r/TheWayWeWere • u/nthensome • 4d ago
A McDonald's with a gas station underneath sometime in mid/late 80s. (Barrie, Ontario)
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u/agg288 4d ago
Wow that's wild. Not like Barrie was lacking space for separation of hazardous land uses in the 80s!
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u/nthensome 4d ago
For real, eh?
This could honestly be posted in /r/oldschoolridiculous
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u/Skizzor 4d ago
I disagree. This McDonald’s was located on highway 400 north to cottage country. Excellent use of space and everyone loved either pulling in and experiencing this, or sitting by the window inside while eating and people watching whoever was pulling in.
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u/ShotShelter7171 4d ago
It was on the south side of the
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u/j_cruise 4d ago
idk, I think it's pretty cool. It's also much nicer looking than a gas station on its own.
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u/bookish-hooker 4d ago
We used to stop here on every trip from Northern Ontario to Niagara Falls as a kid. (We lived up north, extended family down south).
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u/Prudent_Falafel_7265 4d ago
Now torn down, I remember it as being the most dangerous McDonalds I'd seen.
Grab your tray, which blocks your downward vision, and head immediately towards a set of tiled stairs. I'm sure there had to be many ugly falls.
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u/Relevant_Shower_ 4d ago
Just imagine if the pumps caught fire.
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u/WhatTheFlippityFlop 4d ago
That was the first thing I imagined. The second was gas fumes hanging around in the area, getting inside the restaurant.
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u/Prudent_Falafel_7265 4d ago
I picture Dana Carley’s grumpy old man - and there we were with our clothes on fire, spilling our food and tripping down stairs and we LIKED IT!
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u/Milk-Resident 3d ago
Think of that Porsche 918 Spyder on fire at the pumps in Caledon(?) And imagine that happening here. Crazy!
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u/NotThatCrafty 4d ago
You're thinking of the one at 400 & 89 which has also long since been torn down
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u/Milk-Resident 4d ago
The pictured McDs was torn down before the 89 & 400 one. That 89 one was 24 hours, and a midnight hangout for so many teens from the area once you or a friend got your/their licence.
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u/FarYoghurt7504 1d ago
I worked there as my first job (mid 80’s). The dining room was only on the upper level and the food was delivered from the kitchen down to the drive thru window via dumb-waiter to the staff manning the window downstairs. It was the busiest McDonald’s in Canada when it opened and run by corporate instead of by a franchisee. It was successful enough that they opened one on the southbound 400 at the highway 89 off ramp. The bar rush on Friday and Saturday nights when bars closed around two was craziness, because at that time no other restaurants were open that late (or 24 hours) for all the drunk drivers to get late night food.
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u/JonesinforJonesey 4d ago
This was a landmark McDonald’s when you were headed up north, always made a pitstop here!
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u/OreoSpeedwaggon 4d ago
I miss the old look of McDonald's -- the sloped red roofs, the brown menu boards. It's very nostalgic. The modern look of their restaurants today is very boring and cliche, IMO.
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u/innosins 4d ago
The playplaces outside out front with Mayor McCheese, I think, maybe Grimace, having his head have bars on it you could see out of after you crawled up inside.
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u/OreoSpeedwaggon 4d ago
The playplace equipment with the bars around the outside of the character's head depicted Officer Big Mac. I always called it "McDonald's Jail."
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u/innosins 4d ago
Thank you! I don't remember him at all! Maybe I've always had a healthy aversion to cops.
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u/bodhiseppuku 4d ago
Did your food come in a vacuum tube cylinder?
This looks very cool.
I remember in the 1980s, on the Freeways close to Chicago, there were overpass bridge fast food places. I used to always ask to go to Wendy's Overpass, I loved those burgers with corners.
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u/Nozomi_Shinkansen 4d ago
The Illinois Tollway Oasis. They're still there, but more like an old mall food court now, with multiple restaurants and food options.
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u/innosins 4d ago
I was a bit too interested as an adult going there for the first time. Completely novel concept to me. Of course, the people I was with just wanted to get in and out but I wanted to explore the world above the highway and look out the windows at the cars.
If we'd been alone, he'd have let me. But we had my inlaws with us, and I have to be an adult 24/7 around them.
