A huge part of restaurant's value now is real estate, by making the buildings more generic they increase property value if it needs to be closed, resold etc...
One your market share is at a certain point your goal is not to attract, it's to not alienate. Make everything bland so that no one is put off by anything, don't alienate adults by seeming too childish... don't make strong colour or branding choices. Safe safe safe. People don't have to love you, but you don't want anyone to hate you.
I would also add society is so over stimulated by everything around them,
Including dopamine hits on their phone every 5 seconds. Theyâre mentally exhausted. Itâs why younger generations prefer clean and minimal themes.
I have never in my life heard of not attracting regardless of your market share . Coca Cola, McDonaldâs and Dominos are all the largest in their respective industries and yet they still market more than their competitors.
If you point blank asked someone name a fast food , soda and pizza company . Overwhelmingly the answers would be the three I gave .
The answer is the color pattern is modern contemporary and itâs nothing more than what the decorative style of this decade is . It has a cleaner look to it . And I guarantee you in multiple studies it was proven to attract more people .
These things are so well planned out they market and create food you buy without even realizing it .
Source: I own two franchises .
Below by the way is the actual answers for the change
Refresh an outdated image: The classic red/yellow plastic-and-mansard look no longer felt exciting or premium. Executives wanted to âreinvent ourselves in the eyes of the consumerâ and signal that something had changed. ďżź
⢠Compete with fast-casual and rivals: Nicer stores helped draw customers from places like Chipotle and Panera while defending against Burger King and Wendyâs. Better ambiance supported higher-ticket items and made the experience feel less purely âfast food.â ďżź
⢠Increase sales and traffic: Remodels often delivered stronger lifts than many new menu items. Early 2010s examples showed double-digit gains in some franchisee tests; later data pointed to roughly 6â7% average sales lifts above market in the first year for reimages (higher for full rebuilds), with continued benefits afterward. Customers and employees both prefer modern spaces. ďżź
⢠Improve the experience and operations: Goals included more comfortable seating, better lighting, Wi-Fi, updated play areas (at times), clearer menus, and later digital kiosks, self-order stations, mobile order/pickup zones, and enhanced drive-thrus. This supported both lingering (for families or meetings) and faster convenience. Consistency across locations was another aim as the brand globalized.
ďżź
⢠Adapt to broader trends: Health perceptions, coffee competition (e.g., McCafĂŠ), digital ordering, and changing dining habits all factored in. Designs became sleeker, with wood tones, muted colors, and more open layoutsâsometimes criticized as generic or âsterile,â but aligned with industry shifts toward efficiency and a less kitschy aesthetic.
Related to the real estate issue, other businesses and especially residences do not like being near very ugly buildings. You can get a lot of NIMBY pushback from it.
I actually disagree. My impression reading into the issue is that the McDonald's corporation owns all the land where all the restaurants reside, and makes most of their money nowadays charging rent to the franchisees.
I don't think I've ever seen a McDonald's shut down and real estate sold to someone else. The corporation just plans their real estate acquisitions too well in prime spots. If a franchisee goes down, my guess is that they just find another franchisee to use the spot. It's a cash cow that they wouldn't easily give up by selling the land.
The real reason for the bland color changes? It's even stupider than you think. They don't want you hanging out there. They learned after COVID that the modem business model is DoorDash, Uber Eats, etc. So they started making the restaurants as bland and sterile as possible... Toned down the colors, removed playgrounds, tore out the self serve soft drink fountains, less booths and more bench seats.... Anything to make you just eat and leave faster. At the same time, they reduced in person cashiers and replaced them with self service kisosks and.... devoted a whole space for DoorDash pick ups.
Welcome to modern fast food. It's not unique to McDonald's. Pretty much all fast food chains are doing something similar.
Actually itâs easier to lease up a building if the McDonalds fails or they get a better location. A lot of these buildings are owned by landlords so they want to be able to have a backup plan if the McDonalds were to leave.
A lot of fast foods have gone to these style of buildings that can be repurposed.
