McDonald’s

This has sadly become a hang out for all the NED youth. Upstairs is a riot. Forever young ones taking up all the seats without buying anything, or the ones who do throw food around like animals. I have heard some of the woman staff abused before in the past. I think the manager needs to take a long hard look at yourself and think. «Do I want to run a fast food outlet or a chav meeting point» the public deserve it and so do your stuff that have to put up with it.

This place seems to have been closed for weeks for refurbishment. Such a busy past weekend in Liverpool and it’s closed and boarded up and on such a prominent site. Let’s just hope that those who normally used it regularly will permanently stick to the alternative that they’ve been forced to find and that it’s not another branch of McDonald’s. This company like so many others has become too sure of itself.

If you like bargain booze, chances are you probably like bargain burgers too, right?
Loved and loathed in equal measures, McDonalds is without doubt the cheapest place to get a burger in the city discounting burger stalls around the football stadium. Prices are ludicriously cheap considering you’re buying ‘quality meat’ and you can choose between hamburgers, cheeseburgers, quarterpounders, Big Macs and the company’s new bad boy, the Chicago Supreme. There’s meal deals that allow you to add fries and a soft drink for extra pounds and a whole load of extras like chicken nuggets, apple pies, flurries and milkshakes.
Would I eat there? Having seen Fast Food Nation, I can confidently answer NO!

You know, I have to tip my hat off to McDonald’s. Like most institutions that have been in existence for a long time, it’s a great big bulls eye for criticism.
And, conscious of it’s ubiquitous proliferation in every space in every town, city and country, it has at least tempered it’s image.
Whether through choice or not, it listened to those vitriolic voices that campaigned against it’s unhealthy foods and some would say, unethical, attempts at global brand world domination and tempered its ways.
McDonald’s is embracing a new branding. It’s more self-​conscious of it’s image, unashamedly so, but at least this has resulted in a trendier facelift.
Gone are the primary colours of yesteryear, to be replaced by softer and more subtle shading. Cheap plastic and Hamburglers and even the (I can admit it now) slightly sinister Ronald McDonald (clowns freak me out).
Aware that today’s fast-​food doesn’t have to compromise on taste by espousing a healthier salt content, it has publicly recycled it’s menu and provided healthier alternatives to it’s usual fare.
And much like the way the East was opened up to the West with the fall of Communism, the Berlin Wall of silence has fallen and buyers can find out how many calories are in those Big Macs.
McDonald’s doesn’t operate as a franchise any longer, it’s maintaing more control over what it delivers customers and how it delivers it.
So, what do all these changes spell for the average consumer who wants to enjoy a Big Mac much like they did in the bad old days?
Well, it means before gorging on a tasty burger you’ll be ladened with facts and figures about what you’re eating — so you’ll be a better informed, if still unhealthy diner.
You’ll have more variety and healthier (i.e. less calorific) alternative to choose from, should guilt consume you post work-​out.
You’ll also be able to enjoy a nicer ambience should you choose to eat-​in and not take-​out.
Cheap, cheerful and despite the face-​lifts, still fundamentally the same place we know and love (and hate). Albeit more style conscious and physiologically geared in catering for 21^st Century eating habits.
I can only commend McDonald’s abandonment of Ronald for a more mature setup (targetting kids specifically is always a souring ploy, if not exactly unique to McDonald’s).
I will take umbridge, however, in its use of the term Restaurant in the rebranded name.
Whilst I have no doubts, that this is a transparent method of publicly acknowledging itself as a more adult and responsible McDonalds, evolved from yesteryear and a real alternative to any eating establishment — it is certainly a misnomer.
Personally, I’ll stop short of calling it a restaurant just as I’ll stop short of labelling the 16 year olds who grill the burgers as chefs.
Part of its charm is of course, that it has none. And a Burger by any other name is a Burger.
Base food for our sometimes baser instincts and McDonald’s does it (on the whole) better than most.