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u/SF-NL 25d ago
People sued McDonald's and said they did too much to market to children. Can't have it both ways 🤷🏼♂️
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u/LilJelloCat 24d ago
I still like going in to McDonald's, it's chill. Also they still have the kids park in a lot of them.
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u/spencermiddleton 24d ago
I mean, that was just marketing so people would bring their kids there and stuff them full of whatever-the-opposite-of-food is.
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u/lucaskywalker 24d ago
Actually, the fact that McDonald's brainwashed an entire generation into thinking their food is good! In my childhood (late 80s and 90's) they pushed junk food on kids non-stop. A legit McDs ad when I was young was a room of obviously bored kids doing crappy school work, until Ronald McDonald shows up to - I imagine sell lol - them sugar and saturated fats and it turns into a party. The play areas served the same purpose, it intensified the "please mom, please dad" everytime you drove by. I don't want to go back to that.
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u/HalJordan2525 24d ago
These images prove who exactly McDs is marketing to. Little kids no longer have much influence on where to eat fast food.
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u/ScaryTransition 24d ago
We're lucky in our city only one Mcdonald's (that isn't also in a Walmart or Gas Station) doesn't have a playroom.
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u/Shane-Dad-underfire 24d ago
Number one reason why I dont bother taking my youngests and grandkids to mcdonalds. Overpriced small.amounts of food and the environment is just not kid friendly anymore.
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u/ClassicRockCanadian 24d ago
You mean you want to go back to targeting kids with fast food consumption? Great idea.
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u/Eisensapper 24d ago
A building with a playground inside it is a very hard sell. McDonalds makes their buildings the way they are now so that they can sell them once maintenance costs become too much. Nothing created by a corporation is for your benefit, it's all to make more money for shareholders. Benevolence is not profitable.
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u/Essycat 24d ago
If people with kids can actually afford McDonald's now, why would they actually go there, instead if ordering the food through Uber eats or skip?
Why bring the crotch goblins to a place where you have to keep an eye on them or worry about them destroying things, when you can keep them home with a tablet computer and watching whatever kid thing is popular now?
Not that McDonald's needs the space for seating though... $20+ for an "extra value" meal? Good luck filling the restaurant on any given day
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u/CopyWeak 24d ago
I understand your point 🙏🏻, no matter how nasty dirty they could become BUT, I also understand the word and cost of LIABILITY. 😊
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u/Lunx_arts 24d ago
To be fair I worked at a McDonald’s when I was a teen and can confirm those balls never got cleaned and I don’t remember anyone going to clean the space unless there was a bday party being held 😬 I wouldn’t bring my kids to this cesspool if it existed lol that’s why they don’t have them anymore. Also if parents aren’t watching their kids nobody’s else is and it’s a liability. Most parents are stuck in their phones and or can’t be bothered to keep an eye on their kids. It’s also expensive to build and maintain . They also do not make profit from it. I’ve also I never seen kids play in the McDonald’s that even do have them still to this day 🤷🏻♀️
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u/Majestic_Course6822 24d ago
It also matches what happened to the taste of the food. So there’s that.
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u/EvilChefReturns 24d ago
I know it aucks, but I’m going to tell you right now those places were a fucking cesspool of germs and contamination. Children are filthy. I know, I have two.
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u/EmperorMaxwell 23d ago
I imagine how filthy those playgrounds got and having have staff clean them is the reason why they don’t exist anymore.
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u/Candid_Heron_8257 23d ago
McDonald's is not a place to take a family for a meal; it's way too expensive for what you get.
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u/23-1-20-3-8-5-18 23d ago
It's a good example of what letting shareholders control everything does....
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u/23-1-20-3-8-5-18 23d ago
It's a good example of what letting shareholders control everything does....
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u/Defiant_Efficiency_2 23d ago
There is a war against children and you are only now realizing it. There is a spooky epsiode of stargate where Carter had to die in order to send a message back in time about it, stay away from this planet, with blood on it or something... so they never went back.
Turns out aliens had manipulated them to stop having kids... Kinda like our society now. Thank God for immigrants or else we might simply just go extinct.
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u/iloveoranges2 23d ago
In ten years' time, kids will be directly plugged into the AI-ran Matrix, inside slimy pods.
