This speaks for itself

Look at how they mascaraed my boy. Enshitfication in its best example

And it also just got more expensive

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.

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.

This was in Dallas. There was another one in Brownsville that this happened to.

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
  
  It was just as unhealthy back then though.

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
- 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.
- My guess is because populations around the world are getting older, with an ever increasing median age. If there’s not enough kids to keep up profits, well time to focus on the adults, from their perspective.
- Bottom picture: for adults
  Top picture: for children and neurodiverse adults
  At least, that's my take since I like the top picture more.
- 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.
  
  Like a lot of things I'll bet it was an insurance liability plus a lot of labor to keep it clean and safe. McDonald's is struggling to survive in a business where new=exciting and what your parents grew up with=lame. Burger Kings are closing left and right where I live. They've done nothing to adapt.
  Funny thing about that conference room. I have an uncle who has quite a bit of money. He eats off of the McDonald's dollar menu (or at least he did when it was still a thing). He'll take us somewhere nice when visiting, he's quite generous but he always makes a point to mention he eats at McDonald's. He gives financial advice, i can see him holding meetings there
  
  Probably liability issues with kids getting the stupidest injuries and parents suing them for it.
  I blame the insurance industry and lack of public health care for this, not McDonald's.

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.
- Problem being that even when they try for that, near as I see they are still just as prone to demolish it and rebuild anyway. At best the framing is retained, but they rip everything out including the drywall and renovate.
- 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
- Same reason you see so many neutral colored cars these days. People used to have colorful cars because they were buying the car they'd be driving for years; now they get soemthing they know they can dump.
- Or the customers who were children grow up?

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.
- Look at fashion. There were huge changes from 1960s to 1970s to 1980s. The last wild change to clothes I can remember is pump basketball shoes. Cars used to come in dozens of wild colors; now everything is a generic neutral tone. BJork's swan suit is the last really outrageous fashion statement I can recall [I know someone showed up naked recently, but dozens of folks have worn equally revealing outfits over the years] Almost all the new movies coming out are re-makes.
  Look at James Bond. Amazon acquired the studio that owns Bond and pushed out the producers who'd helmed the character for decades. The creative process is in the hands of MBAs who only care about the bottom line. I can spend hours talking about how bad Henry Ford the man was, but I give him credit for truly loving cars and driving. I'll bet 99% of the car executives today don't drive themselves, so why would they care about the rest of us?
  
  I hear you but I have to disagree on fashion. Check out what the teenagers and 20 somethings are wearing in cities. There was also a racial divide in fashion and music when I was growing up that seems to be gone. Today you can spot a white kid wearing an ODB shirt and a black kid wearing a Nirvana shirt. Most of the "rules" are gone outside of work. I'm in my 40s and one day I might dress punk and the next I might have a more hip hop look. I can wear things that would have someone questioning my sexuality a decade ago and now it's normal for a straight person. It's fun and freeing.
  I tried to phrase that last bit so I didn't come off as a homophobe but I'm done messing with it.
- Pretty amazing to see some stuff about Solipsism and of the idea of what-you-see-is-what-you-are here.
- I’m the only one who really exists and the world around me is a reflection of my mental state?
  What did you (I) do to deserve Donald Trump? Is this a punishment for misandry?
  
  What did you (I) do to deserve Donald Trump? Is this a punishment for misandry?
  Yes. Unironically, yes. Young men have swung right in a way that the youth usually doesn't and it is in a meaningful way because Dems and progressives offer them little, blame them for much and the right welcomes them in with open arms.
  
  Another reason why this can't be Solipsism, Donald Trump is too horrible to be true, if the world was I see it, he would be a plot point in a really shitty movie panned for how unrealistic it is despite playing things so seriously.
  
  Misandry or misanthropy?

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.
- Unhealthy garbage, full of sugar, made off the backs of tortured animals not being peddled to children is a good thing.
  We need more fun, kid friendly spaces but I'm grateful there's one less hook these places have in children's minds.

Let's just say, I'm glad you guys aren't architects.
- Psshht. Imagine how badass the Empire State Building would look with a permanent King Kong statue on top.
  Now imagine EVERY BUILDING.
  I accept your apology.
  
