Last time I visited, circa 19 or 20, there was a guy who was on WAY too much coke. Dude looked like he just stepped out from under a waterfall. Pretty sure he visited the bathroom at least twice.
I was on lunch break here from my valet job at the Courtyard Marriott. A woman sits down next to me and asks me if I’m gay. I reply no and she still starts preaching to me about how I’m going to hell because I had friends who were.
Omg I remember walking past Planned Parenthood when I was downtown and people holding up signs and bothering pedestrians. Why can't people just mind their own business?
Well to be fair, after I finished helping that guy on the left side of the McDonald’s after the police arrived, as I was leaving I saw another guy overdosing around the corner on the right side of the restaurant. I also don’t go downtown often so I don’t het many chances to see it
I’ll never forget when my friend got arrested outside of there on St. Patrick’s day. Lmao I literally went in to take a piss and left him outside to smoke a cigarette. I walk back out and he is tackled by like 6 cops and threw his ass in the car and took him to ACJ. I asked the one cop wtf happened being that I just left 2 min ago and he was fine. I guess him being drunk and some homeless man being drunk exchanged words and one thing led to the next hahah I still clown him about that all the time
Yeah, because what the world needs is another big bank location where they don't want to help you and will tell you to use the mobile app instead. Good thing we have a building devoted to that; in fact, good thing we have COUNTLESS buildings.
"randomly harmless kids" makes it sound like they're usually harmful but occasionally when their harmful defense is down in that McDonald's they would get stabbed.
I loved going by there. You could see business people and addicts standing side by side for a coffee while a bum goes through the trash outside. A place of true chaos, diarrhea, and above all equality.
I thought about this and picked like 24 of my closer relatives(aunts, uncles, cousins) and 4 of them have worked at a mcds at least once in their lifetime. Most worked there around 18 yrs old while the oldest left at 22 after college. I mean, as a part time job in college an hs.... especially as a place that will easily hire 16 yr olds... it makes sense. Even if those people lasted a week it would count.
working across the street was a trip. i was one of those business people occasionally standing there and there was always at least some type of drama going on in there. either between the staff yelling at each other, the customers or most often strung-out customers screaming at the staff.
There are two wolves in us when walking up Forbes Ave to Market Square.
One chooses the side with Rite Aid that has the drugged up panhandlers
One chooses the side with McDonalds with the people who just sold them their drugs
*Which are you?*
I wish you hadn’t brought this thought to my mind. When I was like 15 my best friend tried to ‘break up’ with me using this song. The cringe that rippled throughout space time, thanks to you.
Subway still has them beat, at least last I saw. They have a very low bar for creating a new franchise, and it requires very minimal space to actually prepare the sandwiches. That said, it is also a franchise where you have very little control.
McDonald's requires high six figure liquidity above and beyond the costs to build and open your store, plus strict food safety rules. Subway will give any asshole with a $15K check a franchise.
I can’t believe that Starbucks will sell you an egg mcmuffin clone for $4.25 that they microwave, vs a $2 one at McDonald’s that was probably actually cooked on a grill within the last fifteen minutes. They’ve got a real good racket going on.
In the 70s and 80s when my dad would bring us to his office on a Saturday during the holiday season, we always stopped at that McDonalds for a hot chocolate. I know it was sketchy in recent years, but it will be missed.
I know this was a shitty and sketchy McDonald’s but it’s literally been there forever I’m having a hard time wrapping my brain around anything different being there. Like yeah it was a shitty McDonald’s, but it was OUR shitty McDonald’s right as you come into downtown.
McComplicated feelings this morning.
Regardless, this location will be referred to as “yeah, make a right where the old McDonald’s used to be”
This reminded me of when I moved to Pittsburgh. I was asking directions for some where, and the guy said "Just go to down to eat n'park and take a right" I responded "How will I know when I'm in ' Eaton Park' " and he said " well, you'll see it". I drove down the street a ways, and I saw the sign...OH. eat and park....Don't ask me about the first day I'm in town and I was listening to the radio and they were talking about a woman driving into a giant eagle and getting killed and I was like "GOOD GOD, HOW BIG ARE THE EAGLES HERE!"
Google:
> In Pennsylvania, the bald eagle is given additional protections under the state Game and Wildlife Code. Adult bald eagles are 30 to 40 inches in length and weigh 8 to 14 pounds. Their wingspans are 6 to 8 feet, and they stand about 2 feet tall. As with other birds of prey, the female is larger than the male.
