I usually hate the removal of fun from public spaces, however not having a horrifically unhealthy place designed to attract children is probably a good thing.
this post was submitted on 04 Mar 2025
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The advertising model has changed, but the food is still slop and the goal is still to draw in big families who can't afford to make dinner. What's changed over the last forty years has been the means by which people are incentivized to enter the building. You're no longer trying to bait children from the side of the road with a big van that says "Free Candy". Instead, you're focusing on bombarding kids with advertisements on YouTube streams and targeting parents with gamified repeat customer incentives. But they've also focused more on getting customers out the door than in, improving the speed and reducing the front-facing staff, such that customers are encouraged to get their food and leave rather than linger in kid-friendly private sector daycares.
still to draw in big families who can’t afford to make dinner.
What
How would making food at home be more expensive than McDonald's ? Is this some sort of an American thing I'm too European to understand?
Average american parent works (2) 40 hour jobs. So a 2 parent household is working 160 hours a week, and still cannot even afford their 4 car payments on top of the $349 espn sports package.
Anyway, no one has time to cook! Or even knows how to! Now hang on, I just pulled into chic fil a we’re going to be in line for about 30 minutes before i can get my order in.
How would making food at home be more expensive than McDonald’s ?
Time is money and if you can't afford the time to cook and clean, you're stuck brown-bagging it at a fast food restaurant.
Is this some sort of an American thing I’m too European to understand?
It's a consequence of American suburban life. Transit time costs are enormous. If you're throwing an hour+ into your commute, you often don't have time to cook. Fast food lets you grab a meal and eat in the car on the way home.
Okay that's an explanation with some logic in it, but like unless they have your order ready when you drive into the parking lot, there's several dishes I could cook as fast as it takes for you to go pick up a brown bag.
Granted time is a luxury I find myself having too much of often so maybe I'm like one of those super rich guys who doesn't understand the cost of a milk carton.
But nah, I don't think I am here to be honest.
If you said "doesn't have the energy to cook" I'd get it but time/energy, eh pretty interchangeable.
It isn't faster but what it is, is more convenient and that I can see.
This was a McDonald's next to the Dallas Zoo...
That's because the nature of the marketing model has changed. Mcdonald's has shifted their marketing demographic to exclusively adults due to the decades of growing backlash and lawsuits over the nutritional value and predatory practices of targeting children. Among many other controversies. Of all the businesses in any industry, this is probably one of the worst examples to give.
Yes, their's truth from an architectural stance that does show a shift to contemporary minimalism. But McDonald's, while perhaps not the most inherently evil company in the world, at least by the amount of true harm they purposely do or the product they provide and those who voluntary choose to consume it. Is still a reflection of many of the United State's problems. Everything from issues concerning wages, labor relations, nutritional literacy, and lifestyle practices, to name a few.
CONSUME
Slowly all colour and fun is being removed from our world it seems.
Only on overcast days
The death of Skeumorphism, the rise of brutalist minimalism.
Personified into the real world.
Thats not brutalist, brutalism involves large scale raw concrete forms.
This is just cheap boxitecture.
What is the skeuomorphism here? Because I don't think that word means what you think it means.
In this case literally a Zoo.
But I was speaking for the physical manifestation of the transition of our software personified onto McD buildings.
Isn't the business model based on getting people to love it when they're kids and become addicted then, before they're able to critically think about food, and then coasting on the people that have fond memories of it?
The adults going there now were kids in the 80s and 90s, and remember the old style. No kid gives a rip about a place that looks like this, with no characters or colors. Even today when I see red and yellow together it makes me think of them, but now it's all gray, brick, and beige, with a dollop of yellow just for the logo.
Personally I like this boring look fine. But damn if it's not gonna take a huge hit from being loved by generations that have no memory of fast play places and mascots.
Getting rid of the play area is probably good though because I mean really they are gross if you just think for a few seconds. But capitalism does dictate wringing every drop of injury money from anyone whenever possible.
Now while I support draining the bucks from corporations, ruining opportunities for kids to have fun memories too. If only having fun wasn't so injury-prone.
I'm my country they made it illegal to market fast food directly to kids. It may not be a choice, it may be regulatory.
This is about the US, the undisputed capital of the fast food world. That is definitely not the case.
Additionally, you know McDonalds corporate office did all kinds of research; they wouldn't rebrand unless they were confident in the new branding. The sleek, monochrome building probably reminds people of cleanliness or something.
It's less complicated than even that, it's about real estate value, which is where McDonald's corporate arm really makes it's money. It's easier to sell a full gray box than one that is so obviously a McDonalds in a past life. Same thing has happened with Pizza Hut, they don't build them with the classic roofline anymore.