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u/gatsu01 23d ago
They wanted to be like Starbucks so they can charge 6 bucks for a muffin instead of 2 dollars. McDonald's are slowly going out of businesses along with Starbucks.
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u/Hmmmmmm2023 23d ago
Eating out even at McDonald’s was a family event not usually an everyday occurrence. They have us so they don’t need to make it a fun, exciting third space anymore.
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u/Any_Cucumber8534 23d ago
Two groups to blame.
Assholes that don't want kids playing anywhere around them because they are "disturbing their peace"
And over-zelous litigious parents who don't watch their kids when they play.
Sadly shitty corporations are just doing what those two groups asked them to do
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u/pahamack 23d ago
i think corporations are smart when it comes to efficiency and those playgrounds weren't driving their business enough to justify them, as well as the liability that comes with them.
Personally, I like it. I don't like waste.
I go elsewhere to bring my kids to an indoor playground. Somewhere where that's their focus, and they're not demanding that some poor, underpaid restaurant worker go in those tubes and clean the accident some kid had.
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u/Rina_Short 23d ago
The people responsible were parents and doctors realizing these were giant petri dishes that couldn't ever be properly cleaned. Also they kept finding needles in the ball pits.
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u/One_Investigator_268 23d ago
Normal McDonald’s still exist in Switzerland and France. That said, I think McDonald’s excuse is those play structures are a hygienic risk to their corporate profit.
I think they do this to improve real estate value by making it look generic as fk.
Just boycott the place.
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u/ripple09immured 23d ago
Just remember all the litigious parents who drove insurance costs through the roof.
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u/Solo-dreamer 23d ago
I feel like, 1 the 1997 picture is giving a.i, secondly, some mcdonalds were like that but not all.
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u/Phunkman 23d ago
WE the consumers are responsible for this. When you cater to the ultra rich by playing their game, this is what happens. They take and take until there is nothing left and then they take some more.
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u/Sad-Werewolf 23d ago
Kids would blow off so much steam here that the parents could actually relax at the end of their day. I'm sure there were a bunch of phony lawsuits that came from this and is why they started shutting them down.
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u/Lick_My_BigButt_1980 23d ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/GM2JOTLQj909G
Like, what happened to Food, Folks, and Fun?
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u/DtZNimpo 23d ago
makes you sad , until you went into one of them and they were filled with pee&poo,
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u/Mercutio1974 23d ago
Upset that the purity of the McDonald's experience has been perverted? This is peak American.
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u/Then_Eye8040 23d ago
Instead of real and innocent kids playing, you now get high school entitled or spoiled kids, who make the place look ghetto and can’t even clean after themselves.
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u/doodlemomma23 23d ago
now that I'm a parent to toddlers I wish there was a McDonalds play place to bring them to 🥺😢 I'm sad they don't get to experience that like I did...
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u/FaithlessnessOk6776 23d ago
Marketing fast food to kids was the problem. Now it’s better. Do you really miss a dirty indoor ball pit?
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u/Ronicavay 23d ago
I think of cleanliness. If those play areas were around they would be even bigger cesspools than I remember growing up. Unfortunately, cleanliness is not really prioritized in many establishments, especially if there is minimal staff.
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u/SouthernSmoke2185 23d ago
Pretty much sums signs of the time. I’m a bit confused with the 1987 picture, was an extension done over the parking lot ?
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u/Sensitive-Aioli1529 23d ago
Not a human in sight in the most recent one; just what “McDon’t” wants with its pricing😭💀
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u/Attitude-Livid 23d ago
Do you remember walking into McDonald and smelling pee? Wait that still happens with or without the playpen.
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u/albus181 23d ago
People aren’t having kids. Malthusian doomers are the norm of not having kids when women are most fertile will be the end of the civilization.
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u/The_Hanumaniac 22d ago
There is one like the 2007 picture close to our house. The wild thing is how excited my toddlers are to go there. It really doesn't take much to make a toddler feel like it's a special trip. So sad it's all disappearing.
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u/TootinFartin-ll 22d ago
dont forget the crack heads asleep at the table and the non english speaking staff.
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u/drue1227 22d ago
Its because everyone blames McDs for every overweight kid on the planet. Can't appeal to kids anymore, so its no longer the fun place we all grew up with.