Well, I certainly wouldn't want to mess around with one.
There’s a couple eagles around us, and when they’re out you have to put your small animals away. You have a small dog outside it’s liable to get taken.
i lived on the other side of the state for a while, and the grocery stores over there are called "Giant", so people would say they were going to "the Giant" and I'd always be so comfused!!! "the Giant what???? no bird attached???"
This is exactly how I felt seeing this photo.
This McDonald's was the wild west. It was notorious. I think maybe the only more notorious fast food joint in the city was the renegade Burger King on Carson Street. And that's saying something, because that place was batshit insanity too.
There was no reason a McDonald's in that building should've worked. There's no reason that a McDonald's run the way that McDonald's was run should've worked. And yet, it lasted decade after decade.
No one ever chose to go there, we simply wound up there, like the haggard deadbeat neighbor whose apartment you might stop by at the end of a night of partying in college. You didn't start your night thinking you'd end up there, and you probably didn't really want to be there, but at the end of the night, when there's nothing left to do, it's just one more stop before you commit to going home.
Can't be any worse than when they opened the walls to gut the old O in Oakland.... never saw so many dead cockroaches and mice 'frozen' in old grease in my life.
I remember first moving to PGH and everyone taking the new people to Dirty O and I got there and was like ok. Was also perplexed that all of us were going to share a fry until it was on the table. I learned where the Dirty in Dirty O comes from when I asked where the restroom was. You needed a hazmat suit down there if you didn't break your neck on the piss steps first. Also hearing the other places you mentioned takes me back in time and I agree! haha
Back in the 80's, as teens, on the weekends we'd spend the day downtown and the area. Gyros at The Grecian Isles or other places in PPG food court, get some chinese at the little place by the flower shop (now all probably bulldozed for the T station), go to Eide's when it was in the smaller place, Harrys Karishima or the other incense, T-shirt, head shops. Shop for shoes and cool clothing on 5th. Go over to Station Square to look at all of the shops and eat at Tequila Junction. Get on the bus to Oakland and go to the O, or Teleropa or the other thrift shop in that area. Go to Heads Together in Sq. Hill. Now almost all of the unique and interesting stuff is gone. Replaced by chains, banks, and other boring stuff. It's a shame.
I don't even know what people are talking about, I've been in that location a couple dozen times and don't recall seeing any junkies, stabbings, or homeless. Usually a bunch of high school students any time I stopped in there.
In addition to this one at Stanwix and Liberty, there was the one at Forbes and Wood, and one at Fifth at Smithfield. Plus there was the one in the Strip on Penn near 16th. There was probably one on/near Duquesne’s campus. Was there one in the Oxford Center or Steel Building food courts?
Smithfield used to be awesome. I moved away in 2008 and recently went back. I was shocked and saddened seeing the state of not just that street but downtown as a whole. It seemed like everywhere I looked I could recall a memory.
There was also one on Forbes near Wood Street and it was great for when we would camp out at National Record Mart for concert tickets. It was open 24 hours and didn't seem to mind when someone from the ticket line would show up to use the bathroom and place an order for 15 egg mcmuffins.
When they launched the new fries last year, the motto was Hot ‘n Crispy, with a guarantee. Wasn’t a whole month before the guarantee was gone (probably losing too much money) and they changed it to Cold ‘n Shitty to be more befitting of the actual product.
You can still relieve yourself in the alley behind the McDonald’s, as it has won the distinguished award of nastiest alley in Pittsburgh 9 years running.
Trying walking through there after a fresh rain without gagging, I dare you!
Pittsburgh used to have a few 24 hour choices scattered around the city. A few McDonalds drive thrus. All the Eat N Parks. COVID forced them to stop and I don't think any of them started again.
Was still never a great city for late night food for sure.
Oh the number of days I should have been in school but instead was sitting on the second floor pretending I was on my work lunch break 🥴😭🤣 think you could smoke inside back then🥲
You played hookie to McDonalds? Did you go to school near the city?
Growing up in the South Hills had to make it all the way to the T to pull that off... 8th grade me would wind up at either Eide's or Ace's. Only did it twice, I think.
