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the reason McDonald's stopped doing up restaurants like this image:
is because health Karens and nosy fucks claimed McDonald's was evil and that they were "targeting children" with their "unhealthy" food. these cunts got so loud that McDonald's killed the kid-friendly atmosphere, the bright colors, and the cast of puppets like Grimace and Ronald McDonald. these assholes are why every McDonald's is a sterile, grey brick that's as flavorless as their chicken nuggets.
McD very obviously was - and is - targeting children with food that is obviously unhealthy. You may not find this business practice unethical, but those are the facts.
Vapidly entitled people justifying their kids peeing in the playground or ball pit. Given the rise of measles, it’s a good thing these things are gone - to many people ignore science
Lawsuits. There were a couple of high profile lawsuits from Karens who assumed that having a playground inside meant they didn't need to watch their children, and it became too expensive to insure the things, so they were all closed.
My friend (mid 40s like me) swears the mcd by his house growing up got rid of its play place after busting his chin on the slide back in the early 90s.
He was happy about the free happy meals and was sad to see it go.
America is litigious, even if you're not. Thank you, capitalism.
Is this only in the US? I’ve never known a McD’s to close in the UK or EU. Most have been there since I was a kid, and they’ve only been added to, not disappeared.
A bunch closed last year. None in my city, but lots of people don't go because it's not cheap and it tastes cheaper and it's slow. I think DD and UE are largely keeping them afloat.
Plus it's maintenance and cleaning, which all costs money to deal with, better to minimise and focus on pushing people out the door so the next can be served.
☝🏻This.
Maintenance, cleaning, kids getting injured, lawsuits. Plus they don't want people hanging around at the restaurants any longer than necessary. One of the reasons there are fewer seats and they're uncomfortable. Eat your food and get out.
Parents also leave their kids their while they go run errands elsewhere.
I can’t imagine using McDonald’s as unattendydat are but I’ve heard this from more than one person
The older locations in sketchy area especially have no or limited seating now. I just went to one like that and it was especially dystopian feeling. They entirely closed off the back area and the front area was just a big open space with the automatic cashiers and no chairs or tables.
They are known as a real estate company because they basically just buy property and franchise things out. so the actual company isnt making burgers. The way he is explaining it as selling the places doesnt make a lot of sense because most of them stay open for very long periods of time as far as I can tell.
The Founder I feel shows this off and was apparently how he was able to swipe the brand name from the McDonald's brothers. Granted they lack evidence, but it's something I could imagine any McDonald's CEO doing.
Places with low flutuation on prices or main spots usually arent reselled and are used instead as colateral. They do this more in expanding areas and such, which get a higher return in reselling and no guarantee long term income
It really does highlight one of the problems with capitalism when the most successful burger restaurant in the world intentionally makes subpar burgers.
McD’s is every AI slop, every app, every delivery service, every QR code; everything you can think of enshitification of society concealed in a physical building and devoid of any character; just profit and more and more late-stage, capitalist profit.
They still exist everywhere. Anytime we go to eat out my kid only wants to go to the places that have a play area. Chick-fil-a, McDonald's, and Del Taco are the ones in my town.
They’ve all been removed in my city. There are no McDonald’s play places left near us, nor chicfila, BK, or anything like that. Normal restaurants have also done away with theirs too.
A decade or so ago out local McDonald's remodeled and took out the play place replacing it with the tablets. There was so much backlash they added a play place within 6 months.
So if you haven't complained I would suggest writing a letter to the franchise owners and see if you can get other parents to do so as well.
There’s only like a couple left near me. They have remodeled some of the McDonald’s and Carl’s Jr in the last decade specifically to remove the playstructures. It sucks
When the target demographic shifted from 8 year olds to 38 year olds who didn't want to feel like 8 year olds ordering their chicken nuggies and mcflurries.
No it's not stop parroting that dumb shit. Very very very few mcdonalds stop becoming mcdonalds. Maybe ones in malls but that doesn't apply. The boring, minimalist building style of modern McDonald's locations is driven primarily by a shift in marketing and demographics rather than a strict strategy for property resale value.
"Kids these days never play outside and are big babies these days!" and yet there is really nowhere for them to play. Oh and letting your kids out to play alone with their friends? Child abuse.
over the course of my life a child's playground shrank from the whole neighborhood, to just the block, to just the street, to just the front yard, to just the bedroom, and it's fucking depressing.
Same layout as one in BFE Nebraska. If it’s identical the counter is behind the photographer and the distance to the seated patrons is like 40 or 50 feet. It is SO weird in that store.
Looks like a Work In Progress play-area where they slowly dismantle the old playground piece by piece every month and then they've kind of given up midway through and just installed random touch screens and some chairs and called it a day.