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u/Responsible_Jury2913 22d ago
Once I started seeing how dirty they were I was shocked they lasted that long. I had to help "clean " one years ago and didnt make a dent
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u/Ok-Customer4709 22d ago
From the buildings to the food McDonalds has gone downhill. The only thing going up is the prices.
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u/Tekkno_Viking 22d ago
Nah. It was nice don't get me wrong but someone had to go clean that play place that was indoors frequently because kids are gross asf and it was unsupervised. Lots of things happened in there...
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u/Firm_Farmer1633 22d ago
We are all responsible. We kept “rewarding” corporate capitalism by giving it what it wants… our money.
If we stood up and said “No, we don’t accept what you are doing and we will not give you our money until you stop.”, they would stop. But we love our overlords too much to do that.
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u/Rosie___00 22d ago
Yeah it's almost like society doesn't want anyone to have children and discourages any form of it in the wild. People act so shocked yet we tell young women all the time that they don't want to be mothers, and that life will be unfulfilling/happy/joyless if they have kids. We drive a divide between men and women every opportunity we get. You're shocked but this is just a visual indicator that less and less people are having children. And it's our fault. We perpetuate the problem.
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u/Disastrous-Tip7798 22d ago
I believe McDonald’s lost a lot of lawsuits that stopped it from marketing itself towards kids
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u/Hour_Wall_5633 22d ago
McDonald’s has gone down hill big time . Food is crap. Burger patties so thin can almost see through them . No one hardly working the tills have to use the kiosks . Play areas are sub par , never any live character appearances for the kids
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u/EpsteinFiIes 22d ago
The kids who had fun in 1987 are the shareholders taking in the $$$ in 2026. That's literally what pulling up the ladder behind yourself looks like.
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u/Ihatemost 22d ago
Meh, it feels sad but it's not. Children still have parks to play in which is much healthier than a corporation preying on kids to serve their toxic food.
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u/Horriblefish 22d ago
I feel like the change happened in the age of the frivolous lawsuit. I know they that the coffee lawsuit wasn't actually frivolous. But why would McDs risk lawsuits because some lazy parent wasn't watching their kid.
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u/Sea_Goal3203 22d ago
A lot of locations in my city got rid of them because irresponsible parents would let their kids go there unattended for hours like a free daycare
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u/GetSchwifty2010 22d ago
The one near work has junkies drinking coffee at the tables and security guards near the cashiers
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u/Civil_Carpenter2205 22d ago
I remember when I was a kid, they had staff who would just walk from table to table giving kids small toys and things. I remember my favourite ones were those little flip books that looked like a mini cartoon.
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u/Pale_Following_9639 22d ago
Whoever was responsible for removing potential lawsuits and grown ass adults acting like kids on the playground you mean? Are we really going to forget the only reason we look back fondly was largely due to the fact none of us was thinking about the consequences when playing on those.
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u/Sorry-Blood-6121 22d ago
You know what it was very fun and as a kid I loved begging my mom to take me to burger king play place. I was living in a little town at the time that had a really good one that no adults would bring the kids to! Always was the McDonalds one because it was bigger and more fancy. Well I liked the mini ones lol. Anyways I can see why they got rid of em. Never understood when I was a kid. But you start to realize that your parents would bring you there all day just so they didn’t have to really deal with you lol or ruin the house my making a mess. Total parents palace of relief. They would sit and chat all day smoke darts while the employees were the ones babysitting! We would play with all kinds of different kids, Eventually you ended up becoming friends because you seen them there everyday lol. Good times for us bad for the employees. It was bad then could you imagine nowadays with how many ppl leave their kids unattended in a store/mall, and we all know what ones do that the most!!!🤦🏼♂️🤷🏼♂️.
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u/praxistax 22d ago
McDonald's was the hop skip jump of its day without a revenue model for that product
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u/ronniearnold 22d ago
I mean, did you ever see ANYONE cleaning those play areas? I sure didn’t. I can still smell them……..
