A woman demanded a late-night McDonald’s meal, and the staff’s bizarre response was policy-breaking chaos

TikTok user Kae (@kae_doll) managed to score a bizarre, policy-breaking late-night meal after convincing McDonald’s staff to sell her frozen Filet-O-Fish patties instead of cooking them, as reported by BroBible. Kae posted a video showing herself outside the location, confirming she was able to pay for a box containing a stack of uncooked fish patties.

It seems the staff just really wanted to close up shop and go home. There’s a huge, ongoing online debate about whether it’s rude to visit a store right before closing time. While technically allowed, many customers agree that it’s just bad manners, and I think they have a point.

Closing a store involves tons of extra work, and employees usually want to finish these critical steps as fast as possible to clock out. When you show up right before the doors shut, you’re delaying their final departure time, and nobody wants that. Some stores try to manage this by advertising that their “last sale” occurs before their actual closing time. However, this McDonald’s location found a far more unorthodox solution.

Kae’s approach to this late-night dilemma was definitely outside the norm

She explained in the video that the staff was not interested in making the fish sandwich. She told them, “f* it, give me the fish fillets. I’m gonna cook it at home.” You can tell she really loves her Filet-O-Fish, continuing, “I love me a fish fillet. Like, I don’t give a f*.” She summarized the situation in a text overlay on the video: “POV : McDonald’s didn’t want to cook anymore fish filets late night so you paid for some frozen patties.”

In a follow-up video, Kae confirmed she was successful in deep-frying the patties at home. Not only did she get the frozen fish, but the restaurant also provided her with the necessary extras. They gave her buns, tartar sauce, and fries “for the inconvenience.” That’s actually a pretty solid customer service move, even if it completely breaks the rules of the store without breaching the territory of the free food loophole.

And breaking the rules is exactly what this was. You generally can’t just walk into a McDonald’s and buy frozen ingredients. While chains sometimes sell their own branded retail products, like packaged coffee, they absolutely do not allow customers to purchase frozen versions of menu items like McNuggets or fish filets from their stores.

Current and former employees commenting on Reddit confirmed that selling frozen items goes against corporate policy, usually due to obvious liability reasons. This is a massive risk for the company. If you buy frozen food and cook it incorrectly at home, the company doesn’t want to be responsible for any resulting issues.

It’s highly likely the specific location Kae visited simply ignored the rules in this one instance just to get her out the door and start their closing procedures. I guess we can forgive them, especially with the worsening work conditions for workers across fast food chains.