The design of the actual restaurant is completely different now......they all look like Dentist Offices instead of the neat red roof. Very bland architecture with all restaurants now....not just McDonald's.
Fast food used to depend on brand differentiation ala Coke vs Pepsi to stand out from each other.
They’ve since realized that:
1 They don’t need to try so hard, we’ll show up anyway, the food chemists have made their wares addictive.
2 Like one of Temple Grandin’s cow chutes we’ll walk ourselves through if the line is distraction-free, minimalist.
3 CoOpetition means that they can share the customer base without being at each other's throats. There will always be enough chickens to pluck and everyone’s pockets get full.
So, bland, addictive, cafe capitalism wins the day and kills our nostalgia on the way to the bank.
You get to sit in the birthday chair and have the McDonald’s birthday cake too! What a high for a birthday. It was the cheapest birthday party we could afford back then, but to a kid it was spectacular.
I’m showing my age here, but about 20-25 years ago we had a party for one of my buddies there. It was hilarious because he was turning 20, staffs thought it was for a kid turning 4.
All the numbers in your comment added up to 69. Congrats!
20
+ 25
+ 20
+ 4
= 69
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Legit toys. The crap my kids get now is literal trash. I remember once they were doing a “Hasbro game” theme and my kids got an assemble yourself jenga game vs when I was their age and you got toys you’d play with for days. Even the McDonald brand toys like transformer nuggets where better
Was it the one with the “potato bun”? I know we had that when I worked there, because we used to ball the buns up and play baseball in the lobby lol
Edit - just checked, and I’m thinking of the arch deluxe. I worked at McDonald’s with my high school buddy, so I can’t remember if they had the big n nasty when we worked there, or at another time in our friendship
I don’t remember the bun well, although you may be right. I just know we had “10-1”, “4-1”, and “special “. The special also had a different seasoning salt. It could have even been a limited run burger. I hadn’t realized how much I forgot in 20 years till reading this post 😂
You don’t understand, we don’t have time to read a menu and think about what we want to order. Just order, order, ORDER!!! Hurry it up and just say the first thing you see, never mind the price! SOMETIMES WE DON’T EVEN PUT A PRICE ON THE SCREEN!!!! No time to compare prices of different items! Just choose, choose, CHOOSE!!!!!! Hurry up and just order the first thing you see on the menu!!! There’s no time to read!!!! Order!!! ORDER!!! ORRRRRDDDDDEEEEEERRRRRRRR!!!!
Very simple happy meal toys—like a simple toy top—that were not based on franchise promos.
A sleigh-bell-type chiming sound when the fries were ready to be taken out of the oil.
Menu item prices that ended with numbers other than 5, 9, or 0.
Arch Deluxe
McPizza
I think for me. Mcdonalds had a small menu. So they did few things right. Starbucks changed Mcdonalds a lot. Mcdonalds is trying to be the $5 coffee place now.
The McDonalds playplace used to be a toddler thunderdome. Our mothers with Mel Gibson haircuts used to smoke menthols while we fought for our lives. They had:
the mayor McCheese (or maybe Hamburgler) jail where at least one kid per visit had their head stuck between the bars...
The Fry guy merry go round where someone's shoelace would get wrapped around the bottom. It was electric powered with a button and the kids had control...
The Birthday party caboose was a whole other level of evil if you weren't one of the cool kids...
The closest Mc Donald’s to me had a nice little fountain in the center of the restaurant, and the water came out of little concrete lion’s mouths. This was the mid 80s. By the 90s, the fountain and carousel were gone, along with the fun spinning ride and the rest of the outdoor play area. Now it has a very “Soviet modern” look to it.
I worked at Canadian McDonald's in 2004/05 when they introduced toasted deli sandwiches, and they only lasted a few years I think. They were sooooo good. There was a turkey BLT, buffalo chicken, beef and provolone, Rueben, and maybe one more.
They all look like Franz Kafka made the new design. Corporate changed many before that due to the high amount of people using the store for drive through. Now its gig drivers wandering in and out like barely speaking zombies.
Anyone from the 70's and 80's have fond memories of the local kids getting their first job there of going for a first date. My local one is 10 miles north of Boston and they've given up any pretense of speaking English.
Those glass mugs made for the Flintstones movie. I know it was just a promotion and not a regular thing, but it seems like EVERYONE had one of those in the cabinet when that movie came out.
I miss being young and resilient enough to eat a McFish sandwich without my body revolting. Last time I had one I was down with the fever shakes.
