The Adventure of the Golden Arches
In which I share my love for a fast food chain...
2024 sees McDonald’s celebrate fifty years since they opened their first restaurant in the UK. On a recent visit, the local branch was decorated with characters that are long since retired- Grimace, the hamburglar and of course Ronald McDonald. As I sat and ate my free ‘birthday doughnut’ the retro decorations took me right back to my childhood.
McDonalds’s, particularly in the 90s and early 00s, was designed to appeal to children. The walls were adorned with the aforementioned cartoon characters and there were bright colours everywhere. One of the closest ones to home had (and still has) a two-storey soft play and this was before soft play centres were the big thing they subsequently came to be.
Most of all though were the happy meals. I don’t think I was especially driven by food as a child, certainly not in the way I am as an adult, and I can’t even remember what I ate there. I assume probably McNuggets as they are exactly the sort of beige food kids love. The highlight though was the toys. There would be great excitement when you’d arrive at McDonald’s and you’d run to the little window displaying the current Happy Meal offering. It was always thrilling- sometimes they would be a whole new set of toys or otherwise there would be great discussion to be had over which toy from the set was the most wanted. The toys were usually in those days were bits of plastic rubbish, cleverly tying into whichever film or trend was big with kids at that moment. There were toys for 101 Dalmations and The Lion King and a period where there were ‘teenie’ Beanie Babies included (the full set is on ebay as I write for just under £100!).
There is one particular range of toys that I remember most clearly. Back in the year 2000, the Happy Meal toys were a range of Winnie the Pooh toys to tie-in with The Tigger Movie. This was probably at the height of our McDonald’s going days as my brother and I had collected quite the set. After a while, though we had received multiple Rabbits, the worst of all the residents of One Hundred Acre Wood, and the disappointment became too much and my brother burst into tears due to his intense desire to get a Piglet. Enquiries were made to the staff but no Piglet was acquired. Because it was 2000 and emails weren't commonly used, my Dad wrote a letter to the manager who turned out to live at the end of our street and appeared at the door one day with a Piglet for my brother and a Tigger for me. The other toys were just standard plus toys but the Tigger had a spring in his neck so I felt like I’d won.
One of the other ways McDonald’s drew in the kids was by hosting birthday parties. In 1997, for my fifth birthday party, various children were assembled in the party room at McDonald’s. As well as the usual Happy Meal and time in the soft play area, there were some added bonuses. McDonald’s gave you a present and I was presented with a set of Crayola crayons and was delighted, declaring them the best birthday present of the year. The highlight though was getting to have a tour of the kitchen. Here are the friers where the chips go! This is the drinks machine! Do you want to press the button on the ice cream machine? In hindsight, a tour of a McDonald’s kitchen does not sound very exciting but is doesn’t take much to please a five-year-old. Before writing this I had a rummage and sure enough managed to find my ‘honorary crew member’ certificate from that birthday.
In 2004 the film Super Size Me came out where documentary maker Morgan Spurlock spent thirty days eating only food from McDonald’s and it affected his health. It later turned out that Spurlock was an alcoholic so it wasn’t exactly a fair study but the film led to McDonald’s and other fast food chains coming under scrutiny for their unhealthy food, quite rightly. This marked the end of regular McDonald’s visits for my household.
I didn’t go into a McDonald’s for many years but when I went to uni I was suddenly free from parental control and within walking distance of a McDonald’s so naturally ended up going from time to time. I soon discovered that somehow having a McDonald’s was an excellent cure for a hangover. It also had the added bonus that if you showed a student card you could get a free cheeseburger, making it a cheap option. I have fond memories of my housemate running down the high street chasing a burger that had fallen from his grasp and was rolling surprisingly well.
These days McDonald’s is quite different from when I was a kid. They’ve worked hard to include more healthy options- there were definitely no fruit bags in Happy Meals in my day! They’ve made efforts to be more environmentally friendly, ditching styrofoam burger containers for cardboard ones and replacing the plastic Happy Meal toys with more environmentally friendly ones, because what kid doesn’t want to play with some cardboard? These days you can even have a book instead of a toy. Long gone are the gaudy colours of the 90s and everything looks sleek and modern- there are phone charging stations, touch screen ordering screens and many have tablets installed on some of the tables for kids to play on. It’s not the same.
These days I find McDonald’s to be a relaxing place. I go most weeks before going to the cinema for breakfast- an egg McMuffin, a hash brown and a coffee. It’s usually quiet on a Sunday morning and I find the music they play is more to my taste than any radio station that exists. It’s a nice moment of tranquility in the week, a world away from the days of drinking too much fizzy drink, running round the soft play area and then throwing up when I got home.
Thanks for reading. I’ll be back in two weeks with more nonsense. Don’t forget that you can now subscribe via email and get these posts sent straight to your inbox- just press the big button below.