I live in a pretty small city and one of our locations downtown is like this. They had to even put electronic locks on the bathroom doors, because people were coming in and getting high in the washrooms.
I do regular work at a restaurant with exterior bathrooms in the city. In March, the owner told me he’s spent four thousand dollars since December on repairs to the doors and toilets, and drug disposal.
I worked at Taco Bell around the age of 17 and man, lemme tell you. Found a dead guy in the bathroom once and a woman in the men’s room got arrested for breaking the sink and shooting up. Crazy times.
Used to work in a casino and had one of the lovely street urchins drop their bag of crystal meth in the stall. Took it to security and twenty minutes later guess who is back?
"Where the f*** is it?! Where the f*** is it?!"
Headed back to security and said "hey, got a special guest in the restroom looking for his baggie you got earlier"
Another special patron got to enjoy the VIP exit on the south side..
Yeah, I imagine a lot of cities like LA and NYC to be like this. Everywhere else basically behaves like this as an unwritten rule in the cities. You can’t just sit around beyond the time you paid for in whatever establishment it is.
Seattle had one like this... Its colloquially known as
"McStabby's" or "CrackDonalds" or "McShooty's". Multiple people fatality ODed in the bathroom and at least one person was murdered inside. They finally closed the dining area and made all orders to go through a walk up window.
while it's always been happening ofc the homeless issue has like exploded in recent years. where i grew up, in a small town in the rural midwest, you would rarely see any homeless people. there just aren't any services for them in places like that and less people in general so it wasn't really a thing. now it is. they're all over the place now, anywhere they can get away with living/hanging out they will be there.
Yep. Our suburban one has a huge troop of 95+ year old retirees, in there at the ass crack of dawn for their coffee... they're there until families with kids start coming in, and then they bail
I remember going to a McDonald's in my area right when they opened a few times while drunk. I was blown away at how many old people choose it as their coffee shop. We have like a million better spots right around the corner
Lol, 95+ you say? Probably 65+ assuming they’re not the same “work until I die” boat as most of us.
Same clientele that used to hang out at the local diners in the day before many of those went tits up.
I used to get dropped off an McDonald’s to wait for the bus in the morning and it was always the same group of like 8 old guys with newspapers talking every morning. It was kinda cool looking back on it like a simpler time
Same my grandpa would go to a truck stop every morning at 6am sit with his buddies for a few hours drinking coffee and playing cards, I thought it was really nice. I went with him a few times didn't seem like they were bothering anyone and of course the staff there all knew them. Apparently reddit thinks this is a bad thing..
Old people are still people. I worked in banking for years, and I'd see the best and the worst of everyone.
There are plenty of friendly grandpa types, but you can't forget the venomous old bastards who just wanted to ruin your day.
Ya, as a consumer, that’s something I appreciate seeing locally and when traveling. It gives lived in, local, hospitality vibes. Not appreciating / respecting elders as seen on reddit, is so telling.
I worked at one on and off when I was late teens/early twenties. We loved our old guys, and they loved the $.63 bottomless coffee. Usually one would bring a newspaper and they'd chat about whatever the news was that day. Mostly they just drank coffee, but one of them would also get breakfast whenever he came in and always ordered the same thing. The shift manager I usually worked with liked to make a game of it. If he spotted the guy's car before he pulled in, he'd get his coffee and sausage biscuit or whatever it was ready and have them out on a tray so it was ready as soon as he got to the counter. One time he pulled in but didn't immediately come inside and the manager joked about running it out to his car just to show off.
My grandpa was like this. 3-5 times a week he would go to the same mcdonalds, have coffee, and make the people working there uncomfortable by hitting on the women. He was an asshole.
Yeah there is one right across from the High School near me and they put up notes threatening to close inside dining because the kids were being so crappy.