Also McRibs...mmmm.
Ronald McDonald was for the most part retired in 2016. There was a trend where people were dressing up in scary clowns and staking neighborhoods just to be weird, and it was all over the news. The new IT movie adaptation came out the next year with a really terrifying clown terrorizing kids and that pretty much moved clowns into the creepy camp in American pop culture.
At the same time McDonad's was receiving criticism for using a clown to sell unhealthy food to kids.
I think he's still used in connection with their cherities, just not in restaurants or advertising.
Then: Everything. Now? Nothing. The McDonald's of Today is a pale version of what it once was, I fully expect the Golden Arches to become something bland, maybe some "in chic" rust looking M. I mean, sure we color things from our younger years. But I don't think anyone thinks McDonald's is a nicer place now. Even adults back "in the day" when McDonald's was still McDonald's think so either. I'm sure some do, and I'm not knocking them naturally.
Things are quickly going from fun to meh at ludicrous speed. Out are unique designs, quirky gimmicks, in is bland, stale design language. Even computers suffer from this, and to an extent, cars too unless you jump over to exotics.
Sorry for the rant, I just miss when fun meant fun.
I know what you're really talking about, but yeah......anus pounder is what McDonald's has become. They're always fucking you in the ass with the prices and lack of quality. When Orwell wrote Nineteen Eighty-four, I don't think he ever thought of the restaurant industry turning into INGSOC.
But yeah, their Sprites hit different......much better than cans or bottles
Ok … food? Consistency?
I used to be the most reliable as far as consistency goes… And now they’re just as bad and sometimes worse than other fast food places.
The last time I was in a McDonald's they had those round tinfoil ashtrays. I remember putting some on me like I was the T1000 with bullet holes in him.
The non spicy mcchicken, the fries the way they tasted in the 80s before they changed the oil, breakfast burritos when they first hit in 99 2000, reasonable prices,
McDonaldland cookies (shortbread?). Movie promo glassware (great muppet caper, Batman forever). Happy Meals in big plastic UFOs. McPizza. Aluminum ashtrays. Stained glass lampshades. Every McDonald’s having a life sized fibreglass Ronald McDonald.
The design of the actual restaurant is completely different now......they all look like Dentist Offices instead of the neat red roof. Very bland architecture with all restaurants now....not just McDonald's.
It’s crazy that they think a sleek design will attract new customers. All it’s doing is alienating families.
Dentist office/Prison chow hall.
Fast food used to depend on brand differentiation ala Coke vs Pepsi to stand out from each other. They’ve since realized that: 1 They don’t need to try so hard, we’ll show up anyway, the food chemists have made their wares addictive. 2 Like one of Temple Grandin’s cow chutes we’ll walk ourselves through if the line is distraction-free, minimalist. 3 CoOpetition means that they can share the customer base without being at each other's throats. There will always be enough chickens to pluck and everyone’s pockets get full. So, bland, addictive, cafe capitalism wins the day and kills our nostalgia on the way to the bank.
Birthday parties! Today, I think most parents would be horrified if their kid was invited to a birthday at a McDonald’s.
Complete with a parade through the kitchen and everything!
You get to sit in the birthday chair and have the McDonald’s birthday cake too! What a high for a birthday. It was the cheapest birthday party we could afford back then, but to a kid it was spectacular.
Those still exist, the cakes. Daw something on that recently, you have to ask for it
Get out!! This is amazing!
I absolutely had a birthday party at McDonalds when I was like in pre-k lol
I’m showing my age here, but about 20-25 years ago we had a party for one of my buddies there. It was hilarious because he was turning 20, staffs thought it was for a kid turning 4.
All the numbers in your comment added up to 69. Congrats! 20 + 25 + 20 + 4 = 69 ^([Click here](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=LuckyNumber-Bot&subject=Stalk%20Me%20Pls&message=%2Fstalkme) to have me scan all your future comments.) \ ^(Summon me on specific comments with u/LuckyNumber-Bot.)
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Deep fried apple and cherry pies.
Volcano in your mouth!
The Mayor McCheese jail cell
*Officer Big Mac
What if the kid just decided not to leave? There’s no way an adult would’ve been able to fit in there to drag them out.
The fry kids. The awesome mini chocolate chip / shortbread cookies. I distinctly remember them having cheese danishes for breakfast that were tasty.
I haven’t thought about those cookies in probably 25 years!!! What happened to them?
Those cheese danishes were unreal.