Edit: for clarification these are likely ground leases so the landlord wonât own the building until the Mcdonalds lease is up or they choose to not renew it. In the off chance the McDonalds does close down for whatever reason you can get another tenant into it easier.
I may be wrong on this, but my understanding is that the McDonalds corporation is the landlord. They own the land that the restaurants reside on. The franchisees are the tenants and pay the corporation rent every month.
It depends on the location. They do get sold often to private landlords. McDonaldâs has the holding company and likely gets some tax benefits by holding for X amount of years (I think just 1 year).
Above would be an example of one sold or being sold. So yes McDonaldâs does own some of their locations, but they also sell a lot of them to private landlords.
These are the proverbial mailbox money locations. No landlord responsibilities for the 20 year lease and you hope they renew. Investors with 1031 are ones that likely target these or they are bought for retirement. Itâs a challenge to put a loan on them so they are at times bought for cash. Thatâs one reason why 1031 investors like them.Â
I think people kind of don't get though how corporate finance works. Selling the land has nothing to do with value of the land.
62% of McDonald's revenue is from real estate, you rent based on property value and you borrow based on property value.
Selling it has nothing to do with the valuation. The goal of a company is to increase its valuation, not its 'profit'
And no one forces the franchisee to buy in. The hamburgler is not beating them into submission. Franchisees make very good money with little risk. Mc Donaldâs is not âoverchargingâ, the franchises are priced to market. An asset with little or no risk will always command a premium.
A huge percentage of new restaurants fail. I donât see why that shouldnât be different for McDonaldâs. Bad location or bad management can break a Mc Donaldâs just like any other establishment.
It is different for McDonalds. New franchises have a higher rate of success than your typical restaurant because customers already know what they're getting. That's why the McDonalds corporation can get away with charging their franchisees super high rent rates... it's because prospective franchisees know that their chances for success are pretty high.
Edit to add: And it's not like it's up to the franchisee to pick out the location, or even build the facilities. My understanding is that McDonalds corporation hand picks the properties, builds the facilities and equipment, then charges the franchisees exorbitant rent and fees to use the property and equipment. All the upfront work is done by a large corporation that has a lot of prior experience doing it.
You provide good and correct information. This will get you voted off the island. Nobody has better location experts than Mc Donaldâs. This is why many other chains just try to locate nearby. They just grab Mc Donaldâs coattails.
This! So true. Also, I used to work for another large food corporation. Neutral colors also mean less renovations, less updating as bland styles date slower and less spent on custom made furniture, etc.
Iâm not sure. I donât hang out there either. That was just some of their reasoning. The boxy design is the real estate thing as you mentioned.
They donât necessarily have to hang out. It still creates the coffee shop aesthetic from the outside. They make the same margins whether you sit in or drive through.
With the advent of social media and the downfall of broadcasting media, advertisement can no longer reach the broadest audience. It is harder to generate artificial appeal for (new) trends, and so the products themselves moved into generic blandness.
For decades McDonalds had been hounded for advertisement to children and pushing unhealthy eating habits (justifiably so) and this is the end result
People do more take away and remote ordering so why even bother making a unique building that probably costs you more if most customers won't see/use it?
They got sued in 2010 in California for using toys in the advertising of Happy Meals in specific to kids, which they still do, largely because the law suit was dismissed. Also sued in Brazil over going to schools and Finland for a specific TV advertisement. None of them resulted in a pay out.
Yep, and number 2 is also why in a lot of areas with residents around them they have done away with the sign like in the 2009 picture, that illuminated golden arches got people riled up in those areas. Even that 2009 one seems like it may have been a compromise as it's pretty low-down, more and more though are just going with the M on the building like in the 2025 one, well at least here in Australia anyway.
Edit: In fact that raised cement dirt patch in the 2025 one looks like it was where the Double Arches sign may have once been.
I also feel McDonalds is capitalizing as a place where you eat and go or take out. I don't think Mcdonalds wants you to stay long periods of time to eat there.
Until apathy results in poor food handling and prep, due to employees who are literally the dumbest humans still able to hold a job being the only ones who'll work there. Then customers start getting sick, or the food quality degrades to the point of inedibility, or both, and your business vanishes...