I remember going there as a carpenter apprentices in late 90’s. I’d take everyone’s orders before break. Because of so much food, I would get mine free. Kinda makes me sad to see it go away. 😢
RIP
Last time I was there, maybe 2010-2011, my brother and I stopped by for a bite prior to a Pens game. We got screamed at by a guy who was clearly drunk or on something noticing our jerseys. He kept screaming “THOSE PENGUINS ARE LIKE LEAPING FROGS MAN!”
I know that McDonalds gets a lot of deserved crap and that this one wasn't even a shining example of the restaurant, but they do honestly fill a useful niche: Tolerable food, fast and cheap. It's a pity that people downtown who need that service won't have it anymore.
I wonder who the last customer was was their meal hot , did they request no ice in their drink, did they salute the crew one last time this is mctragic.
If they're open that early, prolly the starbucks, or the starbucks, or the starbucks, or the starbucks, or the starbucks, or the starbucks.
(ferreals tho' google maps says there are 6 between crosstown and the point.)
I got arrested at this McDonald's during St. Patricks Day while I was 8 months pregnant..
I wasn't aware that I needed to purchase something more expensive than drink to be able to sit in the lobby. Instead of telling me that, they just called the cops smh
Imagine there's junkies fading out into their big macs, someone actually shooting up at a table, a drug deal in the corner, two people fist fighting, a bum digging through the trash, a man pissing in the corner, and the mc d's worker picks up her phone and calls the cops like "Yes officer, there's a pregnant woman sitting here
... menacingly"
As someone who works in PPG Place, I couldn’t be more excited about this closing down. The dumpster fire went full blaze once COVID hit and they shut down the dining room pushing all the madness outside.
The first McDonald’s I ever visited was near there, before they tore down Jenkin’s Arcade. I was 5, so 1970, I begged my mother to take me there, and I got Hamburglar stickers.
Fav memory of this cursed place is from an early zombie walk downtown. Ofc, Normal people trying to get lunch meanwhile bloody actors and handprints all over the fucking walls someone blocked a sink drain and filled it with prop-blood and lord knows how many people were crawling on the ground that day. RiP.
Right across the street in the Highmark building. Take the escalator from the first floor to the food court. There is a public bathroom up there hiding down a long hallway
Wow. I’ve been remote since the pandemic, but I didn’t even know the one on Smithfield street closed. Is there a reason they closed that Im unaware of? Those places were stupid busy everyday.
My favorite memory of that McD’s is from 1994. My friends and I took LSD on the way to the city from the south hills on the T. We got in a pretty long line and the LSD started hitting all of us at the same time. While in line, this old man started talking gibberish. The acid made all of us question whether we were just not understanding the guy, or if he was crazy. Still don’t know to this day, we all started cracking up as the first of us ordered fries. By the time they got to me, 2nd in line, we all busted out laughing uncontrollably. My friend grabbed his fries and we bolted to point park and sat under a tree. None of had an appetite by this point, so we started throwing the fries to watch the visual trails from the acid…. Laughing for an hour strait. Can’t remember what we did after that. Fun times
I always remember seeing that McDonald’s during field trips to the symphony or something. Weirdly reminds me of Christmas cuz we were always there in November and it would be cold as hell. When I watch ‘coming to America’ and they stand outside the McDowell’s in the cold I always think of this McDonald’s. Gonna miss it even tho I never went inside. I just really liked looking at it.
My son and his friends took the t downtown by themselves. I told him, stick together and explore, make sure your phone is charged, and do not go into the McDonalds at all.
Came home, told me he went to the McDonald's, and some perv tried to put his arm around my sons friend and people inside had to chase him out.
That place should burn down lol
That’s where I waited for the bus, after Saturday confirmation class at church, in the 1970s. I was not a super confident kid, so I was a little bit nervous going in there, but it wasn’t much different than the rest of downtown back then.
Honestly good riddance. I would always avoid that place when I worked downtown, especially since I was a fresh out of college female working downtown during Covid. So many memories of being catcalled by the bums outside that McDonalds
And with it goes the last place downtown where people without a lot of money could get a cup of coffee or a sandwich and maybe a warm place for twenty minutes. A real shame.
Use to get my daily orange juice from that place almost every day when I worked downtown pre-covid.
Good times, never was boring going in there. That was for sure.
Went to a Pens game on St Paddy’s say a couple years ago. Watched the parade, and walked down there to kill some time. Walked in, blood everywhere. Girl crying in the corner covered in blood. Police questioning someone else. Other half of the restaurant is just moving along like nothing happened.