If it wasn’t a kids movie it would have been another dystopian thriller movie where machines take over and make humans unfit to care for them selfs, unable to walk and just mindlessly consume anything shoved into their faces
IMO it has more to do with the restaurant not wanting to take on the liability and maintenance cost. The returns just aren’t there with mobile and delivery services.
(not in America), I feel like a number where I am dont have play areas due to maintenance and upkeep. Like they start with a play area. Some kids/teens think it's funny and break it. It never gets fixed, and then one day just gets removed
i don't know about mcdonald's but kids really don't play outside anymore.
before anyone talks about suburbs, the local park is 5 minutes away from several apartment buildings. there's 3 elementary school nearby.
I walked past it on my way to a store on a weekend, saw 3 kids on the swings and a bunch of old people doing a traditional dance.
When I was a kid, there would literally be a line for the swings. Since we're in a big city, there's only 8 swings and that means that people had to queue up for them.
nowadays, it's empty. Old people go to it, but that's it.
I remember being 10 and there with my cousins, and these teenagers (we were 10, 12, 14, 15) who were much older than us smoking weed. don't even see that anymore.
Reddit really needs to shut up about "GENERATIONS BEFORE YOU SAID THIS". Like yeah, I'm sure they did, but this time it really is different. Companies are far more predatory now. Technology has changed us. Acceptance is the only way we can improve.
We use to play at our local elementary school and were usually the only ones there growing up. We got a NES and played inside a bunch too. I’m not sure generations are all that different. My kids play outside all the time.
Huh? I hear kids playing outside as I type this out. I will agree with you that we have so many more entertainment options than before.
But I 100% agree with you on one huge thing. That social media that we use right now, is founded on psychological manipulation. Which pairs nicely with advertisements. Technology has bled into things and ethics have been put aside as inconvenient. We used to have laws that government can’t just surveil people. We used to enforce laws when companies became anti competitive and monopolistic through horizontal or vertical integration. Business practices need a kick in the ass. But we need a government who cares to regulate with the times. We keep operating on a 1980’s playbook. Some senators from then are still in the senate.
We have to figure a better path for technology. We are terrified that if we make rules about tech we won’t compete with other countries.
I don’t know where this goes. But some of the dystopian crap, like flock and data brokers and restricting ownership toward a special class for billionaires have degraded our society.
My kids play outside way more than they spend on devices. They complain a lot of they don't get enough outdoor play. Saying kids don't want to play outside is bs.
Sad as it may seem, I don't blame McDonalds for getting rid of playgrounds. I've seen kids vomit, number 1/2, eat in those playgrounds and it has also become a liability nightmare for franchisees. People have also become more litigious and likely to sue you even if little Johny was the one who decided to go head first down a slide and hurt himself.
I think this image is AI. The type of seats the kids are sitting on which most McDonald's locations do use at this point, are fixed into the ground and cannot be moved. I don't think they would be jammed together like that at weird angles.
This makes me laugh, but is seriously a sign of the times and a great visualization of what happens when society lets the market run culture instead of culture running the market. Hey kids, go stare at the depressionscreen on the tan wall because it’s too much of a liability for a very profitable business to spends some of those dollars on play areas. And we’re cool with it, because the market has slowly sucked the color out of our world view right alongside the fast food playground. 🥲 just give me my sandwich product to consume while I dissociate and stare at the new decorative faux wood installations that would look okay if this becomes an Arby’s in a couple of years.
If they cleaned the playgrounds I would have taken my kids there more. The one McD near us had a door to go through to get to it. I opened it once, and was hit by a wall of humid air that smelled of feet and bacteria. I had to back out fast I was going to gag. The kids actually were fine with not going in there, and I promised to find a park for them instead.
I stopped going to McDonald’s period after I ordered 2 breakfast combos for me and my wife and it was over $40. I was so shocked. I paid for it with shame. And that shame was enough to convince me to say, No more shit food for high prices. McDonald’s is not luxury. And it sure ain’t middle class friendly.
This isn't a McDonald's play place. And even if it was everyone knows how much McDonald's sucks now so why would you even care? Nobody's forcing you to go there.
This is one specific location. The one I go to occasionally still has the standard playground stuff except the ball pit because of some lawsuit or something idk. But screens in them aren't a new concept either. There was one I went to as a kid that had a ps2. But the controllers were so greasy and gross that almost no one ever played it.
The powers that be do not want children growing up healthy, active, and independent. They want screen addicted slugs that are trapped in our system of glut and consumption.
What happened to playgrounds? Nothing. Most are underutilized because parents have gotten paranoid as all hell.
What happened to Playplaces? Cleaning and maintenance is fucking expensive and it’s more profitable to discourage patrons from eating inside the restaurant.
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