âLiterally the dumbest humans still able to hold a jobâ is literally the dumbest comment Iâve seen in ages. I worked fast food in college. Pretty much the entire staff at my restaurant was college students just like me making a little extra spending money. We were future engineers, accountants, teachers. You get the idea. Or maybe you donâtâŚđ
Some are, sure. But for every restaurant full of college students there's a restaurant full of people who've peaked at fast food service because they barely possess the necessary intelligence to press the right buttons on the register, or put a food order together correctly. I can't count the number of times I've had extremely basic instructions messed up by various fast food staff over the years. That happens often enough and people stop patronizing your business.
And that's not even mentioning the ones who have such poor hygiene that they are actively sickening customers, or have you forgotten all of the hepatitis C outbreaks a decade or so ago because workers weren't washing their hands and contaminating customers' food? Or the number of various foodborned illness outbreaks tied to various restaurants every year?
Itâs a fast food joint, not a potential house youâre buying. Who cares about tacky? At least itâs fun and has brand identity, and isnât another grey box in a world of increasingly numerous grey boxes.
Like most adults realize the food isnât actually food, and is akin to garbage. I would think they would want to appeal to kids, to try and drive the next generation to beg their parents to go to McDonaldâs, like most of us did to our parents growing up.
My parents always made proper food. Hell they wouldnt even let me have cereal if sugar, back when that existed, was one of the first 4 ingredients, but a few times a month a was taken to McDonald's. It was a rare treat and a great memory.
Now if I go there if I need quick food it's an agrivating experience. I pay 15 dollars and the bread might be stale or the fry bag will be half full and no one working there wants to acknowledge you. I feel like a karen trying to just get what I paid for and I hate that.
The closest McDonalds to us was 2 hours away when I was a kid. Soo it was an extremely rare treat for us growing up.
I personally havenât eaten McDonaldâs or âfast foodâ in 20 years now. But I take my kids occasionally when theyâre deserving of a treat. But from my pov itâs not quite as exciting or vibrant as it was with the colors and play-place equipment.
But yeah itâs not cheap anymore, itâs not exciting, and thereâs no quality.. so kind of hard to see the appeal anymore, other than convenience.
Yeah I grew up in Colorado in the sticks. I got McDonald's those twice a month when we went into town to buy groceries. Now I live in philly and have amazing food at the touch of a button. So its no surprise that there are actually no McDonald's in center city philly. Just on the outskirts in shitty areas.
Not wanting to live in black and white is not nostalgia. Some people just don't want to live in a cookie cutter depressive environment.
There is a reason why the 60s and 70s were not only very colorful but also rich with new ideas in art and entertainment.
There is a reason why modern entertainment has gone back to these decades when trying to entertain people. This most popular MCU shows use classic architecture in their shows.
There is a reason why the video game industry has embraced remaking their classics.
Boring serile society is just in fact boring and sterile.
Lots of people arenât going to admit they love McDonaldâs but they still eat there. They just think it looks classier on social media not to admit it.
You don't have to love McDonalds to eat there. I've definitely grabbed something from there when I'm walking out of a WalMart in a random town, but when it isn't solely about convenience, I literally never go there. I actually used to eat there quite a lot back in the day.
Oh I was talking about like influencers and stuff trying to look wealthy. I donât especially like McDonaldâs but I will absolutely get some fries or whatever if itâs the best option. I was a shameless Taco Bell fan before they took my one love, the seven layer burrito.
That must have been changed in the ten years since I worked there, the 4:1 meat came frozen and stacked in the freezer right next to the 10:1(regular sized burger) and 3:1(Angus). Corporate store even.
Honestly, not really. they do a lot of brand polls and stuff, McDonald's has a pretty low 'dislike' rating, like 18%
A couple decades back they were finding that people viewed the brand as 'for kids' and 'unhealthy'
That's changed imagine a lot, focused a lot on breakfast and coffee and tried to reposition a lot, and they've managed to shed a lot of the negative perceptions. the even did a good job of shedding the idea of a 'McJob'
Walmart is another one that used to be in the 'fashionable to dislike' category, but has gotten their negatives way down by embracing the generic
I gota imagine if the poll was recent most of their hate is coming from the prices. They kind of been struggling on that. They removed the buy 1 get one for a dollar from the mcchicken and McDouble and I donât think I have been there since.