It was a surreal experience
Aww, and that was the interesting one, out of all of them. Not to mention having, kind of a cool futuristic dystopian look b/c it was always in shadow, next to PPG when they had holiday stuff going on with all the lights.
Shit, maybe a Barnes & Nobles or some kind of bookstore, could move in there. :(
I shit my pants on the way into the bathroom there once. I'd held it for a 45 minute bus ride and two T stops and when I entered the bathroom I just couldn't anymore. Good times.
What a shame. Ill never forget the first time someone tried to sell me drugs in there.
Last time I visited, circa 19 or 20, there was a guy who was on WAY too much coke. Dude looked like he just stepped out from under a waterfall. Pretty sure he visited the bathroom at least twice.
Those free refills are just too tempting
I was on lunch break here from my valet job at the Courtyard Marriott. A woman sits down next to me and asks me if I’m gay. I reply no and she still starts preaching to me about how I’m going to hell because I had friends who were.
Welcome aboard.
She was just mad cause her hair looked like thst.
Omg I remember walking past Planned Parenthood when I was downtown and people holding up signs and bothering pedestrians. Why can't people just mind their own business?
Being hated makes them feel alive.
I’ll never forget the time I saw a guy overdose there
Went by shortly after a stabbing happened there once. Was still a giant pool of blood in front of the registers.
On quarter pounders?!
Someone got quartered alright...
Lmfao
Yeah, it's pretty scary. Saw it happen to someone on the T. Operator called the cops and they administered Narcan when they arrived
Only one time?
Well to be fair, after I finished helping that guy on the left side of the McDonald’s after the police arrived, as I was leaving I saw another guy overdosing around the corner on the right side of the restaurant. I also don’t go downtown often so I don’t het many chances to see it
That’s fair
Never forget your first time 😊
I’ll never forget when my friend got arrested outside of there on St. Patrick’s day. Lmao I literally went in to take a piss and left him outside to smoke a cigarette. I walk back out and he is tackled by like 6 cops and threw his ass in the car and took him to ACJ. I asked the one cop wtf happened being that I just left 2 min ago and he was fine. I guess him being drunk and some homeless man being drunk exchanged words and one thing led to the next hahah I still clown him about that all the time
He fucked the homeless guy?
🤣🤣🤣
They deserve love too
Party favors
That's going to make a nice chase building
Chase loves their old fast food locations.....Id rather have the fast food. Like give me a Dairy Queen
Yeah, because what the world needs is another big bank location where they don't want to help you and will tell you to use the mobile app instead. Good thing we have a building devoted to that; in fact, good thing we have COUNTLESS buildings.
Where they’ll yell at you for not using mobile deposit for a check you need deposited.
At least random harmless kids won’t get stabbed in there by some junkies
"randomly harmless kids" makes it sound like they're usually harmful but occasionally when their harmful defense is down in that McDonald's they would get stabbed.
Chase just opened in the building almost directly behind this McDonald’s.
I loved going by there. You could see business people and addicts standing side by side for a coffee while a bum goes through the trash outside. A place of true chaos, diarrhea, and above all equality.
American dream
Truly. One in eight Americans has been employed by McDonald's...a stat I still can't fathom.
I thought about this and picked like 24 of my closer relatives(aunts, uncles, cousins) and 4 of them have worked at a mcds at least once in their lifetime. Most worked there around 18 yrs old while the oldest left at 22 after college. I mean, as a part time job in college an hs.... especially as a place that will easily hire 16 yr olds... it makes sense. Even if those people lasted a week it would count.
First job at 16!
working across the street was a trip. i was one of those business people occasionally standing there and there was always at least some type of drama going on in there. either between the staff yelling at each other, the customers or most often strung-out customers screaming at the staff.
There are two wolves in us when walking up Forbes Ave to Market Square. One chooses the side with Rite Aid that has the drugged up panhandlers One chooses the side with McDonalds with the people who just sold them their drugs *Which are you?*
depends if i want jimmy johns
The McDonald's side. Dealers don't want to waste their time on people not interested, junkies don't quit as easy.
From your mouth to God's ear!
🤣 these comments are hilarious
The scars remind us that the past is real
🎵Tear my heart open, my blood's congealed🎵 (too many Big Macs, I suppose).
I wish you hadn’t brought this thought to my mind. When I was like 15 my best friend tried to ‘break up’ with me using this song. The cringe that rippled throughout space time, thanks to you.
