If they’re walking past senior centers to get there, it sounds like there’s a new manager or district manager for the McDonalds who looked at the numbers and asked what the hell is going on here? I’m sure there are cultural aspects, but basically they’ve been doing it for five years, they like it, and they don’t want to even think about changing.
But the article mentions the numerous senior centers in the area, “Yet there seem to be no shortage of facilities that cater to the elderly in the neighborhood. Civic centers dot the blocks, featuring parlors for baduk, an Asian board game, and classes in subjects from calisthenics to English. Mr. Lee, who comes to the McDonald’s from Bayside, passes several senior centers en route. One is a Korean Community Service center in Flushing, which recently changed a room in the basement into a cafe with 25-cent coffee after its president, Kwang S. Kim, got word of the McDonald’s standoff. No one has come.”
Yep. When I worked at McDonald’s, lo these many years ago, we had something similar, though not to this extreme. A group of old guys would come in every day, order a coffee and a biscuit, and sit there shooting the breeze with each other for 3-4 hours. For us, it wasn’t a big deal, because there were always enough seats for all the patrons. The old guys usually left before lunch rush.
But my point is, there were plenty of other places around for them to go. Senior centers that were reasonably nice, other restaurants, etc. They just liked McDonald’s because it’s what they were used to.
Maybe they don’t want to sip bad coffee with powdered creamer in a windowless basement?
Of course they are now entrenched, hence the need for mediation. But there is something missing from these senior centers. It may be surly staff, ugly furniture, poor lighting, a lack of community, etc. But the managers of these program are obligated to serve their customers. If that isn’t happening, either management is under performing, they need more funding, or there is some unique situation that requires innovation.
This sounds remarkably similar to the McDonald’s experience. Ours did have windows, but otherwise, bang on.
In my personal experience, McDonald’s seem to be quite tolerant and respectful towards people who loiter and homeless customers. In the downtown of my city, the washrooms of the Tim Hortons and Subway restaurants all require a key or are remotely opened by the cashier to use. McDonald’s also seems to “subsidize” the homeless population with their new McRewards program which is 1 free medium hot drink for every 7 drinks. Lately, all the homeless here have been collecting the stickers off of cups as they are worth about 30 cents or so each. If you visit the downtown McDonald’s here in the morning, nearly all the patrons have been loitering for hours. I do think that it is rude to hog seats if the restaurant is nearly full however. Check out this article about loiterers at McDonald’s in Thailand:
http://blogs.wsj.com/searealtime/2012/12/21/mcdonalds-targets-seat-hoggers-in-thailand/
Agree. Maybe they want to be out in the community, not imprisoned in a senior center. I used to talk to the codgers in the McDonald’s where I used to frequent in the mornings — nice, friendly guys just as interested in me as they are interested in telling me about their grandchildren. Interaction.
But monopolizing the place all day isn’t acceptable either. They should do like my guys did, shove on before the lunch crowd arrives.
I do have sympathy for them, though. They’re lonely.
It’s weird as the McDonald’s closest to us actually courts the senior demographic. They host coffee talks and bingo nights. It’s kinda strange but nice. Maybe it’s a Midwest thing. I’ve also seen in several local fast food places pictures of the “regular gang” of seniors that occupy the same table on a frequent basis.
People can hang out in their damned homes. They could pool their weekly coffee money and buy a Keurig and choose someone’s kitchen, a place with windows and real cream.
This is interesting. There are a few McDonalds in the Chicago area that I frequent that have this issue. One on the Northside near Lincoln Square seems to be just a bunch of old guys sitting around chatting. they seem to rotate fairly regularly. I haven’t heard much about it being a problem since they may take up 50% of the seats but there never appears to be shortage.
The one in Deerfield near my office just closed and renovated and the problem went away. Before the renovation it was a big, uncommonly nice McDonalds. It didn’t feel institutional at all, even homey. It was sectioned off into many different rooms and those rooms each had a different decor. A couple particular rooms were isolated enough that the seniors would come in and set up dozens of what appeared to be bridge/rummy games and spend all day playing cards and sipping coffee. Again, I don’t know if it was a huge problem or not since the place was big enough to handle the rest of the customers when I was there.
The interesting thing about the renovation is that they entirely eliminated these isolated back rooms and installed a bunch of fixed booths that circular a central lounge area. There’s far less overall seating available. In short its no longer conducive to big group socializing and card playing. Not sure if it’s too much of a leap to guess that the seniors motivated the reconstruction, but I think it’s pretty clear the design choices had that in mind.
