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Big Mac Whacked: McDonald's U.S. Sales Continue To Slide

Gordon says McDonald's has lost ground in the competition over breakfast. It adopted a social-media loyalty strategy late. Plus, its offerings are increasingly complex.

"What menu complexity does is it makes your marketing a little less efficient. It makes your operations a little less efficient," Gordon says.

The problem is that more complex menu items take longer to prepare. And that slows everything else down, too, so that it ends up taking longer to get other menu items to customers, says Kathryn Slater-Carter, who runs a McDonald's franchise in Daly City, Calif., with her husband.

"We've got so many menu items that we can't meet their timeline from order to presentation," she says.

But she doesn't think the longer waits are the main issue. After all, Slater-Carter says, "I have waited for a half an hour at a drive-through at In and Out."

She says McDonald's needs to give franchisees more say in business operations. She says that would allow them to better cater to customers. She's backing state legislation that would expand franchisee rights.

For its part, McDonald's says it will update investors on its financial performance on Wednesday.