r/interestingasfuck • u/Charming_History7423 • 12d ago

/r/all McDonald's in the 80s compared to today

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u/Kimberlylynn2003 12d ago

Did they change to stop marketing toward kids or just wanted modern?

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u/Linenoise77 11d ago

easier to clean, more flexibile seating if you are crowded, allows them to have an overall theme across restraunts when you have locations that don't have a place to put trees in the middle of your seating area, less to maintain, avoids looking dated, etc.

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u/roll20sucks 11d ago

110% on easier to clean. The other stuff is valid too, but people love to nostalgia-jerk that image without realising how many nooks and crannies there are for all sorts of things to be forced into.

People forget how nasty they behaved inside McDonalds, pickle racing anyone? The stark sterile hurts our fee-fees but a worker could spot any wayward pickle a mile away in the new store and be able to reach it with the omni-mop in a single sweep.

Don't get me wrong I loved the warmer feeling of the older styles but younger me as has encountered way too many uneaten fries, melted ice cream, fucking pickles, and who knows what else, I see that image and can just feel how sticky everything was.

Does it beat the everything smells like wet-dog-mixed-with-fry-oil and looks like a bus station of the new ones? No probably not but I won't give McDonalds all the blame for the decision to make the change.

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u/Linenoise77 11d ago

Yup, first thing i thought of was how grody that tree must be in that picture.

I'm not a germophobe by any means, but that thing was probably a superspreader for every cold that passed through town. Even if you actually tried to keep it clean it would be next to impossible, and lets face it, whoever was cleaning a 1980s mc'ds probably gave less of a shit than someone doing it today.