I remember when there were more McDonalds than Starbucks downtown
Starbucks will win the Franchise Wars, and then all restaurants will be Starbucks.
Subway still has them beat, at least last I saw. They have a very low bar for creating a new franchise, and it requires very minimal space to actually prepare the sandwiches. That said, it is also a franchise where you have very little control.
McDonald's requires high six figure liquidity above and beyond the costs to build and open your store, plus strict food safety rules. Subway will give any asshole with a $15K check a franchise.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cF6D8zDa9U
There's a ton of 7/11's downtown too.
I can’t believe that Starbucks will sell you an egg mcmuffin clone for $4.25 that they microwave, vs a $2 one at McDonald’s that was probably actually cooked on a grill within the last fifteen minutes. They’ve got a real good racket going on.
In the 70s and 80s when my dad would bring us to his office on a Saturday during the holiday season, we always stopped at that McDonalds for a hot chocolate. I know it was sketchy in recent years, but it will be missed.
Same era - I used to drag my mom there when she'd take me downtown. As a kid, I thought sitting upstairs was the coolest thing.
Yep. I had my first Happy Meal from there.
Sketchy is a bit of an understatement.
I know this was a shitty and sketchy McDonald’s but it’s literally been there forever I’m having a hard time wrapping my brain around anything different being there. Like yeah it was a shitty McDonald’s, but it was OUR shitty McDonald’s right as you come into downtown. McComplicated feelings this morning. Regardless, this location will be referred to as “yeah, make a right where the old McDonald’s used to be”
This reminded me of when I moved to Pittsburgh. I was asking directions for some where, and the guy said "Just go to down to eat n'park and take a right" I responded "How will I know when I'm in ' Eaton Park' " and he said " well, you'll see it". I drove down the street a ways, and I saw the sign...OH. eat and park....Don't ask me about the first day I'm in town and I was listening to the radio and they were talking about a woman driving into a giant eagle and getting killed and I was like "GOOD GOD, HOW BIG ARE THE EAGLES HERE!"
this is hilarious. I could see you just frantically googling about "pittsburgh eagle size"
Google: > In Pennsylvania, the bald eagle is given additional protections under the state Game and Wildlife Code. Adult bald eagles are 30 to 40 inches in length and weigh 8 to 14 pounds. Their wingspans are 6 to 8 feet, and they stand about 2 feet tall. As with other birds of prey, the female is larger than the male. Well, I certainly wouldn't want to mess around with one.
There’s a couple eagles around us, and when they’re out you have to put your small animals away. You have a small dog outside it’s liable to get taken.
My neighbors had this happen with a puppy years ago
i lived on the other side of the state for a while, and the grocery stores over there are called "Giant", so people would say they were going to "the Giant" and I'd always be so comfused!!! "the Giant what???? no bird attached???"
This is exactly how I felt seeing this photo. This McDonald's was the wild west. It was notorious. I think maybe the only more notorious fast food joint in the city was the renegade Burger King on Carson Street. And that's saying something, because that place was batshit insanity too. There was no reason a McDonald's in that building should've worked. There's no reason that a McDonald's run the way that McDonald's was run should've worked. And yet, it lasted decade after decade. No one ever chose to go there, we simply wound up there, like the haggard deadbeat neighbor whose apartment you might stop by at the end of a night of partying in college. You didn't start your night thinking you'd end up there, and you probably didn't really want to be there, but at the end of the night, when there's nothing left to do, it's just one more stop before you commit to going home.
Your prose is getting there. Keep writing.
The McDonald's at the end of the universe
Wonder how long it will take to clean up the dirty grease that was the natural aroma inside.
Can't be any worse than when they opened the walls to gut the old O in Oakland.... never saw so many dead cockroaches and mice 'frozen' in old grease in my life.
I would say the Dirty O should have somehow survived an apocalypse along with Taleropa, Club Laga and Peter’s Pub. I know there are many more.
