Table service on McDonald's menu

YOUR CHOICE: Create your own burger with just a touch.

Swipe the screen and sit down ...

The changing world of fast food has made it to Whanganui with Create Your Taste, the gourmet McDonald's menu available at the touch of a screen.

Create Your Taste allows customers to design their own burger on a touch screen from where it is individually prepared by staff and brought to your table.

The Chronicle was let loose on one of the touch screens which soon had staff out the back slapping together two patties, fried onions, three servings of bacon ... and the rest.

The new menu, available between 10.30am and 10pm alongside the traditional menu, has been at the Victoria Ave McDonald's for a couple of weeks and is already proving a hit.

"We've invested a lot of money into the business," franchisee Darren Rowland said.

The new menu is cooked as an almost separate operation to the traditional menu with its own equipment and staff - and it has created six new jobs in Whanganui, with two existing staff also brought in to help on the new offerings.

"It's cooked a little differently - we sear the meat on a grill - and there are up to 32 ingredients available, some of them new to McDonald's," Mr Rowland said.

"It's made on a special station and we have trained staff on how to make those burgers.

"There's a bit of creative licence in terms of how they create the burger."

Mr Rowland said the new menu had gone down well and was here to stay.

"The customer feedback has been encouraging - people love the idea of table service."