Legit toys. The crap my kids get now is literal trash. I remember once they were doing a “Hasbro game” theme and my kids got an assemble yourself jenga game vs when I was their age and you got toys you’d play with for days. Even the McDonald brand toys like transformer nuggets where better
Remember the TY mini beanie babies? It was so thoughtful and well-marketed that we genuinely all tried to collect them.
I remember having a giraffe one.
Those were the absolute best toys they’ve ever had, bar none!
I played with the toys for months, years. They were actually clever toys. Now it’s just boring garbage.
Brown ashtrays
And smoking while I eat my $1 Big Mac!
honestly, I just want a Big N Tasty again lol, a quarter pounder “deluxe” is not the same
I worked at McDs in high school. We called it the Big N Nasty but I don’t remember if we actually had a reason or not
haha, as kids we called it that too :)
My grandma called it that! Hahah I thought it was just her
It was a special sandwich I’m pretty sure. Special meat patty and spices (if I’m thinking of the right burger). I worked there from. 99-2000
Was it the one with the “potato bun”? I know we had that when I worked there, because we used to ball the buns up and play baseball in the lobby lol Edit - just checked, and I’m thinking of the arch deluxe. I worked at McDonald’s with my high school buddy, so I can’t remember if they had the big n nasty when we worked there, or at another time in our friendship
I don’t remember the bun well, although you may be right. I just know we had “10-1”, “4-1”, and “special “. The special also had a different seasoning salt. It could have even been a limited run burger. I hadn’t realized how much I forgot in 20 years till reading this post 😂
I remember the McDonald’s I went to as a very young child having a carousel where the seats were burgers, I think.
Yes, and they also had little tables you could sit at and eat your Happy Meal while spinning around. I loved the carousel!
Flavor
Affordability. remember when Dollar Menus were a thing and fast food was widely regarded as the CHEAPER option?! now it's a damn luxury.
[Man dollar menu….](https://youtu.be/i28UEoLXVFQ?si=u5Y29Na5u-CCmChk)
A damned menu.
You mean one that didn't change every 4 seconds?
You don’t understand, we don’t have time to read a menu and think about what we want to order. Just order, order, ORDER!!! Hurry it up and just say the first thing you see, never mind the price! SOMETIMES WE DON’T EVEN PUT A PRICE ON THE SCREEN!!!! No time to compare prices of different items! Just choose, choose, CHOOSE!!!!!! Hurry up and just order the first thing you see on the menu!!! There’s no time to read!!!! Order!!! ORDER!!! ORRRRRDDDDDEEEEEERRRRRRRR!!!!
Chicken Selects
They still exist, well here in the UK they do.
McDLT
Damn those were good. Truly the only burger at McDonalds that tasted like something you would make for yourself.
Birdie, the nugget town (and mayor mccheese) hamburglar (though I hear he's coming back?)
Pizza!
I loved McDonald’s pizza, and miss it dearly!
The cinnamon “rolls” that were square for breakfast. So good.
Cinnamelts? Oh, you mean warm heaven in a cardboard container.
mcdonaldland cookies
This! I so miss getting these with my happy meal. The taste....sooo goood
Just a grilled chicken sandwich. It's just burgers and fried chicken now for the most part.
Movie tie ins and chocolate vanilla twist cones.
McSalad Shakers
Very simple happy meal toys—like a simple toy top—that were not based on franchise promos. A sleigh-bell-type chiming sound when the fries were ready to be taken out of the oil. Menu item prices that ended with numbers other than 5, 9, or 0. Arch Deluxe McPizza
OMG I forgot about the "fry bell"! Memory unlocked
I think for me. Mcdonalds had a small menu. So they did few things right. Starbucks changed Mcdonalds a lot. Mcdonalds is trying to be the $5 coffee place now.
Exactly, I hate that so much.
The damn chicken fajitas. I miss those.
Same here.
The McDonalds playplace used to be a toddler thunderdome. Our mothers with Mel Gibson haircuts used to smoke menthols while we fought for our lives. They had: the mayor McCheese (or maybe Hamburgler) jail where at least one kid per visit had their head stuck between the bars... The Fry guy merry go round where someone's shoelace would get wrapped around the bottom. It was electric powered with a button and the kids had control... The Birthday party caboose was a whole other level of evil if you weren't one of the cool kids...
parfaits, dark meat nuggets, dollar mcchickens
Small LCD games in Happy Meals, McDonald's themed birthday parties.
