ALL McDonald’s drive-thrus in Suffolk to reopen next week

More than 1,000 McDonald’s drive-thru restaurants, including all sites in Suffolk, will be reopened to the public from next week.

Four McDonald’s drive-thrus are currently open in Ipswich – at Cardinal Park, Ranelagh Road, Whitehouse and Ravenswood – and now more are set to reopen across the county.

In Suffolk, these include Felixstowe, Stowmarket, Sudbury and Barton Mills.

While in the north of Essex, the drive-thru sites in Harwich, Clacton and three in Colchester are also set to reopen.

On top of this, 75 restaurants will also be added to the McDelivery service, via either Uber Eats or Just Eat by the end of next week.

The fast food chain reopened 33 drive-thru sites last week, including four in Ipswich, but the company also decided to close some lanes where demand “impacted local communities or the safety of our people or customers” due to long queues.

The Ravenswood McDonald’s drive-thru was forced to close temporarily after police attended to control the traffic on Wednesday, May 20, hours after it reopened to the public.

More: McDonald’s drive-thru in Ipswich forced to close due to ‘major’ queues

Passers-by described how vehicles were queuing back to the Ravenswood roundabout between Nacton Road and Ransomes Way.

The branch reopened the following morning, but McDonald’s said it would turn cars away when hitting capacity.

Now, the fast food chain is rapidly expanding its store openings across the UK to have more than 1,000 restaurants reopened for drive-thru or delivery by Thursday, June 4.

A spokesman said: “This is only possible following the hard work of the teams in our 44 pilot restaurants.

“Over the last fortnight, our employees, franchisees and suppliers have worked tirelessly to implement new procedures to enable safe working so that we can now help all parts of the UK and Ireland to enjoy the return of the Big Mac.

“With fewer employees working in our kitchens and service areas, our teams will still need your patience and support as they continue to adjust to the new ways of working.

“Face coverings, gloves, Perspex screens and new safety and hygiene processes mean it will look different, it will take a little longer and as we have seen in the pilot restaurants, we expect demand will be high.

“Please bear with us, we will continue to put our people first – their safety is our priority.”

Including the sites that are already open, a total of 1,019 McDonald’s stores will be opening with social distancing across the UK.

The company said every drive-thru in the UK and Ireland will be reopened between Tuesday and Thursday of next week – with details to be announced on each morning from Tuesday, June 2.

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