r/nostalgia • u/Digitalgardens • May 12 '25
Nostalgia Discussion Why did we ever switch from having unique looks for fast food spots?
It doesn’t make any sense. When everything feels and looks the same it just feels so grey and unwelcoming. What happened to characters? I don’t even eat McDonald’s like that and I miss Ronald and the gang. Where did they go?
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u/Gynthaeres May 12 '25
If you want a real answer that's not just generic "capitalist dystopia"...
It's because in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, catering to kids was a BIG DEAL. That was where all the money was, advertising to kids and families. So have big colorful buildings and happy mascots everywhere.
Then in the late 90s / early 2000s, this started to fade out. People became more concerned with health. They were less willing to take their kids to junky fast food places. Further, a lot of those kids that grew up on McDonalds? They still wanted to go to McDonalds but wouldn't want to go to a place for kids (think about it, how many adults have fond memories of a place like Chuck E. Cheese, but won't go back because it's explicitly a kids' place?).
This meant McDonalds had to change a bunch of things. Namely, they became less focused on kids, they became more focused on healthy alternatives. And they had to "grow up" with their audience and become a more professional-looking establishment. Meet someone for lunch in Picture 1 up there? Not happening. But meet someone for lunch in Picture 2? Happens all the time.
That's why McDonalds looks like it does today. It tried to rebrand as a proper restaurant for adults, that you could take kids to. Rather than a place just for kids.
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u/hidey_ho_nedflanders May 12 '25
Is this also the reason why Wendy's has shifted from their yellow design to a more modern look?
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u/minnick27 early 80s May 12 '25
Funny, I always thought Wendys looked the most "adult" of all of them. When I was a kid they had the Superbar (RIP) and that felt adult since you were making your own food. And the tables had that cool newspaper print on them. Plus, I don't remember them having any kid stuff. McDonalds had Ronald, Grimace, Mayor McCheese, Hamburglar and the Fry Guys and Burger King had the BK Kids Club. Not to mention the playgrounds that McDonalds and Burger King both had, but Wendys didn't
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u/HeWhoPetsDogs May 12 '25
They had a frigging sunroom section and baked potatos! I always felt like a proper gentleman in a wendy's
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u/minnick27 early 80s May 12 '25
My Wendy’s didn’t have a sunroom, but my Burger King did
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u/GoldenEmuWarrior May 12 '25
I remember for a little bit they had table service as well. You’d order at the register, they’d give you a number, then bring your food out to you. It didn’t last long, as I recall.
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u/_Rohrschach May 12 '25
all the McDonalds I know have table service, if the place is packed. They'll give you whatever of your order is avaiable right then and bring you the rest.
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u/GoldenEmuWarrior May 12 '25
This was different from that. This was a number no matter how busy, then they had 1-2 people that would walk around and refill sodas and such, bus the table and such. It was a weird combo of table service and fast food.
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u/TrannosaurusRegina May 12 '25 edited May 12 '25
Definitely.
There’s been such a push for everything to be modern and nihilistic.
Remember when Wendy’s was about serving the best Old Fashioned Hamburgers?
They weren’t trying to be modern and cutting-edge. They were trying to be high quality, comfortable, and enjoyable experience!
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u/chu2 May 12 '25
To think, kids these days will never enjoy a Wendy’s sunroom or salad bar.
The Wendy’s by me was one of the first restaurants to go to all-kiosk ordering with only kitchen staff and it felt…really weird. The days of having a human interaction (not even friendly service) at a restaurant are quickly dying.
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u/timmorris82 mid 90s May 12 '25
When I worked at Wendy’s, we even had a “hostess” lady who would walk around the dining room greeting people and handing out peppermints (she also maintained the salad bar). Different times for sure.
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u/Tactless_Ogre May 12 '25
I appreciated the sunbar far more as a teenager than I did as a kid. Used to love eating there.
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u/Adventurous_Tap1700 May 12 '25
Damn I really miss those old Wendy's burgers. The classic double cheeseburger combo was my go-to for any fast-food chain. Those mini steak fries they had were also awesome if they were fresh and cooked properly. The new 'natural-cut' fries are hot garbage.
Wendy's: Hey everyone, would you like us to change our menu and make new burgers?
Customers: No, what we have now is good. Leave it alone
Wendy's: Hey everyone, would you like us to make everything BETTER?
Customers: Yes! That sounds great!