  I disagree but I'm willing to accept a compromise at gargoyles.

Ronald's second term

It's the subtler version of hostile architecture. You know how they designed benches to be impossible for homeless people to sleep on? They do not want a customer to stay at the building after they have made a purchase. It is more efficient if the children do not come inside and a new customer can take their place. The building is not made for humans, it is made for money.

Hey, I live near that McDonalds!
It's right across from the Dallas Zoo, so you can imagine that there was a not insubstantial traffic of kids leaving the zoo and getting a McNasty with Cheese with their parents.
Everyone around here hated that they turned something fun and unique into another corpo hell hole of blandness, so there's that at least.

Code enforcement in cities and towns, especially more are more to blame for this than any other factor. Where I’m from the more affluent suburbs, barring in any kind of real individual expression or even signage.

I remember getting to play Nintendo 64 at our McDonalds. You could play things like smash, and usually could get in a full match before it did its mandatory reboot things.
Grocery stores would often have childcare areas up until the 90s I think.
So many of those little casual extras/“customer service” has gone out the window. It’s about stripping out everything that doesn’t immediately gain you profit.
Like, back in the day - retail worker was supposed to know their shit. It was a full time job. You could go to Dillard’s and some older guy could give you advice on what to match with what. You could go to a Radio Shack and say you were having trouble with a project, and there’d be a good chance that you’d end up getting some help.
But businesses would rather pay someone $9/hour for a part time job that’ll fuck with their hours every week. Why have someone who’s paid a living wage who can help sell you a really nice coat for a few hundred bucks, when you can pay some shit for some teenager to hawk polyester shit that wouldn’t even be worth paying a commission on?
It goes into this rejection of aesthetics - that all of these retail businesses are things which exist to funnel money. Aesthetics has cost - and might not even be agreeable to everyone! Why risk it when you could have Brutalist McDonalds.
- Your Radio Shack example is legit. I had an uncle who worked at Radio Shack as some sort of, idk, tech or something? I was a kid and it was in the 80's, all I knew was that he worked there and made good money doing it.
  Then one day he gets recruited by a multinational tech corporation and moves to Berlin to work in a lab. He could've taken my aunt with him, but she cheated on him as soon as he left for the 2 probationary weeks he spent in Germany before the company in question committed to hiring him.
  He eventually became a millionaire with dual citizenship and my aunt married some abusive dipshit who immediately went broke. Now she works in a pickle factory. Ain't life interesting?
  
  Just chasing pickle again and again
- Well fuckin said and spot on!
  Also thanks for reminding me how great Radio Shack used to be. It used to be a place to get actual electronics components. And the people there knew their shit. And there was enough intelligent folks around to keep a place like that in business! God I miss those days..
  
  another for the list of things with downvotes for no apparent reason
- Urgh this sucks so much how capitalism is just making everything more « efficient » aka maximizing profits.

They wanted to shift from marketing to children to marketing to adults so they could raise the prices.
- If I recall correctly, they were forced. There's an obesity pandemic going on in children, mostly driven by excessive use of sugars and overconsumption of fast food and sodas. So, there were certain regulations limiting how directed at children the marketing could be. They can still charge exorbitant prices to children, their parents are the ones paying anyways.
  
  Exactly. Nobody in this thread remembers Super Size Me?
- I'm an adult who also enjoys fun. 😢
  
  Me too but they won't let me in the play place anymore :(
  
  Enjoy fun?? Pftt grow up
  /s
- Yup, they tried to be cool and semi restaurant.

I know it's not a perfect example but I'm sick of modern design trends. Muted colours and uniform shapes, nothing ever interesting or emotion inducing. I'm probably pretty biased but still I'd love to see something that had some life to it.
- It looks like they're marketing now to an older demographic instead of just children. They're going for the "millennial gray" look which may encourage people to go to it as a restaurant instead of children activity.
- That's the point that I thought was obvious. Everyone else seems to be focusing on other factors..
  
  I feel you. They aren't necessarily wrong to concentrate on the other stuff, but the world did feel a bit happier when things had a bit of life to them, at least to me.