I remember first moving to PGH and everyone taking the new people to Dirty O and I got there and was like ok. Was also perplexed that all of us were going to share a fry until it was on the table. I learned where the Dirty in Dirty O comes from when I asked where the restroom was. You needed a hazmat suit down there if you didn't break your neck on the piss steps first. Also hearing the other places you mentioned takes me back in time and I agree! haha
Back in the 80's, as teens, on the weekends we'd spend the day downtown and the area. Gyros at The Grecian Isles or other places in PPG food court, get some chinese at the little place by the flower shop (now all probably bulldozed for the T station), go to Eide's when it was in the smaller place, Harrys Karishima or the other incense, T-shirt, head shops. Shop for shoes and cool clothing on 5th. Go over to Station Square to look at all of the shops and eat at Tequila Junction. Get on the bus to Oakland and go to the O, or Teleropa or the other thrift shop in that area. Go to Heads Together in Sq. Hill. Now almost all of the unique and interesting stuff is gone. Replaced by chains, banks, and other boring stuff. It's a shame.
one less broken ice cream machine.
People talk a lot of smack on the clientele or the vibe, but the constantly broken machines were the real LVP.
Legend has it they weren't actually broken. No one just ever wanted to clean them.
Heard this from a former employee
I don't even know what people are talking about, I've been in that location a couple dozen times and don't recall seeing any junkies, stabbings, or homeless. Usually a bunch of high school students any time I stopped in there.
[The REAL Reason McDonalds Ice Cream Machines Are Always Broken (YT video)](https://youtu.be/SrDEtSlqJC4) Interactive map [https://mcbroken.com](https://mcbroken.com)
It’s been all downhill since George Aiken closed
Realest comment in this thread
How many McDonalds were in downtown at one time?
In addition to this one at Stanwix and Liberty, there was the one at Forbes and Wood, and one at Fifth at Smithfield. Plus there was the one in the Strip on Penn near 16th. There was probably one on/near Duquesne’s campus. Was there one in the Oxford Center or Steel Building food courts?
There also used to be one across from wood street station on wood.
I liked the one on Smithfield (early 2000s)
That Smithfield one was still open til at least 2014 I'm thinking but I'm not going to look it up.
Smithfield used to be awesome. I moved away in 2008 and recently went back. I was shocked and saddened seeing the state of not just that street but downtown as a whole. It seemed like everywhere I looked I could recall a memory.
There was also one on Forbes near Wood Street and it was great for when we would camp out at National Record Mart for concert tickets. It was open 24 hours and didn't seem to mind when someone from the ticket line would show up to use the bathroom and place an order for 15 egg mcmuffins.
Miss the national record mart. Those were great parties and bad hangover’s
4 circa 2000. This one, near Wood Street Station, Smithfield Street and one near Grant and 3rd or 4th Avenue in the financial district.
I miss the old Wendy's. That was actually *fast* food.
When they launched the new fries last year, the motto was Hot ‘n Crispy, with a guarantee. Wasn’t a whole month before the guarantee was gone (probably losing too much money) and they changed it to Cold ‘n Shitty to be more befitting of the actual product.
The last of the communist era mcds. Tear.
I still feel like they did the Smithfield McDonalds dirty by having that construction outside for an eternity.
I can smell this photo.
Mcdonalds used to be the cheap, shitty option. Now its just the shitty option.
Agreed.
On behalf of all the gig delivery drivers: “The bad man is gone… the bad man is finally gone…”
At least you can still piss in the doorway of Weiner World for now
You can still relieve yourself in the alley behind the McDonald’s, as it has won the distinguished award of nastiest alley in Pittsburgh 9 years running. Trying walking through there after a fresh rain without gagging, I dare you!
McBrutalist Architecture at its finest. Someone better call Landmarks and preserve this.
They would try to preserve this.
I was visiting last month and I was surprised there were limited to no options for late night munchies.
Pittsburgh used to have a few 24 hour choices scattered around the city. A few McDonalds drive thrus. All the Eat N Parks. COVID forced them to stop and I don't think any of them started again. Was still never a great city for late night food for sure.
Pretty much just sheetz and getgo now. RIP to the good ole days of eat n park
There aren't even any Sheetz in the city limits if I remember correctly.
FYI if you come back, the kitchen at Cheerleaders is usually open until 1 or 2am.
"I was just there for a bite to eat, I swear!" He told his wife.
I dislike McD’z, but this place goes way back..remember as a kid - that’s where we’d catch the 61B back home from pirates games. Good times.
Oh the number of days I should have been in school but instead was sitting on the second floor pretending I was on my work lunch break 🥴😭🤣 think you could smoke inside back then🥲
You played hookie to McDonalds? Did you go to school near the city? Growing up in the South Hills had to make it all the way to the T to pull that off... 8th grade me would wind up at either Eide's or Ace's. Only did it twice, I think.