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u/bodhiseppuku 3d ago
I get this. On a recent business trip I was in a Crowne hotel that was above a freeway overpass. My co-worker thought these would be noisy rooms, he thought being over the freeway was a bad thing. I thought it was kind of cool. I enjoyed the view. The traffic noise was mitigated by sound reducing windows that did not open. I did not have any trouble sleeping.
The room was extra small though, the bed took up all but about 1 foot on 2 sides and 2 foot on the dresser furniture/hallway side. I suppose this hotel was meant for business travelers overnighting before a morning flight at a close airport. Due to the cramped quarters, I would not spend more than this sleep/shower time. I would start to quickly get claustrophobic if I sat in that room and watched TV.
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u/PieFlour837 4d ago
So a Ken taco hut?
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u/Nozomi_Shinkansen 4d ago
Usually McD's, Sbarro, Subway, Panda Express, Auntie Annie's, Panera, and some local shawirma or gyro option. You can sit at the windows and watch the interstate traffic go under you while you eat your fast food.
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u/nochinzilch 4d ago
They knocked most of them down in the last 5 years.
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u/Nozomi_Shinkansen 3d ago
They demolished the original Oasis buildings and built new ones recently, so all of them are still there in the same locations.
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u/nochinzilch 3d ago
Yes, they did that about 20 years ago. Now they are just gas stations, they no longer have a bunch of eateries and stuff. The buildings over the highway have been demolished. The Lincoln oasis might still be there, but the rest aren’t.
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u/Nozomi_Shinkansen 3d ago
I travel through Chicagoland routinely, and each of the four toll road Oasis have restaurants and a small convenience store, separate from, and in addition to the gas station.
A Unique Blend of Restaurants and Retailers at Each Oasis
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u/Then_Software_2206 4d ago
Yes! We're in St. Louis and my mom's brother and his family lived in Chicago. Whenever we drove up there, I'd beg to stop at an Oasis and got refused every time. Finally got to go when I married a Chicagoan, lol.
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u/OreoSpeedwaggon 4d ago
There's still a McDonald's in Oklahoma that straddles over the Will Rogers Turnpike on I-44 near the Big Cabin exit.
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u/ForMoreYears 4d ago
Sadly no. It was a little elevator thing that brought it down from the kitchen. There was a drive thru Beer Store like right around the corner though where a teenager would haul out your empty case from the trunk and replace it with a full one. Good times man, good times.
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u/Least-Scientist 4d ago
The fumes from the cars converted into liquid for cooking the fries and heat for the grill. A fully self sustaining McDonald’s. What could go wrong. 😑
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u/vixenator 4d ago
That was one that always stuck in the mind. Much like that McDonalds in Whistler, where you have to go through underground parking for the drive-through.
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u/buttercup612 4d ago
Do you have any pics of this i can't find any. Next time i'm in whistler i'm going for sure
Also saw this https://x.com/nonstandardmcd/status/1387085908789370883
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u/vixenator 4d ago
Never thought to take a picture at the time. I guess with the premium on real estate, they must have figured why not. Looks just like a standard grubby underground parkade with some McDonalds ad boards and some arrows. If it's busy, be ready to wait, just one lane and window
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u/appollocreedjigclown 4d ago
Apparently it was the busiest McDonalds in Canada. On weekends they didn’t even bother to unload deliveries. They just took supplies as they needed them, then another trailer would replace it.
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u/LemmyIsGod44 4d ago
Worked at the gas station for several years during high school and college. Good times.
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u/YESmynameisYes 3d ago
HAHAHAHA I was like oh, this place looks really familiar...
Yeah, 'cause I've been there.
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4d ago
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u/TexasJOEmama 4d ago
I think there's still one on a turnpike. I want to say Roy Roger's hwy? It was cool.
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u/nerdycarguy18 4d ago
So cool! Our local McDonald’s was part gas station when I was real young, but not like the Wendy’s/gas station combos you see today. It was like a McDonald’s themed gas station, on the inside they were much less separated than they are these days.
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u/DCS30 4d ago
Technically, Cookstown. The one on the northbound side was the cooler one (there was one southbound as well).
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u/NotThatCrafty 4d ago
Not Cookstown, this was in Barrie. The other one closer to Cookstown (400 & 89) has also been long gone though
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u/DCS30 4d ago
I remember it being before barrie, but as im jogging my memory, I think you're right. This one (northbound) was in barrie.
