McDonald’s used to have bright, cheerful colors, as well as Ronald McDonald and the Fry Gang. Burger King had popcorn and the BK Kids Club. Pizza Hut had arcade machines and jukeboxes, and the iconic red slanted roof.
Why have all these restaurants turned into Starbucks’ depressed cousin in the past 15, 20 years?
Most of their business now is drive-thru, takeout, along with Uber Eats/Doordash/Grubhub/etc. In other words, very few people actually sit in the restaurant to eat.
More IMHO than anything else, but…
I think it has to do with changing expectations.
When I was a kid in the late 70s and 80s, fast food was something -I- wanted, and my parents took me to, because I liked the food, or because I wanted a Star Wars themed glass, or some other promo. Sure, my Dad would eat fries, or occasionally a burger, but it wasn’t something they were actively looking for. It was a treat for me or my brother.
Fast forward to the now, and the kids that grew up eating fast food consider it the taste of their youth, or fast and easy, or just familiar/comforting, etc. They’re taking their -kids- there, but they’d go whether or not they have kids. So all the extras that appeal to the youth, the bright colors, the play areas, the games and arcades are just not really needed, and add to costs, compared to shoving everyone through drive throughs or carry out ASAP.
Again, IMHO.
The new Taco Bells reminds me of a modern Optometrist place. Where you picked out the frames that all the cool people have.
I want it to look look like some old Mexican cafe again. Boo to them for re-doing their stores.
Not much to add. I agree that the trend for fast food is drive-through to the point that many of them have already gone all-car with no inside orders. That’s the future except for some urban locations. Drive-throughs also cost less than maintaining insides. Money is usually the answer for everything, and fast food places look for savings of tenths of a cent, because that multiplied by a million is a lot.
I would say that Covid just hurried a trend already in existence. People don’t really want to be around other people. They prefer to exist in their own small boxes with nobody breathing in their faces. Interactions can be shunted online at all moments because of smartphones. All the excrescences can be eliminated and money saved.
Employees will be the next to go.
It feels nice to be a trend setter.
There’s also a modern stigma to fast food. A lot of us frequent fast food places the same way we used to rent VHS porn; quickly, discreetly, and definitely for consumption at home.
If you notice, all interior design these days has a morbid fear of color. People will design houses in white, black, and, if necessary, brown (if something is made out of wood). The idea of color is a bowl of flowers on the black table, but every wall is white.
Fast food restaurants are following the current design trend.
Have you been inside one lately? It’s deserted. Sound bouncing off the walls.
Kinda creepy.
Order from a kiosk while counter help plays on their phone.
I’d rather do the drive thru and eat in the car.
And the music is always too damn loud. It should not be necessary to yell to have a conversation with someone sitting across the tiny table from you.
They don’t want people in the dining room. There was a bit of media buzz in Chicago pre-Covid because one McDonalds instituted policies to get rid of the retirees that were using it as a hang-out, and I’ve seen signs asking people to leave when they finish eating in many McDonalds since then.
Covid spoiled a lot of quick-service restaurants - they discovered it’s much cheaper to run the place without the dining room and some are all in. Three non-chain places never resumed eat-in service; you can see the chairs still stacked on the tables inside.
There is also the proliferation of so-called “blind kitchens”. A restaurant designed from the git-go to to be a kitchen with no public area at all. No walk-in traffic, no way to order except online, and no way to recieve your food except doordash, et al.
Increasingly common in high density areas w insanely high rents per SF. If they can’t pack a dining room they cant make it pay. When the public wants to eat restaurant food at home, that ain’t happening enough to balance the books…
I think how much money is saved depends on a lot of factors - and the main savings would be literally running a place without a dining room. Those places you mentioned with the chairs stacked on the tables probably aren’t saving all that much - maybe one employee per shift. The big savings will come from a location without a dining room needing 1000 sq ft instead of 4000 sq feet and the already existing 4000 sq ft locations won’t save much by not cleaning tables.
And of course, it also depends on how much take-out business there is. Many years ago I worked in a fast food restaurant at a triangular corner. It was next to a hospital on one side, a subway station on the other side. Five or six bus lines ran past it and there was a huge mall across the street in one direction and a park across the other street. Almost none of the orders were take-out.
I think this is the case in areas where they have issues with abuse of bathrooms by homeless and/or drug users.
I frequent unashamedly both McDonalds (coffee) and Wendy’s (food) in suburban locations near my home, work and kid’s robotics lab. Total of six locations (4 Wendy’s, 2 McDonald’s), All have people eating inside, families with children, construction workers, older people, high schoolers, pretty much everyone except affluent 20- and 30-somethings. The latter may be a bad sign for the future.
Well McDonalds really dosen’t have to advertist in order to draw in the family and the kids, as they are the defacto place that kids have been programed into wanting through genrations of brain washing.
I’ve heard these called “ghost kitchens” and I think you can pick up a take-out order from them but yes, they’re primarily designed for pick ups by Doordash/Uber Eats/Grubhub delivery drivers. (I think Doordash actually operates some of these.)
What’s the difference ( in terms of design) between someone ordering and paying online and me picking up the order as a delivery driver and me ordering online and picking it up myself. Is it just a matter of the ordering platform or is there more?
The only difference I imagine is that the delivery drivers are familiar with the process and won’t be asking a bunch of annoying questions that an individual might.
I think the difference between what @LSLGuy was saying, and what @Dewey_Finn added, is that many ghost/blind kitchens have no way for someone to walk in and order, even for take-out.
As in, there’s no cashier, no register, no P.O.S. system at the front.
Vs. a place that did away with dine-in but can still accept walk-in orders via a cashier at the front (who is often running double- or even triple-duty with back of house kitchen tasks) which is what I see with a few local small places I frequent.
Pretty much says it all.
Chipotle was a sort of pioneer in the customer-unfriendly Soviet minimalist style of dining areas.
Discourage in-store diners and get them moving out fast, and you save on decor and cleanup costs.