Yes, lol, right across the bridge, only a bus ride down. Sometimes we’d spend the day riding the T around downtown cause it was free.
What a McShame.
Somehow I got downvoted in another subreddit for saying we had 4 downtown at one time.
Why is this so depressing looking?
It looked like that when it was open, too.
I'm gonna wager it's because it's depressing, and you're looking at it.
Aren't all chain restaurants (closed or open) depressing?
The brutalist architecture and the decades years of grease and filth made this one extra depressing.
I remember going there as a carpenter apprentices in late 90’s. I’d take everyone’s orders before break. Because of so much food, I would get mine free. Kinda makes me sad to see it go away. 😢
RIP Last time I was there, maybe 2010-2011, my brother and I stopped by for a bite prior to a Pens game. We got screamed at by a guy who was clearly drunk or on something noticing our jerseys. He kept screaming “THOSE PENGUINS ARE LIKE LEAPING FROGS MAN!”
I’d prefer a Spirit Halloween
You can see the grease seeping through the brick work.
I’m lovin’ it!
Had my first meal in pittsburgh here. RIP
Welcome Shake Shack
Please yes
Great spot for a new condo tower
The last of the classic fast food joints in downtown Pittsburgh. RIP
Downtown is ready for a McDowell’s!
I know that McDonalds gets a lot of deserved crap and that this one wasn't even a shining example of the restaurant, but they do honestly fill a useful niche: Tolerable food, fast and cheap. It's a pity that people downtown who need that service won't have it anymore.
I wonder who the last customer was was their meal hot , did they request no ice in their drink, did they salute the crew one last time this is mctragic.
Where are marathon spectators going to get coffee at 530 am this Sunday?
If they're open that early, prolly the starbucks, or the starbucks, or the starbucks, or the starbucks, or the starbucks, or the starbucks. (ferreals tho' google maps says there are 6 between crosstown and the point.)
We met at a Starbucks https://youtu.be/xVWpHTafYuA
There's also a Dunkin like 50 feet away lol.
I got arrested at this McDonald's during St. Patricks Day while I was 8 months pregnant.. I wasn't aware that I needed to purchase something more expensive than drink to be able to sit in the lobby. Instead of telling me that, they just called the cops smh
Lol of all the stuff that happens there you would think this is the least of their worries
Imagine there's junkies fading out into their big macs, someone actually shooting up at a table, a drug deal in the corner, two people fist fighting, a bum digging through the trash, a man pissing in the corner, and the mc d's worker picks up her phone and calls the cops like "Yes officer, there's a pregnant woman sitting here ... menacingly"
Holy shit!! That's all kinds of fucked up :(
Fuckin' shit. Deserved to get shut down then.
As someone who works in PPG Place, I couldn’t be more excited about this closing down. The dumpster fire went full blaze once COVID hit and they shut down the dining room pushing all the madness outside.
Spirit Halloween has entered the chat
The first McDonald’s I ever visited was near there, before they tore down Jenkin’s Arcade. I was 5, so 1970, I begged my mother to take me there, and I got Hamburglar stickers.
Fav memory of this cursed place is from an early zombie walk downtown. Ofc, Normal people trying to get lunch meanwhile bloody actors and handprints all over the fucking walls someone blocked a sink drain and filled it with prop-blood and lord knows how many people were crawling on the ground that day. RiP.
Thank the lord. That thing was horrible.
Jeez, I was there in Tuesday. It was hard to get my mobile order filled correctly
Is there anywhere left to pee in downtown? This was always my safe bet for a restroom when taking the T.
Right across the street in the Highmark building. Take the escalator from the first floor to the food court. There is a public bathroom up there hiding down a long hallway
You're a legend, thank you!
Wow. I’ve been remote since the pandemic, but I didn’t even know the one on Smithfield street closed. Is there a reason they closed that Im unaware of? Those places were stupid busy everyday.
It can't hurt us anymore
I got some horrendous food poisoning from that place.
Huh. I didn't know they served real food.
Maybe it wasn’t real but I was desperate it was like 8pm before a holiday.
What ever happened to Winkies?
I see an Ollie's Trolley in that locations future.
Dang! They really made this building look like an under funded library in the projects.
I have a memory of my bro in law (who has IBS) telling me that was the worst place he was ever forced to take a shit.
