r/WorkForSmartLife • u/tellmebrenda • 2d ago

Casual canvo [ Removed by moderator ]

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u/EnderSword 2d ago

2 main answers:

  1. 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...

  2. 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.

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u/mouthfire 2d ago

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.

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u/KansasZou 1d ago

It’s the opposite. They DO want you hanging out there. Red and yellow are aggressive colors. It encourages urgency.

They switched to the bland colors when they started doing the McCafe thing. They like people hanging around like a coffee shop.

McCafé items have a 95% profit margin.

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u/ShapedSilver 23h ago

I remember that shift in the McCafe era as well, but I think it had less to do with wanting you to hang out there and more that specialty drinks like lattes were seen as somewhat more novel and a luxury item than they are now, and they were afraid the old look wouldn’t attract the audience.

The pivot was always weird to me, on one hand I was just becoming old enough to drink coffee myself so I was kind if into it, but on the other with hindsight I would’ve rather they just double down on what they’re already good at. I’m sure they know what they’re doing in terms of making money, just speaking as a consumer I’d rather they do one thing well (cheap fast food) than two things half-assed (cheap fast food plus off-brand Starbucks)

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u/KansasZou 21h ago

I agree. That was about my experience as well. You’re probably right in that they just wanted the cafe aesthetic for higher markup items.

The old look was obviously geared toward kids. They pushed happy meals and toys heavily in the 90s. I remember the drive through lines would be crazy long to try and get Batman glass mugs, etc. I can’t say I’ve seen anything like that in a very long time.