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Typical family with kids can no longer afford to eat here since the business model is to maximize shareholder value. So it makes sense to rebrand to the only people who can afford it.
the menu prices are insanity.
last time i was in there, they wanted 3 bucks for the shitty little burger they used to sell for 99 cents.
Not even getting started on 10 dollar bigmacs and other stupidity.
One is makeup the other one is the ugly truth
Not entirely, the food and price was also way better back in the day, especially the 90s
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McDonald's is now trying to appeal to adults and the building reflects that. They did away with Ronald and all the characters long ago. No more indoor playgrounds. No more cartoon movie toys. I think they still have happy meals but we're better known for their dollar menu now called a McValue menu
The McDonalds near me recently clobbered their tiny playplace and turned it into a ... conference room/center?
About the only time I went there was when I need a place for my kiddos to spend some energy on a rainy day at like 8am, before other things opened. I was happy to buy a coffee and biscuit for myself and maybe a treat for them to pay for my occupancy.
Now, though, and I know I wasn't a giant source of income, they have lost my custom and I just can't see how any real business would ever run a meeting in a McDonalds conference room, so it just seems like a dumb move.
Maybe they want to discourage parents bringing their children? That also seems pretty stupid.
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Wasn't part of it related to backlash McDonald's got from essentially marketing themselves to kids? Make the place look nuts, kids say that's awesome, let's go there, now you got kids eating McDonald's. Not suggesting that is how it goes, but I believe I recall reading something to that effect, regarding a rationale behind the new look.
As an aside, the building looks boring, but so does everyone's "shades of gray" interiors inside and outside their homes. I drove black cars forever because black is best color for cars, but I got a blue one now, because we are just surrounded in shades of gray everywhere, and it is, as the sublemmy states, a boring dystopia.
Yes they did get criticism for it but I can't say if the change came about because of it. I did read that they got rid of Ronald during that short time that there were news reports of people dressing up as clowns and freaking people out.
Yeah you're right about the colors of things. In the 90's there was a big deal made about cars painted green again
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Dude those ball pits were special, they don't exist anymore. Disease infested suffocation hazards, but special.
When places go bust faster resale value is more important. this means you need to build generic buildings that hold value when sold or rented.
McDonalds isn't a fast food company. They are a real estate investment company. Their former CFO said as much "we are not technically in the food business. We are in the real estate business. The only reason we sell fifteen-cent hamburgers is because they are the greatest producer of revenue, from which our tenants can pay us our rent." - Harry J Sonneborn
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This was in Dallas. There was another one in Brownsville that this happened to.
Also, it was definitely still colorful in, like, 2018. Don't know why they picked 2009 as the year.
Look at how they mascaraed my boy. Enshitfication in its best example
Honestly sometimes I wonder if some form of Solipsism is true and the reason the world isn't bright and colorful anymore is because I'm no longer a kid.
Now do I genuinely believe I'm the only one who really exists and the world around me is a reflection of my mental state? No, but sometimes it's fun to think "What if?"
But yeah the only fast food joint in my town with any color or a play place is a single chic-fil-a, and it's always overly crowded, so clearly customers respond to this stuff.
Don't eat at Chic-Fil-A btw, the profits go to passing Anti-LGBT legislation.
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There really is a lack of kids-themed restaurants. Rainforest Cafe, Old McD with play places, You'd think they'd be able to keep a place that caters to families open.
They'd need to charge amounts that families can afford for that to work.
Yeah, totally. All of fast food is in this downward spiral of giving you less charging more.
Looking at the menu back in 1980, you could get a meal for four for about $10.
That same meal today is just shy of $40
Unfortunately, inflation from 1980 is about 3x.
So they're about 25% more expensive than they used to be. But the mean salary per household is certainly nowhere near 3x.
The cost of housing and everything else is way above 3x.
Economically as a society we're in pretty bad shape, we're scraping that lower limit of infeasibility.
And it also just got more expensive
For laughs, I checked out how much the meal cost in my city. It's $12.
For two dollars more, I can get a better burger at my neighborhood bar.
Last time I ate mcdonalds we paid 15 euros a person which is quite a price for the garbage quality
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All fun and games untill obesity sets in, probably before puberty. McDonalds tries it's very best to instill the habit of regular fast-food consumption in to children across the world. I'm all in favor for fun and games for kids, but I get uncomfortable when you target your fast-food chain at children. Let's just make a public playground for kids, and let's not allow the obesity-salesmen to target them.
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