By Greg Murphy
McDonald's has today announced that the remaining Irish drive-thru restaurants will by Thursday, June 4.
The move comes following the reopening of six drive-thru restaurants in Dublin last week.
The fast-food chain said "an additional 51 of our restaurants will reopen for drive-thru" between Tuesday and Thursday of next week.
They will also be looking into the expansion of the availability of McDelivery.
In a statement, McDonald's said the reopening was only possible "following the hard work of the teams in our 44 pilot restaurants" across Ireland and the UK.
"Over the last fortnight, our employees, franchisees and suppliers have worked tirelessly to implement new procedures to help enable safe working so that we can serve McDonald’s favourites to all parts of Ireland and the UK. "
The restaurants will have fewer employees working in kitchen and service areas, and will be implementing new protective measures such as face coverings, gloves, Perspex screens as well as a number of new safety and hygiene processes.
Due to smaller staff numbers, McDonald's will have a limited menu and reduced hours. They also ask customers to pay using contactless methods and limit customers to €30 per order.
McDonald's have said that they will continue to work with local stakeholders and gardaí to manage the reopening.
Last week, gardaí were called to a number of McDonald's restaurants in Dublin due to large queues.
"In the last week, on occasion, we have taken the decision to close drive-thru lanes where demand has impacted local communities or the safety of our people or customers," the chain said.
They added: "To manage the anticipated demand, we will release the locations of the reopening restaurants on the morning of each day."
