, it sounds like the McNuggets are safe, and that's what matters.