It’s a bit unfortunate, McDonalds has been trying to cultivate that neighborhood feel and connection and I think they would be happy to have a haven for seniors so long as they didn’t monopolize the space, spent at least enough money to not be ridiculous and were considerate of rush hours. This is probably a case of a few bad apples ruining it for everyone. McDonalds understands the PR involved here and probably could justify the cost of housing them as a positive branding and community outreach program.
Haven’t you ever been at home and debated going out and decided to go out for beers or a movie, in spite of the fact that you have cheaper beer and Netflix/Redbox at home?
Sometimes just the act of being in the world, in society, is important. They are bored and lonely. That doesn’t give them any right to infringe on someone else’s enjoyment or ability to make a buck, but it’s fair for them to prefer a Mickey D’s to the other options.
Most of the bars in my neighborhood are loaded with people just hanging out, watching the game, chatting and nursing one beer. So long as they aren’t ruining it for the people who are there to actually drink and eat the bar views it as beneficial to the ambiance and social nature of it.
McDonalds is in a different place from a economic POV (and it’s unclear if the seniors are good or bad for their brand on the whole) but this isn’t exactly outlandish.
There is a McDonald’s by my work with a group of Seniors that do this. They are there breakfast time and lunch time (I have never stopped there dinner time). They gather in a corner and as far as I know are there every day. They buy coffee and some food and the staff seems to know them by name and be friendly.
One of the articles about this mentioned that the seating area in this restaurant is small, and these guys are arriving as early as 5am and staying until after dark.
I think it just takes common courtesy, something that is hard to find sometimes. If I’m finished eating in a restaurant and all or nearly all the tables are full, I don’t loiter. Otherwise if I want to sit around for a few hours and buy something once in a while it seems fair.
The seniors McDonald’s thing has always seemed odd to me. There was one right by daughter’s middle school that had the same six or so men sitting in the same booth every time we came in for a quick sausage biscuit and chocolate milk. They never seemed to have anything but coffee and seemed well settled in. I know my father likes to go out with his friends but they frequent different restaurants. Perhaps it is a low income thing. That being said, I think if the McDonald’s is losing business due to this practice they have every right to set a time limit and enforce it. If they want to come back every twenty minutes and stand in line to buy something else, fine. I also love the idea of heavy metal music piped in.
<harp music> When I was growing up in a small town in the 1960s and '70s, there were at least two Koffee Klatches operating, one at a diner and another at the drug-store lunch counter. The drug store branch was still functioning until the 1990s, though the lunch counter had long been torn out. They still kept a table for the regulars to drink a cup of coffee and eat some crackers (Nabs) each morning and exchange gossip and other vital information. It’s nothing new; it has just moved to a fast-food joint, like everything else in America. 
I wouldn’t be surprised if many of these ladies and gentlemen live in crowded multi-generational households, or alternatively, small apartments with extremely limited space. Furthermore, if Korea is anything like China, it’s normal and expected for the elderly to spend much of the day socializing outside of the home.
The McDonald’s in question is located on the busiest street of a neighborhood absolutely packed with upwardly mobile asian immigrants. It’s small and always busy. Meanwhile there are at least 10 places to sit and have a coffee in a 5 block radius, including at least 5 asian bakeries, another McDonalds, a Burger King, a Wendy’s, Popeyes, and innumerable bubble tea shops. This is aside from the multiple senior centers, the brand-new Parks Dept rec center (free for seniors), the dozens of Korean churches (and dozens more non-Korean churches) that they could visit if they chose. They have chosen one specific tiny, incredibly busy McDonald’s to target and there’s only one possible reason they are doing it. Because they think they can, ie, they are assholes.
If all the non-assholic motivations were true (they’re lonely, the seniors center(s) are depressing) all they would have to do to show a teensy shred of consideration would be occasionally rotate their all-day kibbitz sessions to other locations within a 2 minute walk. Given they are commuting from other neighborhoods on their own power, this is not beyond their abilities. They choose not to do this, and there simply isn’t any cultural or social reason that explains why.
I can’t speak to why they are targeting McDonalds, just why they don’t meet at home. Indeed, street view shows that the area is heavily built up with apartments.
There is more to this story. They’ve been meeting there for five years, and this just now became an issue. Something, somewhere, changed.
I would guess that the thing that has changed is that it used to be not-a-problem and now it is one. Flushing’s population is increasing; it has set a new record of population every year of the last five years.
I would note that at least one of the members commutes from Bayside, which is a neighborhood of single family homes and spacious co-ops, also heavily Asian. Now if they prefer the hustle and bustle of Flushing, I can understand it completely. But they are being asses about staying in this one particular spot.