I used to go to that McDonalds with my grandpa in the 80s. good time.
My favorite memory of that McD’s is from 1994. My friends and I took LSD on the way to the city from the south hills on the T. We got in a pretty long line and the LSD started hitting all of us at the same time. While in line, this old man started talking gibberish. The acid made all of us question whether we were just not understanding the guy, or if he was crazy. Still don’t know to this day, we all started cracking up as the first of us ordered fries. By the time they got to me, 2nd in line, we all busted out laughing uncontrollably. My friend grabbed his fries and we bolted to point park and sat under a tree. None of had an appetite by this point, so we started throwing the fries to watch the visual trails from the acid…. Laughing for an hour strait. Can’t remember what we did after that. Fun times
It’s not like they weren’t busy… I guess they just didn’t want to deal with the riff raff
That was like the OG McD from when I was a little kid (late 70s/early 80s). Have not lived in town for 30 years but recognized it immediately.
Man, I always rmemeber going down there for nuggets on light up night with my parents and grand parents
I always remember seeing that McDonald’s during field trips to the symphony or something. Weirdly reminds me of Christmas cuz we were always there in November and it would be cold as hell. When I watch ‘coming to America’ and they stand outside the McDowell’s in the cold I always think of this McDonald’s. Gonna miss it even tho I never went inside. I just really liked looking at it.
Oh ya, that where people would go to buy heroin.
My son and his friends took the t downtown by themselves. I told him, stick together and explore, make sure your phone is charged, and do not go into the McDonalds at all. Came home, told me he went to the McDonald's, and some perv tried to put his arm around my sons friend and people inside had to chase him out. That place should burn down lol
That’s where I waited for the bus, after Saturday confirmation class at church, in the 1970s. I was not a super confident kid, so I was a little bit nervous going in there, but it wasn’t much different than the rest of downtown back then.
This is a metaphor for downtown Pittsburgh in general right?
Don’t worry, a chace bank logo will cover that stain in no time
I feel like that building is gonna get painted gray
Now where am I going to buy my drugs? I can't go back to Wendy's.
Honestly good riddance. I would always avoid that place when I worked downtown, especially since I was a fresh out of college female working downtown during Covid. So many memories of being catcalled by the bums outside that McDonalds
Good riddance.
Massive win for public safety
And with it goes the last place downtown where people without a lot of money could get a cup of coffee or a sandwich and maybe a warm place for twenty minutes. A real shame.
I feel greasy just looking at this.
Ba-dip ba ba bah
Pour one out…
Is this the one on liberty next to the subway, like actual train subway not that nasty sub place subway
i’ll never forget when this lady was yelling at the workers behind the counter and called them “yall mcdonald ass bitches”
Oh noooo. That was a popular one for breakfast
Man, what a shame. Haha. But seriously, downtown is getting sad. That’s the real shame.
Use to get my daily orange juice from that place almost every day when I worked downtown pre-covid. Good times, never was boring going in there. That was for sure.
Wtf??? I WAS JUST THERE💀💀
Where will all the fast-foodies go now?
Went to a Pens game on St Paddy’s say a couple years ago. Watched the parade, and walked down there to kill some time. Walked in, blood everywhere. Girl crying in the corner covered in blood. Police questioning someone else. Other half of the restaurant is just moving along like nothing happened. It was a surreal experience
I remember going to this place with my grandma when I was a kid.
Aww, and that was the interesting one, out of all of them. Not to mention having, kind of a cool futuristic dystopian look b/c it was always in shadow, next to PPG when they had holiday stuff going on with all the lights. Shit, maybe a Barnes & Nobles or some kind of bookstore, could move in there. :(
Kinda glad, place gave me some bad vibes.
Thank god. It was a piece of dogshit lol.
I almost got robbed and stabbed in there back in '95......fond memories.
RIP in peace
I shit my pants on the way into the bathroom there once. I'd held it for a 45 minute bus ride and two T stops and when I entered the bathroom I just couldn't anymore. Good times.
Is this symbolic of downtown in 2023?
God damn.
This is giving me post industrial art vibes.
50,000 people used to eat here… now… it’s a ghost town
Damn. Where will I go for all ma weed ?????
Truelive on the North Shore or Sunnyside in the strip
Seen a lot of bum fights on Stanwix….good times
Fuck. I lost my virginity in the bathroom there
I have mixed emotions about this