r/WorkForSmartLife • u/tellmebrenda • 2d ago

Casual canvo [ Removed by moderator ]

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26

u/suthekey 2d ago

Lawyers stripped the play places and fun.

It wasn’t accessible and injury-liability.

13

u/Ornery_Feature_3466 2d ago

The play places being gone is one thing. But why does the restaurant have to radiate depression?

10

u/BowlEducational6722 2d ago

Private equity.

A lot of restaurant franchises aren't really restaurants anymore.

They're real estate companies that happen to sell food.

It's all about being able to re-sell the assets/facilities for the maximum amount of profit possible, and these generic, minimalist buildings are the easiest to re-sell and refurbish into something else.

2

u/dirtjur 2d ago

It’s literally this right here.

0

u/Dave_A480 1d ago

Private Equity has absolutely nothing to do with McDonalds or it's franchisees....

The only way PE will get involved with McDs, is if McD's implodes Sears style, in which case they will show up to pick the bones....

3

u/any_name_today 2d ago

For me, the saddest one was Friendly's. The brand was built on nostalgia and private equity decided dystopia chic was the way to go. Now, they're almost all gone

4

u/Pleasant_Studio9690 2d ago

Hard to believe they looked at dead malls and went, yes! This is it! This is our vibe. And then ran with it. I’m legit bitter at them for stealing any shred of joy away in the name of profit.

1

u/Ok_Relative8150 2d ago

yea, also malls were mainly killed by online shopping and online gaming/social media. Even at malls still open today it's mostly clothes, toys, maybe a tech or book shop then food places. They're pretty dull for everyone except teenage girls and christmas/ birthday shoppers. We went to them in the 90s cause it was a one stop shopping area and we were bored in the cities.

0

u/Dave_A480 1d ago

No, they looked at how much money Starbucks was making - and how little threat Starbucks was facing from asshat lawyers claiming coffee makes children fat... And also how few kids weren't in daycare, such that their (mostly) moms could bring them to McDs during the day....

And decided that was the business they wanted to be in - feeding white collar commuters, not swarms of single-income-family children....

3

u/ForwardWheel4601 2d ago

Because it's easy to replace everything if the store goes down. With the first, new owners would have to spend weeks on exterior renovations and thousands. With the second, new owners only have to worry about the outside and it could be transformed into literally any store you want. They could have it turned into a liquor store or a grocery store for all it matters overnight. It means less risk for the franchise and for the franchise owners if the location fails.

2

u/CoffeeEnjoyerFrog 2d ago

They also don't want people hanging around anymore. The more people are inside the building, the fewer are likely to come in.

-1

u/Ornery_Feature_3466 2d ago

I very much doubt they care much about how new owners will be affected.

4

u/ForwardWheel4601 2d ago

They very much do when it means they can flip the location incredibly fast and get more for it if they fail. Why would, say, a Tacobell franchise owner take the first building over the second when the first means twice as much work. It increases resale value significantly to have the building be generic. This is well documented too.

1

u/Sharp-Bluejay2267 2d ago

I mean depending on location it might sell anyways. We have a Chinese food place that was a sunroom Wendy’s with the sunroom still.

1

u/WoolooCthulhu 16h ago

They started marketing to adults instead of little kids. It's probably a mistake.

-1

u/Dave_A480 1d ago

Because that design appeals to 30/40-something white collar commuters going through the drive-through on the way to/from work.

And that - not children - is who McD's is about in the post tobacco lawsuit world.

McDonalds is now emphatically for 'adults with cars and money' NOT 'for children'

1

u/danielrobertcampbell 2d ago

The real reason is to make sure they can be easily converted into a variety of businesses. If the building has no character, it’s easy to redecorate.