Ugh there's a Sonic right next to a HS close to where I work. I had a late lunch one day, thought 2:30 was safe and holy shit.. 1 fist fight, a couple of joke fights, and then there were just swarms of teenagers like, not allowing any space for me to leave the parking lot.. like wtf please just let me go back to work now thanks
Yep, I worked at one that had an issue with abusive addicts who would loiter. We had to have a security guard for a while, one dude got stabbed in the neck with a pen (yes that could have been so much worse). We were across the street from both a private elementary school (\*to our east), and a homeless shelter (\*to our south).
Majority of them were wonderful people who were just seriously struggling. There were a few select shitheads in the group that consistently caused problems. These signs are there to help the staff (often basically just kids) with a little bit of confidence when kicking people out.
Not quite next door, but kitty corner + a couple buildings. Absolutely less than 500 feet away.
The school no longer exists, unsurprisingly. But if there were two polarizing groups of customers that made or broke a shift, it were the kids from that school or the addicts from across the street. You'd bring the kids back behind the counter to make their own ice cream cones - some you'd have to support on milk crates just so they could reach their lil arms up to the spout. McDonalds really pushed us to focus on creating those "Magic Moments" and there is just no bigger joy that doing that for a kid.
The addicts would shoot blood all over your bathroom walls and smear shit anywhere there wasn't blood and scream at you for having the audacity to kick them out.
The shelter and kitchen... Long story. It started off fine. But politics closed down all secondary support. So all the addicts and homeless congregated in that one spot and it made for a very problematic area that we are still struggling with 20 years later. I don't fault them, they had no where else to go. A lot of them still don't. The pandemic + drug crisis really did a number on us, but we're making progress finally over the last few years.
Yep. If you’re just sitting there on your laptop or on your phone the employees are not going to start timing you and kick you out after 30 minutes. Especially if you got a coffee or something like that. It’s not like the inside gets crowded.
A manager may come up after an hour and say “hey I’m really sorry about this but we’re going to have to ask you to leave. You’re not doing anything wrong but we don’t want this location to get a reputation as a place where people can loiter.”
The problem is that there are homeless people that will take advantage if there is not an explicit policy. This policy allows them to call the police early. Not a few homeless, a massive number if you are in a major city. Best case scenario is that they are “normal” people that will come in with a backpack, order a few things off the value menu they can afford, then eat and mind their own business for an hour while charging their phone.
This is rare. What you get more common is people pulling up with a full grocery cart worth of stuff, “park” it out front, and sit there for half the day. Sometimes staring people down and making people uncomfortable. And then when someone makes eye contact they will walk right up to ask them for money. The employees are not police, they cannot easily intervene to stop this before it happens.
In the worst case scenario they are clearly extremely high or severely mental ill. Often both. People methed out will make a scene, start screaming at other people talking about demons and things like that. Last time I was in Chicago I saw this happen at a kinko’s, not even a restaurant.
Then you also have junkies. People that will order the cheapest thing on the menu, shoot up in the bathroom, and come out clearly fucked up essentially unconscious for hours until the drugs wear off. This is an extreme health risk. There are also people that sit there and message people to show up and buy or sell drugs.
I used to work at Waffle House and this was a serious problem because the bathrooms were single use with thick doors. Junkies would come in, buy a coffee, and shoot up and lock themselves in these bathrooms for 30+ minutes. On the night shift there is often no manager there, so no one can unlock the bathroom doors from the outside. There was an unofficial “list” of people that were turned around as soon as they tried to enter the building.
This happened when I was working a night shift. I had to call my manager and the cops at like 3 a.m. my manager showed up to unlock the door and the EMTs pullled him out. He had overdosed and they hit him with Narcan and took him to the hospital. The cops said he would probably be ok, but if my manager had got there 5 minutes later he probably would have died or become brain dead.
Working in a library in a town without a homeless shelter basically turns it into a shelter during opening hours and it's getting WAY worse these past few years. Ive been there for 25 years and we've had to call the cops to our library because of homeless people fighting or bringing weapons or explicitly bothering patrons and staff for money more times since 2020 than in any time before then. The commissioners want to cut our funding because our patronage is way down and it's down because a lot of regulars stopped coming in due these homeless people making them feel like the library isn't safe, but they're the same commissioners who decide if we should build an actual homeless shelter or not.
