About 15 years ago, McD's coffee was just as bad as everything else on the menu...excluding, of course, those wonderful fries. They switched the coffee over then...different supplier, different coffee maker, who knows what....and had a promotion in which they offered free coffee. At the time I was commuting well over 100km each way to work on a daily basis, and my normal routine had me stopping at a Tim Horton's in a small town near my house as I drove into the city. My breakfast was normally a breakfast biscuit and a large black Timmy's...but unlike most Canadians, I really wasn't a huge fan of Timmy's coffee. So after hearing a few co-workers recommending McD's coffee, I tried it and I was blown away. It was wonderful! I actually stopped each morning at Timmy's for my breakfast sandwich but then drove right next door to McD's for my coffee. This went on for years, until Timmy's finally brought out their second or third version of dark roast coffee; they had finally gotten it right and it quickly became my favourite and thus saved all that jumping around in the pre-dawn darkness just to get a breakfast I enjoyed.
Starbucks? Can't stand the place. Aside from requiring one to take out a loan to buy coffee there, they make you jump through all these hoops requiring multiple choices regarding your coffee; they have a dozen or more different types, they all smell different, but they all taste the same, and it ain't good.