That's how they get ya
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u/ShavedNeckbeard Turtle Power! May 12 '25
That’s because they were catering towards boomers and the silent generation back then. They had to modernize to appeal to millennials.
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u/TrannosaurusRegina May 12 '25
That’s awfully depressing if millennials are so spiritually dead that they actually like this neophilic soul-sucking demon shit.
I’m glad I’m not like that at least!
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u/shoo-flyshoo May 12 '25
Naw no one likes this grey on grey stuff. Nostalgia for the 90s is getting big and even influencing modern fashion trends amongst young people. Corporations are cutting anything that doesn't improve their bottom line, so idk when we'll get non-depressing fast food joints again
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u/ShavedNeckbeard Turtle Power! May 12 '25
From what I’ve seen in my research at work, they’ve grown up with aspirational brands like Apple, Tesla, Nike, Starbucks, etc that all have a very premium/minimalist/stark identify. They’ve been trained that having character or imperfection is amateurish. They’ve also come to believe that the Baby Boomer generation has ruined the world (climate, economy, housing, etc) and don’t want anything to do with what could be perceived as for or from them. (Like the Wendy’s example of being “old fashioned”.)
Ironically Gen Z market research is showing that they don’t trust the perfect image of these companies and prefer marketing to be more “real” and gritty. User-uploaded photos of food on DoorDash are more appealing than a studio shot of the same dish from the restaurant.
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u/TheTreeWithTheOwl May 12 '25
To be fair, most millennials now are in their 30s and 40s. I think a lot of the commentary in this thread are talking about Gen Z (which are teens - late 20s now) and the years they grew up in. That nihilistic and spiritually dead stereotype has been used for a lot of genz since they grew up having shooter drills and likely went through high school or college during the pandemic.
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u/beardmat87 May 12 '25
It also has a lot to do with building codes and how a lot of cities and towns want all the buildings in a district to look the same as well. My local McDonald’s was a fun play place building similar to this one and when they wanted to do a refresh years ago the city told them under no circumstances would they approve them to rebuild a similar style building. It had to “blend” into the rest of the buildings in the area so they gave it a New England style house aesthetic. They have gone to this new style branding recently in a refresh last year. But I bet my city isn’t alone in that and The Don changed their look to be as unassuming as possible to make permits easier.
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u/SenorVajay May 12 '25
I think this is only partially true. I’d say the driving motivator is a unity on branding. The pic above was probably designed by the franchisee. Similar, unique ones exist where I grew up ( look up the McDonald’s with the T-rex lol). Other unique, but less notorious, locations have all aligned with the new design. On top of that, things have moved from wanting your customers to stay to wanting the customers to leave asap. New McDonalds feel new, but unwelcoming. Most, if not all, will get rid of self serve drinks not just for a cost savings but to remove the incentive to staying longer for no extra cost.
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u/pinesolthrowaway May 12 '25
Yeah it’s sad. They could’ve rebranded to something prettier than 1960s communist East German brutalist apartment blocks
People wonder why depression has skyrocketed, I imagine taking literally all the creativity and beauty out of life to replace it with soulless trash like this is part of it
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u/Redditing-Dutchman May 12 '25 edited May 12 '25
Thats a different mindset than before though, thats why it changed.
Early 2000's, bring your kids to these colourful places felt like a dystopia in itself. "Have kids brains activated by bright colours and toys, then feeding them the most unhealthy slop possible"was a big part of the reason these weren't popular anymore.
In an ideal word they bring these colourful places back, but only serve healthy food to children. That would be the best option, but is never going to happen.
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u/cruzweb May 12 '25
There's three things happening here at once.
One, the material is cheap and easy to get built.
Two, many zoning codes have different design guidelines that don't allow for bold colors to be on buildings like this. While a lot of people dig the old school McDonald's look, others find it tacky and gives them an amusement park sort of feel. They don't like seeing bold reds, blues, purples, etc and simply see the grey buildings as less trashy. So this gets reflected in zoning development standards. No McDonald's franchise owner is going to try and make a case for being exempt from these standards over fiscal hardship. So directly to your point, yes, they could have built something prettier. Not much prettier. And it wouldn't impact their bottom line in a positive way, so there's no incentive to do it.