I'm kind of fine with not overmarketing fast food to children.
- Yes, but the right trajectory wasn't to make the building dull, it was the make better food for kids.
  
  I don't think McDonald's can make food that is fine for kids to get hooked on, without completely changing their whole deal
  
  Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

Not just McDonald's, every big chain has it's own neutral toned square box exterior now. Nothing interesting about any of the architecture. Not that they have to be great works of art, but everything looks exactly the same.
- I do think they have an obligation to be pretty. Pretty things make people happy. It's a contribution to the social project we're all working on.
  A walkable city, not that a McDonalds drive-thru is specifically part of that, should have greenery, places to hang out, and pretty buildings to look at. People should like being wherever they happen to be.
  If you compare the two buildings in the picture, the top one I'm sure you have to drive to, but it at least looks like an inviting place to hang out with your kids or something. The bottom one almost seems hostile to that idea. And the main reason it even looks like that is austerity. At least I think so. Big gray cubes are cheap to build and easily templateable.
  
  Now they are pretty, but I see why you're unhappy.
  
  The main reason this McDonalds looks like this is austerity. At least I think so. Big gray cubes are cheap to build and easily templateable.
  Yeah, that's the problem!
- Whenever I take road trips I try to spot the old Pizza Hut buildings by the shape of the roof. It's surprising how many there are.

This is misleading. The top picture is bright and sunny and the lower one is gray and dreary. Notice the tree in the background on the left without any leaves?
That is because the top picture was taken in the summer and the lower one in the winter when it is cold and the animals have been moved indoors to keep them warm. They will be back in the spring.
smh
- The first part, but unironically. Imagine how creepy the plaster animals look like in the evening. Or rain. Truly dystopian.
- Had me in the first half, not gonna lie 😄
- The gorilla was shot and killed though.
  
  Dicks out for Harambe
  
  But don't pull your dick out in a McDonald's.
  Trust me.

Architecture in the Soviet Union
- This is literally Dallas, Texas, USA.

TBF, the latter is a much better reflection of how lifeless and awful their food is.
- Really depends on the country. Technically the menu is almost the same everywhere but the ingredients and quality absolutely isn't.
- i was really hungover and had taken some painkillers with codeine and i had a single mcdonalds cheeseburg and it was dynamite
  
  I would wager it was the codeine painkillers that were dynamite and the burger was mostly a side effect
  
  I'd say most food tastes amazing when drunk /hungover, let alone on a codeine high
- The last time I ate McDonald's, I arrived in Pasewalk, a tiny town in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, on a much delayed train at 2 in the morning. They where the only place that was open, and I hadn't eaten since noon.
  That burger was kinda OK, but it might have been the circumstance. They stopped selling vegan burgers anyway, so whatever.
  
  Hunger is the best cook 🤷‍♀️
- It reminds me of the Griswold's neighbors in the Christmas Vacation movie, Elaine and Ponytail
  
  Todd and Margot
  
  The mistreatment of the yuppies is my favorite part of that movie. When she opens the door and gets attacked by the squirrel and then the dog, or when the icicle destroys their stereo I crack up every time.

More profitable than ever
- This is what I saw too

The playpen was nasty af tho
- I remember as a kid being in one, then a baby in there pissed like twice the amount of piss that their entire body could even displace from a tub. The parent collected the baby and left without saying anything to anyone. The thing then smelled like piss for the next two years until they renovated to the mccafe boring design and just got rid of the play area.

Ahem, not marketing to kids is bad?
Nah, bottom is better. Attracting kids to get the habit of eating unhealthy isn't.
- This isn't about McDonald's this is about society. All the colour and excitement has gone, McDonald's is just one of the casualties.
  
  Corporations can't, by definition, be victims. Fuck them all.

Just more proof of the efficiencies of Capitalism

Why should garbage unhealthy "food" be marketed to children though?

Ronald McDonald is a capitalist.

When will people stop eating that garbage.....?(probably never)
- It's getting too expensive so more are quitting now than ever.
- I stopped when I got old enough to realize the only thing I actually liked about McDonalds was the play place.
  Now I give it a try like once every 3-4 years to remind myself how much it sucks.
  
