Not all of them. There are still a considerable number of corporate stores out there; I’ve come across a few in my travels. I have no idea, however, whether corporate stores are more or less likely to tear down and rebuild than to remodel only as opposed to franchises.
Having done a complete renovation on a house, I can see where it would be faster to just tear the whole thing down and start over. Working within an existing structure is expensive, difficult, and complicated. Building a new one is easier. So, say it takes 2 months to renovate but only one month to tear down and rebuild. Even it it cost a little more to do the rebuild (which, considering labor, it might not), how much money is that McD’s loosing by being closed that extra month?
One of the many McDonald’s where I live was also just torn down. They completely rebuilt it and put in a fancy fountain and nice grass to sit on outside.
during the 1990s, many chain restaurants (including, but not limited to) mcdonalds rapidly expanded in both usa & canada, constructing locations using cheaper than the cheapest local contractors available. often, building / fire codes were barely met. cough if at all cough
some of the current round of rebuilds (i’ve noticed a bunch around swo as well) are likely tax and/or corporate book-keeping issues, i.e cheaper/easier to rebuild than reno a given location; though i have no doubt that more than a handfull of locations are being razed before something blows up or falls down, and someone gets sued into bankruptcy.
Two points.
1.) I really, really want a McD’s now.
2.) The nearest McD’s to me here in the south of the city used to be in what I thought was a fairly lucrative location, just beside some clubs and pubs and near the university. It closed up completely two years ago and the building hasn’t even been resold/re-leased.
Same goes for a mini-market that was right beside a university building and near a school, almost always packed, especially at home time for all the students and lunch. Why it shut down puzzles me as it surely can’t have done badly. But away it went, produce and all.
Maybe it’s because when they put the drive-thru window in, they put it on the wrong freakin’ side!
They just did this to a McDonalds near me. The old building was an eighties type floorplan/style. The new building has a modern look to it, a double lane drivethru, larger lobby/ordering area, a big plasma TV in the dining room, and a repaved parking lot.
They seemed to be constantly promoting “come and check out our new look”.
It’s because of ghosts. Most people aren’t aware that when a ghost becomes tied to a building, its spectral energy is actually anchored in the structure’s foundation. In order to release the ghost and terminate the haunting, the entire foundation needs to be ripped out, pulverized, and re-poured. If even a single teaspoon of the old foundation’s material, usually in the form of concrete dust, gets mixed into the new foundation, the ghost will still be anchored to the newly rebuilt structure.
This is obviously a significant problem, but typically not insoluble; it just takes time and money. In a few situations, though, it’s next to impossible to de-spectrify a building, most commonly when there is no discrete foundation as is commonly known in modern construction. In old buildings, you may have a retaining wall on the perimeter, but an earthen foundation, which makes the entire planet effectively the base of the building, with the site acting as little more than a locus of the ghost’s spiritual energy. Eradicating the specter in those circumstances is so difficult it might as well not even be attempted, and it’s why generations past had a better understanding of hauntings and how to deal with them than people today.
In any event, it’s almost certain that the McDonald’s was razed because they needed to tear out the foundation to get rid of the ghosts. They don’t like to talk about it, obviously, because it messes with their insurance rates, but that’s what’s going on.
Surprisingly, considering what Dewey Finn said, I can relate to that. Living as I do in the center of the McUniverse I’m used to never, ever, being more than a couple miles from a Macs and one place I worked was across an alley from one but now I work out in Corn Country and the nearest Macs is about ten miles away. The first couple of months I suffered withdrawal.
Bosda, I don’t know any of the health inspectors in this county anymore so I can’t be sure but it was a very clean building, which is another benefit of the location. If a rat had shown up Corporate would’ve not just razed the building, they would’ve salted the earth and impaled the managers’ heads on pikes as a warning.
I like it when other businesses take over recognizable buildings. We have a very nice Chinese restaurant that, try as it might to redecorate the joint over the past 30 years, can still be recognized as a former Roy Rogers. It’s even more fun when they don’t bother doing much, like another Chinese place that had an incongruous Key West motif.
Walk in and ask an employee and come back and tell us what you discover.
-FrL-
Cervaise, that is a very good point. Sometimes it’s best to just pave it over and turn it into a parking lot, as happened in Palatine, IL, at the site of the Brown’s Chicken Massacre of 1991.
I plan to.
I was wondering the same thing! Must be telepathy. anyway, the MickD’s in Watertown, MA-same thing! the place was demolished last September, and a new building erected-it looks the same as the old one. or is this some kind of tax-credit/tax eveasion thing?
Did they have a Poultrygeist?
The McDonalds in Bloomington Minnesota just went through this. Interesting that it happened just months after the nearby Taco Bell tore down and rebuilt. At least the Taco Bell really needed it. Has anyone else seen what looks like a reaction to other fast food restaurants rebuilding/remodelling?
he McDonald’s near where I grew up in New Jersey had been there since the 1950s – it was a classic “golden arches” cDonald’s with no interior seating (and no interior), up until the mid-1970s. Then they tore it down and rebuilt it as a standard McDonald’s. It has since been rebuilt again, but I don’t know if they tore it all the way down this time.
I do know that the closest McDonald’s to where I now live has been completely torn down and rebuilt – as a semiclassic “Golden Arches” (only with internal seating). I think they tore it down because they had to so completely change the floor plan.
I guess we could have just googled mcdonalds new look
The local Taco Bell was recently torn down and replaced with an identical building. What’s really strange is that the restaurant used to be a Weiner King (some kind of local franchise that went under in the early 80’s) so it still doesn’t resemble a traditional Taco Bell.
I did ask the management what the deal was, but he didn’t know (possibly due to the language barrier?)
I think they may have made the new building a tiny bit larger…kinda like the ending to The Jerk starring Steve Martin…
To what end? The OP clearly stated that the new place is identical to the old one.
Yeah, but I meant “identical for all intents and purposes.” It hasn’t opened yet so I can’t see if it is like a Starbucks with better coffee inside but the biggest change outside is a more attractive fascia–that brown fake stone that is really concrete blocks replacing tan bricks.
That link explained it all, Hampshire. Thanks.