Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox
Get our free Inside Washington email
The Pennsylvania McDonald’s restaurant where Donald Trump worked the fryer for a campaign photo-op has been inundated with fake reviews on Yelp in the wake of his stunt.
Yelp, where customers review local businesses online, has had to temporarily disable the review function for the restaurant in Feasterville, Bucks County, after Trump visited the branch on Sunday.
“While we don’t take a stand one way or the other when it comes to this incident, we’ve temporarily disabled the posting of content to this page as we work to investigate whether the content you see here reflects actual consumer experiences rather than the recent events,” a message on Yelp said to users.
Before Yelp disabled the review function, scores were posted to the site, ranging from comical to more serious political statements about the stunt.
“Senile old man got bronzer on my fries, didn’t wear gloves,” one person joked, leaving a one-star rating.
“The fries were too salty as if someone who lost a major election had been crying over them for an hour,” another person jested, referring to Trump’s false claims the 2020 election was stolen.
Many criticized the McDonald’s franchise for agreeing to the publicity stunt. “Stay away from this location. It closed its doors for a fake political photo op,” one person said. “The political photo op featured a convicted felon. I didn’t believe McDonald’s would approve of being used this way.”
Another said: “Went to this McDonalds to try the new chicken big Mac and was stunned to see a convicted felon operating the drive through. Your company hires felons? Also closing the store for the day to perform this political theater is crazy to me.”
Someone else chimed in: “Exploitation of their workers for political purpose[s] was despicable. Do not support this franchise owner for allowing this to happen.”
Trump supporters also posted reviews praising the former president. “The best McDonalds I’ve ever been to in 47 years. The older employee was extremely nice. Make McDonalds Great Again,” one said.
“Service is always top notch here. I’d like to highlight the new senior hire. He was so pleasant and genuinely looked happy to work there. I’m definitely coming back,” another wrote.
Yelp told The Independent its moderators will “clean up” the page so that only reviews from firsthand customers are visible once activity “dramatically decreases.”
“For Yelp to remain a useful resource to the community, reviews must be based on a genuine, firsthand experience with the business,” Noorie Malik, Yelp’s vice president of user operations said in a statement.
“Due to the increased public attention we saw after former President Trump visited a McDonald’s in Feasterville, PA on Sunday, October 20, we worked quickly to temporarily disable the posting of content to the page and placed an Unusual Activity Alert on Monday, October 21.”
Malik added: “When we see the activity dramatically decrease or stop, our moderators will clean up the page so reviews describing only firsthand consumer experiences are reflected.”
The Independent has contacted the Trump campaign for comment.
The campaign stop was Trump’s latest attempt at a personal jab at Kamala Harris, who he has baselessly claimed “never worked” at the fast food chain.
On the campaign trail, Harris said that she worked at the restaurant one summer at Howard University between her freshman and sophomore years. The Trump campaign latched onto the story and ran with it.
“I’ve now worked 15 minutes more than Kamala,” Trump told reporters out of the drive-thru window on Sunday.
McDonald’s responded to the backlash over the stunt earlier this week in a memo to employees. “McDonald’s does not endorse candidates for elected office and that remains true in this race for the next President,” the note, obtained by the Associated Press, said.
Employees were told that the owner of the franchise in Pennsylvania, Derek Giacomantonio, was informed about Trump’s desire to visit a branch in the state by local law enforcement and that he was “proud” to highlight his team’s work.
The majority of McDonald’s restaurants are independently owned and operated, giving franchise owners the freedom to invite political candidates to visit. However, they do have to abide by certain guidelines with the parent company.