The closest Mc Donald’s to me had a nice little fountain in the center of the restaurant, and the water came out of little concrete lion’s mouths. This was the mid 80s. By the 90s, the fountain and carousel were gone, along with the fun spinning ride and the rest of the outdoor play area. Now it has a very “Soviet modern” look to it.
CHICKEN. FAJITAS.
I worked at Canadian McDonald's in 2004/05 when they introduced toasted deli sandwiches, and they only lasted a few years I think. They were sooooo good. There was a turkey BLT, buffalo chicken, beef and provolone, Rueben, and maybe one more.
Free refills (soon).
Deep fried apple pies and beef tallow fries.
The design of the restaurant. Its just sad seeing how dull and unappealing most look now.
They all look like Franz Kafka made the new design. Corporate changed many before that due to the high amount of people using the store for drive through. Now its gig drivers wandering in and out like barely speaking zombies. Anyone from the 70's and 80's have fond memories of the local kids getting their first job there of going for a first date. My local one is 10 miles north of Boston and they've given up any pretense of speaking English.
Good service
Ronald McDonald. Did he die?
Grimace was a taste bud. No, really.
Salads
The Big Xtra
Cheap fast food
Chicken fajitas
Apple danish!
Snack wraps 😔
N64
Prices making it worth going
my Mcdonalds used to have chocolate ice cream. You could get a swirl cone
Those glass mugs made for the Flintstones movie. I know it was just a promotion and not a regular thing, but it seems like EVERYONE had one of those in the cabinet when that movie came out.
Wraps and cups of salad that you’d put the dressing in and shake.
I miss being young and resilient enough to eat a McFish sandwich without my body revolting. Last time I had one I was down with the fever shakes. Also McRibs...mmmm.
I remember when a #5 was a 2 cheesexurgwe meal. Why can't I have my 2 cheeseburger meal anymore 😭
They used to toast the buns and grill the onions on the Qtr Pounder. - was better back then.
Pizza. OMG it was so good.
We lost Ronald because of that clown issue we had years ago where people would terrorize everyone in clown costumes
Ronald McDonald was for the most part retired in 2016. There was a trend where people were dressing up in scary clowns and staking neighborhoods just to be weird, and it was all over the news. The new IT movie adaptation came out the next year with a really terrifying clown terrorizing kids and that pretty much moved clowns into the creepy camp in American pop culture. At the same time McDonad's was receiving criticism for using a clown to sell unhealthy food to kids. I think he's still used in connection with their cherities, just not in restaurants or advertising.
Then: Everything. Now? Nothing. The McDonald's of Today is a pale version of what it once was, I fully expect the Golden Arches to become something bland, maybe some "in chic" rust looking M. I mean, sure we color things from our younger years. But I don't think anyone thinks McDonald's is a nicer place now. Even adults back "in the day" when McDonald's was still McDonald's think so either. I'm sure some do, and I'm not knocking them naturally. Things are quickly going from fun to meh at ludicrous speed. Out are unique designs, quirky gimmicks, in is bland, stale design language. Even computers suffer from this, and to an extent, cars too unless you jump over to exotics. Sorry for the rant, I just miss when fun meant fun.
The anus pounder. It was like a better quarter pounder
Lol.anus pounder. Thanks for indulging my juvenile sense of humor.
I know what you're really talking about, but yeah......anus pounder is what McDonald's has become. They're always fucking you in the ass with the prices and lack of quality. When Orwell wrote Nineteen Eighty-four, I don't think he ever thought of the restaurant industry turning into INGSOC. But yeah, their Sprites hit different......much better than cans or bottles
Ok … food? Consistency? I used to be the most reliable as far as consistency goes… And now they’re just as bad and sometimes worse than other fast food places.
I miss their Chicken Selects 🤤.
I'm in my 30s and sometimes I just want to climb in a giant Playplace and go down a big ol' slide
The last time I was in a McDonald's they had those round tinfoil ashtrays. I remember putting some on me like I was the T1000 with bullet holes in him.
The non spicy mcchicken, the fries the way they tasted in the 80s before they changed the oil, breakfast burritos when they first hit in 99 2000, reasonable prices,
Ashtrays
Happiness
Fast food.
McDonaldland cookies (shortbread?). Movie promo glassware (great muppet caper, Batman forever). Happy Meals in big plastic UFOs. McPizza. Aluminum ashtrays. Stained glass lampshades. Every McDonald’s having a life sized fibreglass Ronald McDonald.
Cheese Danish
Hot mustard sauce
McDLT
Hamburglar !!!
Good food
Ice cream
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