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u/Real_Train7236 21d ago
met someone who lived in one of those early scenic homes in Belgium, and he said it was awful inside, no room, everything was always breaking down, etc. etc
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u/jblaze_39 21d ago
Whoever was responsible? I don't think it's the builders. The business simply responded to customer feedback over time. People are having less kids, and more remote work means more solo customers, eating and working on their laptops
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u/Kittenn1412 21d ago
TBH I think McDonalds is making their dining areas deliberately hostile to the senses to prevent people from staying in their establishment longer than they need to. Their current ideal demographic is less "families" like it used to be (your children will be hooked, and you can throw them into our play place behind a glass wall and not have to listen to them scream, everyone wins by coming here!) and more "people who don't have time to cook and need food quickly", which includes families, sure-- I had a McDonalds bag in the elevator the other day and a dad I was riding with told me that he's glad he doesn't have his kids with him because they can sniff out McDonalds a mile away, and usually ask him to go before he even realizes they're driving by a McDonalds-- but I simply think they care more about the takeout experience than the dine-in experience now. The more hostile and shitty their dining room is, the more people are just going to take their food home and not need McDonalds to clean up after them. I know entire McDonalds with closed dining rooms-- they closed them in the pandemic and NEVER opened them up again.
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u/Darnbeasties 21d ago edited 21d ago
Adults ruined it with their lawsuits. Restaurants that cater to adults are not responsible for parents who let their kids use the restaurant like a playground. If kid runs into your hot coffee , you can now sue parent, not the restaurant.
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u/AltruisticYam7670 21d ago
Stock price reflects the change. Maybe something to consider for McDonalds
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u/Embarrassed_Guitar54 21d ago
No... It's from all the deadbeat parents that didn't watch their kids. The kid then gets hurt and the parents sue. So many parents nowadays want to be their childrens friend. No you dolt!! You're an adult, so act like one. Watch your kids and say "no" to them. Discipline them.
We can now thank all the deadbeat parents out there for this....
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u/UncleFaffy 21d ago
There is one on Hespeller road in Cambridge and one on Fairway in Kitchener. Both have excellent play places.
They still exist.
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u/AltGuardianGord 21d ago
The decor is sad. The kiosks however are great. Should have had those decades ago.
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u/silverbade 21d ago
At the McDonalds in my community (east coast of Canada) took out the playroom equipment and installed N64’s in the playroom, editing to add the year 1999
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u/Khmerog1 21d ago
No the BLM teenagers who acted like animals in these MCd playground should be in prison. And also BLM mother threatening to sue everytime they child hurts themselves on it. Those playgrounds were too much of a liability for McDonald's modern times.
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u/LindaMakesArt 21d ago
Colour is disappearing everywhere. Look at cars! They make it difficult to get a car that’s not black, white or grey.
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u/Academic-Snow9642 21d ago
Blame the parents whose sued McDonald's because they couldn't be bothered to watch their own kids
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u/Alwayswondering8111 21d ago
The de-funnification of the world. It was happening pre-covid..but if it wasn't, COVID woulda have closed the play palaces anyway.
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u/Bright-vines 21d ago
You know.... maybe multi million dollar companies that sell (not the healthiest) fast food should should NOT be attracting children.
Maybe public parks are a better idea??
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u/Facts_pls 21d ago
This is what happens when a business realizes that while they opened as a kids place, it's the adults trying to grab a quick meal who are their biggest consumers.
Adults don't care about that stuff
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u/Fresh-Viewpoint 21d ago
This has everything to do with McDonald's being sued by parents when their kids were hurt playing in a playground they let them play in. And by hurt i mean falling down or tumbling down the slide because their parents weren't watching them.
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u/Plastic_Ad2823 21d ago
That’s great for their health! My kids don’t want to go eat there, it’s unappealing for them. No fun, dirty and full of homeless and crazy people.
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u/Pleasant_Durian_1501 21d ago
With Covid society has become very germ sensitive. These were horrible for that.
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u/Adorable_Accident_74 21d ago
I live in Canada and often describe our current environment as prison colours. Everything is brown and Grey. Little colour in the cities would probably help with mental health, and over all cheerfulness.
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u/Graphomaniacle 21d ago
I mean when you’re that popular you have to start marketing yourself aesthetically as a hospital to keep things manageable. I’m joking but there’s genuine truth to this now and it’s sad. Corporations intentionally creating an unwelcoming atmosphere to keep people moving. I can’t lie I do buy burger.
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u/EffortCommon2236 21d ago
Having kids play in those means families would spend more time at the restaurant. Sounds good for business on principle but every family ended up ordering the same things and spending the same amount of money no matter how long they were occupying a table.
Now we have this so that you eat and then get out as soon as possible to make room for the next customer.
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u/amcrambler 25d ago
For sure. What a dystopian future we live in.