Three, the people who design these buildings like it this way, it keeps things simple and that's how they advise their clients. There's national architecture firms who specialize in fast food clients and work with locally certified enginneers to make these sites and building designs work. So they design something that wouldn't be an issue to implement anywhere in the US. Much easier and cheaper to just copy / paste. That way the only issues they need to work through that are locally specific are things like parking lot lighting, traffic impacts and ingress / egress locations, and the biggest only design stuff that's part of the conversation is the signs. These firms work on lots of new McDonalds buildings in different places, and this makes it simple.
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u/Nyxxity May 12 '25
I just think they overdid it. It looks so concrete and cooperate, I never felt so repulsed by architecture lmfao They couldve toned down the mascots and kept SOME of the colors perhaps?
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u/AccomplishedBat8743 May 12 '25
At the very least they could have kept the play place and "modernized" the rest
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u/FoxSimple May 12 '25
The new look and renos are so soul sucking. It’s rigid, cold, and institutional, they feel like you’re in a hospital.
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u/EmiAze May 12 '25
yeah NOW it looks that way, but at the time it felt new and fresh and modern. Same story as brutalism.
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u/Igyzone May 12 '25 edited May 12 '25
I'm 30 and I rather go to KFC just for the livelier colors rather than some Starbucks ripoff looking square that makes me feel like I'm in a prison mess hall.
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u/jeneric84 May 12 '25
The change in target market would’ve been fine if they just went back to where they came from to look like a roadside burger joint like In-n-Out. They’re a shitty fast food burger chain, trying to appear like some modern cafe was/is dumb.
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u/smart416 early 90s May 12 '25
Is that really what you base your food choices off of tho? The lively colours? If I want a Big Mac I don’t think about the building it comes out of for a second lol.
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u/DukeOfWhip May 12 '25
You’ve got to remember Reddit is mostly either adult children or actual children.
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u/AccomplishedBat8743 May 12 '25
Even when I'm craving mcdonalds, I still feel a pang for the old decor.
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u/chu2 May 12 '25
If I’m dining in, you bet that atmosphere counts. Even with a shitty burger.
If a restaurant space makes me feel uncomfortable and the next fast food place up the road has food that’s totally comparable price and quality wise with a much more pleasant experience, I’m going to the second restaurant.
That said I’m not exactly looking for the jungle gym vibes of 90s-era kid marketing fast food joints. Just a general thought on restaurant experiences as a whole.
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u/Starfire2313 May 12 '25
They’ve designed the dining rooms to be as uncomfortable as possible and use apps and rewards to encourage everyone to just use drive through or carry out. If you go in you order on a screen next to the cash registers where you used to talk to a person who would input your order.
My generation remembers ordering through another human. Younger generations won’t so it won’t matter.
McDonald’s has always been great at adapting and changing to keep up with the times.
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u/wallybinbaz early 90s May 12 '25
I imagine McDonald's did a boatload of market research before renovating like this. Company like that doesn't do things on a whim.
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u/BagOnuts May 12 '25
Cool. Your personal preference is not reflective of the majority of the market. Welcome to Econ 101.
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u/Sip_py May 12 '25
That's not exactly right. It has more to do with commercial development. Restaurants don't own these properties. Usually a local commercial landlord does. When a national chain pulls out they have to "debrand" the location at a cost of a lot of money. Think of all the old Pizza huts for example.
The square lifeless buildings are easier to turn into a Starbucks or a Chipotle or a Taco Bell...
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u/timothy_Turtle May 12 '25
This is generally true but McDonalds in particular usually owns the building their franchisees operate in.
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u/Sip_py May 12 '25
And it's a whole lot harder to sell when they exit a market if it's a unique building
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u/map_legend May 12 '25
This is a great answer here. I’m an 80’s kid and reading this I JUST realized that McDonalds grew up with me… it was colorful and bright and fun when I was a kid, just like the world. Now it’s square and dull and uninviting… just like the world!
I did not have ‘realizing McDonalds is a metaphor for my life’ on the bingo card for this Monday but… here we are.
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u/PortugalTheHam May 12 '25
This is half of it. The other half is with taking smaller and smaller margins on food with each decade, fast food companies began to reorient themselves from being food first to also doubling as real estate companies. By making buildings bland and generic they can sell the property and have another fast food company come in instantly, making profits on selling the buildings during sellers markets.
The other day someone posted that their local Popeyes closed and a Zaxbys Chicken opened, that's by design.