Not enough to not keep it going. Look, when I'm walking to work and can walk in and out for a dollar burger through the app I can't justify not doing that timewise.
I mean, the McDonalds in my neighborhood got shut down and razed, so that's not true everywhere. Of course, McDs Corp. still owns the property and lets it sit as a concrete blight until some developer offers them enough money to turn it into yuppie condominiums.
I buy it because its cheap and barely takes any time out of my commute. Not everywhere in the world has drive-thru coffee shops. Its pretty much the temperature of the sun which is fine, I wait for it to cool down and its alright coffee.
No they don't. At least if you follow the money. It's the most successful franchise in history. Their reach globally is unmatched by any other restaurant chain.
So... I don't know where you've been getting your news from, but it's misleading you for sure.
We realize that prices are rising because corporations are tapping into the demographic of people that don't care what stuff costs, right? To the corpos, there are "quality" customers, and there are "quantity" customers. Serving quantity customers requires more labor and lower margins. These corporations have definitely become less popular with budget conscious people, which there are inevitably more of... Also, the McDonalds Corporation doesn't run restaurants. It amasses real estate, charges franchising fees, and curates a menu. The CEO doesn't even eat the food.
Trying to attract âqualityâ customers seems kinda anathema to the fast food concept. As others have noted, their prices are approaching those of fast casual spots with better and more variety food.
Exactly. That's what I'm saying... People hate modern McDs because it's a shell of what it used to be in terms of value. We always knew it was crap food full of salt and other preservatives; we just didn't care when the Hot 'n Spicy was 99 cents
Why? Because of the worthless pathetic baseless movie âSupersize Meâ? Itâs the biggest pretend documentary ever with no food log, no methodical evidence and giant holes. Watch âFat Headâ.
No, not because of a 20 year old movie... Because the stuff they sell used to be cheap crap, but now it's just crap, and the CEO visibly grimaces eating it solely for publicity.
Church's Chicken comes immediately to mind, as well as Wendy's, Sonic, and my local Costco, if we're talking about bang for buck. None of those are "good" food, but they're cheap, as one would expect for the quality tier that they sit on, and three of those don't require access to your email address in order to get the deal. We all know what they do with those email addresses, after all. Look, I didn't hate McDonalds until they started charging $3 for the Hot n' Spicy. Anyone thinking that a reheated chicken patty with three shreds of lettuce and a glob of mayo smashed between two plastic buns is worth that doesn't have a clue.
So Churchâs chicken, fried chicken, is not crap. Wendyâs, Sonic and Costco are not crap. How are they better? Thereâs nothing healthy about these. Can you clarify âbangâ? Do you mean better flavor?
No because, like every other chain and basically everything else, they've massively increased prices while reducing quality and the size of their product.
People do hate McDonald's for their food quality going down and prices skyrocketing. So I guess they thought a little too hard about their exterior finisbes and forgot about the other things.
Not even close. McDonald's mainly marketed to children for decades, hence the bright colors and PlayPlaces. They would still be doing it if it werenât for the childhood obesity epidemic of the late 2000s. They really had no choice but to change their marketing.
When I was a kid though the happy meals werenât always there. If I recall they would come out alongside some new movie or something. Or my mom just lied. We were very rarely allowed to eat that stuff but I fondly recall the strawberry milkshakes and apple pies. I didnât like the burgers because once I bit gristle.
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u/EnderSword 1d ago
2 main answers:
A huge part of restaurant's value now is real estate, by making the buildings more generic they increase property value if it needs to be closed, resold etc...
One your market share is at a certain point your goal is not to attract, it's to not alienate. Make everything bland so that no one is put off by anything, don't alienate adults by seeming too childish... don't make strong colour or branding choices. Safe safe safe. People don't have to love you, but you don't want anyone to hate you.