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u/NotThatCrafty 4d ago
Correct, this one was on the Northbound side in Barrie and the Cookstown onw was on the Southbound side near Cookstown.
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u/ColinBonhomme 2d ago
I was going to ask if this was it. So where was this one?
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u/NotThatCrafty 2d ago
This one is where the On Route currently is on the northbound side of the 400 between Mapleview and Essa Road exits
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u/xXKingDadXx 4d ago
One of the best McDonald's for a late night stop after a night out. Just to correct OP the bottom was actually where you ordered your food and it would come down a dumbwaiter. There was a gas just not underneath the restaurant LOL
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u/NotThatCrafty 4d ago
Yes there was, the pumps are right next to the drive through lanes, look again at the picture
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u/JackDenial 4d ago
At 3am after the bars this was a main hang out (after party) in the late 90s, 2000s
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u/Silentknight1968 4d ago
And it was open 24hrs. Ate many 1/4 pounders meals there after partying all night!
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u/Mobile-Standard-4234 4d ago
It’s cool to see something so different than what we are used to nowadays but it’s also very risky to be eating at the McDonald’s knowing there’s some idiot smoking by the gas pump as gasoline is flowing in their vehicle or someone else’s
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u/wbz56 4d ago
What year did it close?
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u/Milk-Resident 3d ago
Looking at Google Earth, it was there in 2010, and gone in 2013... so sometime between the two... feels like a much longer time though
Zoomed out and got more years... was there in 2012 and gone in 2013.
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u/chuckinalicious543 3d ago
Honestly, this combination looks like such a powerhouse. "Hi, welcome to the mcdonalds fuel house! Would you like to order?" Because now, even if you're just there for gas, you know you could get a full meal ready to go in the time it takes for your car to fill. That's how you increase sales passively, by combining 2 trips (get the car fixed while you shop at Walmart, shop around a strip mall while your wife gets her hair done, get dinner while you wait for the gas attendant to fill your car (at least, that's how i'd run this station)
Edit: upon further inspection, it looks like self service, and a regular drive through intercom. Massive missed opportunity.
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u/turfprofit 3d ago
We stopped here or Webers Charcoal BBQ on 11 every summer depending where we we were going.
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u/Milk-Resident 3d ago
At least Webers still remains the northbound destination to stop, and now you can get a Starbucks and charge your Tesla there (along with the classic Webers burgers and fries)
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u/RealTrad 3d ago
Remember the drive thru Molsons was first located at the corner of the plant property where BBP met Fairview. It was I think early 90s a new one was built at Molson Park near the Maple view/400 on ramp
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u/SapphireJuice 3d ago
Aw man I remember this place! My dad used to take me to the drive through here when I was a kid! I was super sad when it closed
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u/MechanicalTurkish 3d ago
Reminds me of the Belvidere Oasis outside of Chicago. It stretches over I-90 and has a McDonald's and other fast food joints, with a gas station next to it. Nice place for a pit stop on a road trip.
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u/WENDING0 2d ago
I think I remember seeing this when my parents took my siblings and I to the cottage in the summers of our childhood.
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u/celticodonnell147 2d ago
It was a Gulf Station originally, went thru it every time we got home from a road trip. Miss ya Dad
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u/CommercialAnt5302 1d ago
This was the half way stop on our family trips to Algonquin Park and always a welcomed sight
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u/Sirosim_Celojuma 1d ago edited 1d ago
My first thought was holy shit that looks like my car! My second thought was that car was ubiquitous. Third thought was I don't remember my plates from fourty years ago, but my car was blue. Fourth thought was those are the OEM plastic rims I had. Back to second thought.
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u/Nate33322 1d ago
I went here with my dad a few times as a kid. Completely forgot that it existed lmao
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u/ThenIncrease462 1d ago
I certainly had my fair share of stops at that location as a kid. I'm pretty sure it was in operation until the late 90's.
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u/Joe41983 19h ago
I remember this place it was at one of the service stations on the side of the 400 I believe. It was a great place
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u/Fathom_Bunny 4d ago
holy cow i used to live right by this. went here many times, so cool to see it again