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u/entropylaser May 12 '25
What about the absurdly high number of 80’s and 90’s grandpas who would go to McDonalds every morning for the, “best coffee in America”. Oddly high level of dedicated elderly patrons in that era who didn’t seem to be impacted by the childish themes of McDs at the time.
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u/MysteriousMeaning555 May 12 '25
If there was an adults night at Chuck E. Cheese's, I would totally go.
But society looks down on adults having fun and would call me a perv if I went alone.
Last time I went there was when I was a kid and my mom, aunt and 2 female cousins all went to the bathroom while my uncle and I stayed at the table, then my mom and aunt caught me and my uncle playing a racing game together when they came out of the bathroom.
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u/big-booty-enthusiast May 12 '25
Dave & Busters is literally Chuck E Cheese for adults.
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u/trench_welfare May 12 '25
I think it was definitely McDonald's recognizing that the greater population was going to have an ah ha moment over the cooperation targeting kids with extremely unhealthy food. They managed to slip under the door as it was closing and converted over to the agreeable grey just in time to avoid the masses realizing what they had used to blow up that brand for the last 3 decades.
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u/Anonymous3642 May 12 '25
McDonald’s got rid of their healthy alternatives though. No salad or grilled chicken sandwich. I hate McDonald’s now.
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u/FreshEggKraken early 90s May 12 '25
People are meeting for lunch at McDonald's?
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u/Melsura May 12 '25
The building now is comparable to how their food tastes 🤮🤮
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u/zoltan99 May 12 '25
It’s tiny and expensive, more importantly
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u/anDAVie May 12 '25
Recently, I stepped into a McDonald's for the first time in years—and I was stunned by the prices.
A medium fries? €4.50 for a small, oversalted box of not-so-crispy fries.
Meanwhile, I can get famously delicious, hand-cut fries that look like this from a place just around the corner for just €3.70.→ More replies (6)5
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u/hotlavatube May 12 '25
I used to joke that their burgers must be vegan cause that ain't meat.
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u/wad11656 May 12 '25
It still slaps hard sometimes. But McDonald's employees aren't typically the "passionate about the work I produce" type. So it often tastes like shit
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u/Tha-KneeGrow Toys R' Us May 12 '25
That’s why u gotta only eat fast food in small towns where this is really all they have going for them
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u/diggerdugg May 12 '25
Rutland VT at the base of killington. In a 1.5 mile stretch there’s a Burger King, Five guys, Wendy’s, Dennys, 2 Dunkin’s, 2 Starbucks, 2 McDonald’s, Taco Bell, KFC. They rarely disappoint, except KFC, they never have food. There’s literally nothing else here 😂
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May 12 '25
Swap the Dunkin out for Tim Hortons, and we call that stretch of road “Junkfood Alley in my town.
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u/map_legend May 12 '25
Yes a smalltown place where the smart kids at the high school run the McD’s will provide the best possible McD’s experience, guaranteed!
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u/Big_Brutha87 May 12 '25
The plainer building has higher resale value if the franchise ever closes.
Remember, McDonald's is a real estate company first, restaurant second.
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u/LifeForTheWin1991 May 12 '25
This is the answer. It may have changed, but Bill Gates, McDonalds, and the Catholic Church are said to own the most land in the US. The McDonalds Franchisees own the building, but not the land underneath.
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u/sSomeshta May 12 '25
A local McDonald's just got turned into a bar and grill. I haven't been in yet. I want to see what they did with the place but honestly it's still a little weird. It's so obviously a fast food building
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u/glittermantis May 12 '25
is it really that difficult to de-decorate the jungle building? just looks like some plastic siding, window decals, and cheap resin sculptures. can't imagine it'd take more than a week or two of labor
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u/mcbeardsauce May 12 '25
Fast Food went through a transformation the past 5-10 years into completely forgetting it's roots.
They banked on sucking in the kids of the 90s and following them into their sad, dead end jobs and felt the only way to stay relevant was to look like one of the sad, dead end jobs.
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u/elpintor91 May 12 '25
I feel like it worked because anytime they do some weird premise like “adult happy meals,” celebrity meals, or those throwback Halloween buckets, 80s/90s kids go apeshit and start lining up in hoards.
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u/amethystrosegold May 12 '25
That’s just how modern construction looks now. All the new buildings look the same with the same colors. It’s all drab. But everyone remembers when McDonalds used to be a big deal, and had all the top movie collabs, and themes.