  I make the recurring mistake of trying KFC twice a decade or so and always, wholly regret it. Only place where I kind of appreciate that they always forget something in the order because the rest of the order would just make me throw it out anyways
- Why would I? It tastes good if you don't eat often, local one near me has nice atmosphere, it's relatively cheap if you want a snack ( ...bag of chips match their cheapest deal ) and overall, I like it. Why would I stop?
  I mean I did stop because their app ain't working on my phone due to change of ROM (...rly? My banking app works with some restrictions. Really, McD? )
  
  I understand. McDicks has it down to a science to keep people hooked. I use to enjoy it years ago and actually just thinking about it makes me want some. But its so damn processed its not even nourishing.

I really miss the unhinged topiary that used to be outside of every fast food restaurant when I was a kid.
- the unhinged topiary
- but you gotta cater to the potheads that show up and not scare them away with giant smiling animals

Looks like they changed their target group.
- I'm just surprised, looking at comments here, how many people here belong to the formerly targeted group.
- In both cases it's millennials. It's even called "millennial grey."
  
  It’s because as children we had sensory overload from the old McDonalds and the 90s in general were a very colorful time. Think Nickelodeon and Jazz paper cups, it was over the top, so we had to reign it in.
  
  I mean I think it looks pretty dope, if you take off that mcdonalds logo it would make for a nice starter minecraft house
- I think their target group is exactly the same, they just aged a bit
  
  Yes, that's what I actually also considered writing - you're reading my mind :)
- That actually makes sense.

Looks like their customers have grown up and they tried to follow suit and became boring adults.

I don't eat at McDonalds for many reasons, but if I had to walk through such a Chuck E Cheese-ass entrance to grab a burger I'd have one more reason to avoid it.
- Vou can roast the entrance but going to mcD and getting to play xbox inside, for someone who didnt have one at home, is a core memory
- Fuck mcdonalds and all that but honestly if a respected buisness had some fun and personality on their building why avoid it? Anyone can just put up a brick and mortar store it takes someone who actually cares to try and have fun.
  Also Charlie's entertainment cheese is now very much like this with their few locations it's just very basic no fun houses or little rides it's just an arcade now with VERY muted colors.

What... Is it saying? They changed branding? It sounds like it's supposed to say something more interesting?
- They're marketing towards adults now
- This is about real estate value for the next commercial renter if a franchise fails. Cheaper costs for corporate too.
  
  Truuuue, I think you're right. But shouldn't a picture say a thousand words?

yes, the brutalist taco bell aesthetic, will go down in history as one of the more curious periods of fast food branding, i'm noticing recently they're just now starting to feather in color and new signage again

I have never seen a McDonalds that looks like the top pic. I remember plenty with play spaces, but they weren't visible from outside.
- I spent a lot of time in the car crossing the U.S. in the 80's and 90's so I saw a LOT of McDonalds. Most of them are bog standard but once in a while you come across one like this where they spiced it up. I've seen one with a train engine out front, one with a parked airplane, etc. There's one in Tucson with a giant T-Rex statue in front of it. I've also seen some crazy play places with slides going out of the building and back inside. Would've loved that when I was a kid.
- Iirc this was the McDonald's just outside the Dallas zoo.
  If it isn't that one, the same thing happened to that one. Sad times.
  
  Pretty sure that's the Dallas one too.

Thanks for reporting the often ignored extinction of wildlife at the local Mcdees

someone got tired of mopping up all the jizz from the ball pit.

Hail corporate!

I smell a Pizza Hut

We’ve been turning in Russia all this time without even noticing.
- The difference is commie blocks have utility.
  
  Soviet bus shelters have more pizzaz than American McDonalds.

Latter is better NGL. It's a fucking food place, not a zoo.
- its literally the mcdonalds next to a zoo that everyone used to rave about visiting in their childhood when they made a zoo trip
  
  lol
  
  What? What are you even on about? What zoo trip? Where? Who's everyone? Are you okay?

They're the same picture.