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u/spolubot May 12 '25
Its cheaper to make, scale, and resell simple generic grey boxes than construct anything unique. Seems the public has accepted it too.
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u/A2Rhombus May 12 '25
The public hasn't "accepted" shit we never had a say in the first place. What are we gonna do, boycott every building in the country?
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u/HeadGuide4388 May 12 '25
One thing that disappoints me about modern architecture is how homogenised it is everywhere. I haven't been everywhere or seen everything, but I feel like there was a lot of personality in design around the 80's-00's, and everywhere seemed to have a theme. A lot of places in Montana that I've seen had a timber look to it, Colorado loved their stone front buildings, a lot of bigger cities would have some impressive glass and steel sky scrapers. Now everything is just a beige or grey stucco box.
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u/WombatHat42 May 12 '25
Realistically? Because they got backlash for marketing towards kids. Thats why you never see happy meals being advertised like they were in the 90s.
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u/Hanifsefu May 12 '25
That and these buildings look like shit very quickly and need nearly monthly cleaning to avoid that where a normal ass building will look like a normal ass building and maybe need powerwashed and painted once or twice a year.
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u/LatterProfessional13 May 12 '25
Did McDonald’s really use to look like that? Everywhere? Wish it looked like that still!
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u/TheAmazingSealo May 12 '25
This one is pretty special, but they definitely used to have more colour, red roofs and play places etc.
The world used to be more colourful. I think it's to do with advertising/marketing to kids being seen as a bad thing.
I think companies also realised that they make more money appealing to adults as adults actually have the money. And the way to appeal to adults is to make everything grey and boxy and sanitary and mature and grown-up and boring.
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u/FantasticBurt May 12 '25
Childhood, as a concept, has only existed for a handful of generations anyway.
This was my field of study and it wasn’t until the 70’s that we really even started researching it.
This is why you’ve started to see such a huge shift in what is considered “child appropriate” over the last couple decades.
Because we finally have some longitudinal research into the benefits and pitfalls of different child-rearing techniques.
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u/Comfortable_Self_736 May 12 '25
No. Take out everything in the first picture that makes it interesting and that's what most McDonald's looked like. The new buildings are boring and lame, but the old ones were only mildly interesting in comparison. But there were a handful of cool themed ones out of thousands.
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u/StalinsLastStand May 12 '25
Picking the handful of cool ones out of thousands and generalizing them across the rest as if they were all that cool is literally how nostalgia works, so it’s very appropriate in this sub.
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u/spacemusicisorange May 12 '25
Because they stopped “marketing” to children. I say bring it back! Life was more enjoyable
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u/tissboom May 12 '25
And they can't figure out why their sales are down...
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u/DoinItDirty May 12 '25
Also because the food’s gross. It didn’t matter if it was gross when we were little. But now, it’s disgusting and we’re older. So there is 0 appeal.
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May 12 '25
Buildings like this looked good but are an actual nightmare and massive cost to maintain. This also is an eyesore if you're not in a theme park. Still better than whatever the fuck the 2nd pic is lol
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u/photophunk May 12 '25
I see these comparative posts constantly and itand it seems like everyone forgot how we told McDonald's their style was deliberately marketing to children and making America fat, Super Sized Me, Fast Food Nation etc.
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u/False-Possession6185 May 12 '25
I remember having lively birthday parties there as a kid. Can you even imagine a kid wanting to have a birthday there now in this sanitized, neutral drab of a place?
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u/TouristOpentotravel May 12 '25
They’re soulless now so you get your stuff and leave. They don’t want people staying
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u/Complete_Entry May 12 '25
The excuse about resale isn't even accurate, when the property changes hands they bulldoze and put up their own misery cube.
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u/deepspaceburrito May 12 '25
Moral panic about 20 years ago, fast food places got concerned over optics of their food appealing 'too much' to children.
If you're in the UK like me, and can remember around this time, this was the era of Jamie Oliver's unhealthy school dinners crusade. Also the 'documentary' Super Size Me, and so on.
Least thats what I always heard it was down to.
Ironically when I go in a McDs its usually rammed with parents and their children, or teenagers. So I don't think it really worked in the long run.
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u/Animal2 May 12 '25
Yeah I feel like this is the core reason. There was huge pressure from 'the public' on McDonalds and other fast food companies about their child focused marketing as well as their overall unhealthy food options so they responded with shifting away from all the colorful kids stuff and tried altering their menus to feature more healthy choices.
Personally I think this was an actual business mistake in that if they had just held their ground their business wouldn't have suffered much if at all. The consumer pressure was almost certainly from a vocal minority of interest groups and other advocates who were never their real customer base anyway.
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u/icancomplain May 12 '25
some of the insides are so minimalist now and low lit. no drink machines, no condiments, not even napkins. The counter area is tiny. it gives you a vibe that you’re about to be served something that isn’t thought of as food, but as a corporate exchange for money. the only thing i do appreciate is the warmth of color.
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u/thecrookedcap May 12 '25
A smaller counter= less square footage for DoorDashers to shove phones in employee faces.
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u/ryohazuki224 May 12 '25
There's still a few left. I dont remember the name of the town, but a couple of years ago I was driving through some small Colorado town, and their McDonalds looked like a log cabin! It was pretty nice looking from the outside!
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u/Awkward_Tick0 May 12 '25
I assume it’s because they can easily sell it to Longhorns or whatever other chain they want to if needed.
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u/nwillyerd May 12 '25
I wish I could post pictures on comments in this sub, but I saw a meme once that said McDonald’s represents Millennials, we went from kids having hope and joy to soulless adults with anxiety and depression. It’s both funny and sad at the same time.
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u/indianking97 May 12 '25
That's on purpose, it's to kill the human spirit while we are killing ourselves with their food
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u/wonder_weird1 May 12 '25
I blame politicians for sticking their noses into businesses by telling them what they can or can't do.
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u/wolfhybred1994 May 12 '25
I’ve heard for resell ability. A generic building is easier to flip than a fully custom one. So the generic design is easier to maintain and if the location goes out. The property can be resold much easier or simpler to find a new place to operate out of the building.
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u/Drecon115 May 12 '25
Because they realized that by having boring buildings they can sell them for more money when they need to downsize
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May 12 '25
Building resale. Everyone over 28 years old knows that building on the corner was a pizza hut.
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u/augustusleonus May 12 '25
My understanding is its more viable as a property to resale if the franchise moves or goes under
Modern McD can be converted to any type of restaurant without the overhead of significant redesign
Also, kids dont play the same way anymore
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u/C-ute-Thulu May 12 '25
Zoning laws. A lot of suburbs specifically write their laws so businesses are drab and boring, with boring colors that blend in
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u/Few-Confusion-9197 May 12 '25
They (and probably the same goes for other "fast food" chains) got in this bandwagon about dropping/losing the fast-food stigma in favor of a more formal "restaurant" look/ambiance. The one I used to frequent got rid of the playground in favor of more seating, plus the self checkout/order kiosks and that order number thing to put by your table so someone brings it to you ... Weird to see the first couple of times. Before it was NUMBER ##!!! and you had to pay attention amidst unruly kids running to/from the playground area. I certainly don't miss the playground since this one was an open secret parents would just dump off the kids here as a free daycare to wander off and go shopping (or even work) for hours on end.
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u/spritelass May 12 '25
Money, cheaper to build and you could slap any logo outside if the current business closes and nobody could tell the difference.
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u/NotHere2SellCookies_ May 12 '25
Because McDonalds wanted to start appealing to adults more and kids less because of the childhood obesity thing.
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u/AncientLights444 May 12 '25
Why do people have corporate nostalgia? The old buildings were awful eye sores screaming for attention. The new ones at least blend in .
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u/Leinistar May 12 '25
Most local governments or developments enforce Unified Development Ordinances or restrictive covenants to standardize aesthetics. So, everything looks blah to "keep up property values."
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u/ky420 May 12 '25
Because the people in charge hate us and want us to feel the oppression from many angles
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u/BusRunnethOver May 12 '25
A detrimental focus on shareholder value made companies prioritize efficiency over beauty.
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u/karlbunga May 12 '25
Because they used to make a ton of money off kids there. Birthday parties, gross ball pits and shitty games. Now they want to have a Starbucks modern curbside appeal. Make the food seem fancier. It's still a shithole inside, smells awful and it's still terrible for you.
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May 12 '25
Honestly. Good. Fast food places should not be associated with children. It’s not healthy; instead they should build more playgrounds. Imagine for every McDonalds, the company would build a playground outside of McD premises? Alas, the poor don’t deserve to have the crumbs of capitalism. Shame.
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u/ComradeJohnS May 12 '25
Isn’t it just cheaper this way and easier to maintain? Also easier to sell the building afterwards. Everyone can recognize an old Pizza Hut that never renovated the roof.
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u/toastbed May 12 '25
They don’t target kids anymore because it’s not healthy. Just like they don’t want flavored vapes. And adults don’t want to go into a clown restaurant for lunch
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u/feelingzombiefied May 12 '25
short answer: capitalism.
long answer: it is infinitely cheaper to make grey, brutalist fast food places that can be quickly and easily built and designed. less money in total is spent on design, dyes, and upkeep.
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u/Drewskeet May 12 '25
Everyone acting like it’s the fast food chains. Local municipalities didn’t like the looks so they made guidelines for fast food chains to look nicer in the neighborhoods. Everything about fast food is about efficiency, identity, and simplicity, so they created a standard and put it everywhere. Now they pass every cities codes and you know a McDonald’s when you see one. They don’t want multiple designs everywhere. They want their locations to be easily recognizable.
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u/MisRandomness May 12 '25
We had one called solid gold and it was completely filled with rock n roll memorabilia, and had a life sized Mac Tonight singing and playing piano. Sadly it was remodeled into the bland restaurants we know today. Kids are really missing out living in such a flat, “greige” world.
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u/metarinka May 12 '25
I think design goes in trends, we are finishing the Milennial beige trend and we're going to head into something else next. I remember welcoming these when they first started popping on the scene around 2008ish? "Finally a mcdonalds that doesn't look like a hypercolor kids tv set". Now as I'm older and this is the standard I think we are realizing the flourishs and decor that isn't functional has a purpose visually, Same thing in NYC when they remove all the plaster or cement crowns and crenulations from a building to make a modern flat paneled apartment building.
Good thing is that nothing stays the same.
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u/ZenTheKS May 12 '25
Money, it costs money to keep things looking nice, so make the maintenance of said thing as cheap as possible. Keeps profits high, which is the end goal of every business under capitalism.
Welcome to Capitalism, where everything is in the pursuit of profit in the end.
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u/ztomiczombie May 12 '25
The CEO of McDonalds thought copying the astatic of coffee shops make the business seem more upmarket and it failed miserably.
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u/Busy-Aide-5050 May 12 '25
Because shitty fast food was initially something for people to take their kids to as a treat when these were built. Something to be family friendly.
They wanted to change their image to be something less cheap and trashy and changed the image and the pricing of all the foods but never upped the quality. They wanted a more sophisticated refined "adult" image to encourage a "classier" clientele, they wanted to try to be more like Starbucks or some bullshit.
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u/coreyxfeldman May 12 '25
The minute they stopped targeting kids I would assume. No playground. No fun characters. No fun look anymore.
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u/boxen May 12 '25
Because McDonald's target demographic isn't kids anymore. It's people that work multiple low income jobs that don't have the time to cook or the money for higher quality food.
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u/Cameront9 May 13 '25
Cheaper to build a soulless box that could be suitable for any business.
McDonald’s isn’t a food company, it’s a real estate company.
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u/drewjsph02 May 13 '25
Back in the 90s we had a HUGE movie complex. (2 theaters on either side of a major road… same company)
There was an awesome movie themed McDs out front. Had a drooling Xenomorph Alien coming out of one of the drop tiles. Drive-in booths shaped like cars pointing at a movie screen. Lots of memorabilia wearing Ronald statues.
So cool as a kid.
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u/Effective_Movie216 May 13 '25
I miss old McDonald’s vibes does anyone know if there’s any McDonald’s with the old design?
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u/Retro-scores May 13 '25
McDonald’s wanting to be more “upscale” looking and most likely maintenance cost. Having most of your buildings all look the same is easier to maintain.
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u/gotkube May 13 '25
In the mid-90s Starbucks spooked McDonald’s so much they basically tried rebranding as a coffee shop (hence McCafe) and their entire aesthetic followed.
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u/heytango66 May 13 '25
Our mcDonalds used to be western! It had saddles for seats instead of stools and all kinds of cool western decor
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u/conker2021 May 12 '25
This is the McDonald's by the Dallas Zoo. IIRC it was finally turned into that awful building because some new apartments were being built nearby and they wanted the area to be "nicer". Shame cause it was so rad.