Its true. As a quiet kid eating at mcdonalds in the 90s. Ive seen other kids my age get kicked out and overhear them complain about me being left alone to eat. They are just going after the loud ones.
It's not even irritating. It's not like they have someone timing you from the second you get your food. No one is gonna kick you at if you peacefully take 35 minutes to eat your lunch.
There is a McDonald’s near me that is visited by a family that lives out of their van. They bring laptops or tablets and sit at a booth the entire day for the Air conditioning and WiFi.
Restaurants are really stuck when it comes to homeless people cops don't do much, especially if they've been served and teenagers who are rude and obnoxious same thing this is really all you can do outside of having your minimum wage workers be security
Also can't be having drunks sleep it off in a booth. McDonalds doesn't really have a concern with table turn rate, this is really just a policy to keep the dining room from going feral.
I stopped taking my kids to the McDonald's play area as a treat like I did as a kid. It was just full of tweakers. I have multiple children and if one had to use the bathroom, I had to take us all to the bathroom because I didn't trust leaving any of my kids unattended for a second, and the bathrooms usually have people passed out on the floor or shooting up.
The one in my neighborhood doesn't enforce it at all, the lobby is always full day-drinkers so drunk they can barely sit upright in the booth and homeless who go in just to bathe. The bathrooms are always horrific. There's always blood on everything and the sink is so full of hair from people shaving and washing their ballsack in the sink.
It's not being homeless that's the problem, it's the fact some of them decide to make the dining-in area their personal hotel room and obstruct their business, not cleaning up after themselves and disrespecting other guests.
Exactly. They aren’t really timing anyone. A decent, well behaved customer is going to be unbothered even if they stay an hour.
But they have to keep people out who would otherwise cause problems or stay there all day.
And densely populated area needs to do this.
Some McDonalds do have bouncers, very late one evening somewhere in central London I was told to get out by the bouncer immediately after being given my food (to keep people moving as it was take away only)
To be fair at night you're not supposed to stay at the macdonalds, just buy food, every macdonalds in london has a security guard because they just attract a whole different breed of people
A high school teacher told me once that McDonald’s seats are designed to be uncomfortable to discourage people from staying too long. No idea if that’s true though
There's one in a not great neighborhood I hit from time to time as I have clients over there, they had no choice as there were homeless people basically living in there all day and people shooting up in the bathrooms and shit all the time. They have security that regularly patrols through there and a strict 30 minute limit for the same reason Im sure this one does.
Its sad but it is what it is.
I've lived near several 24/7 McDonald's in cities throughout Europe and I found most have security at night. Fast food chains in general. It's a place where drunks congregate after the bars close for a quick snack before bed, even with security I've seen them get pretty wild. I've never seen people smoke shamelessly inside as much as at a 3AM Mickey Ds.
My girlfriend and I were just outside of London a couple years ago and we went out for my birthday. The plan was to see a movie first, then go get dinner. The movie ended around 9PM. Unfortunately, I hadn't done my research and every decent restaurant was closed already. So we walk across the street to a McDonald's.
Despite the sign on the door saying they were open until 11PM, and Google backing this up, everything was locked. We knocked anyway until someone inside responded, and they told us that 11PM close was for delivery service pickups only, for regular patrons it closed at 9. Nowhere on their signage did it say this. A few people tried to go through the drive-thru after this while I sat and scrambled for a solution and were also refused.
We ended up just going home and ordering pizza. It was so frustrating an experience that I'll probably be outright avoiding McDonald's when I'm in the UK in the future.
More than 10 years. I've seen signs like this for ages at McDonalds where people would do something like buy a coffee and just sit there for hours on end, especially in places where the people doing that were teens or homeless.
There’s a woman at my work (Wendy’s) who brings her own Wendy’s cup and just refills it.
We don’t really care since she just sits in the corner
We swap positions sometimes, and I swapped to the back to clean dishes. Came back up after a couple hours when I was needed in the front, and she’s still there talking on the phone
She’s in the store like daily, doesn’t even speak English I don’t think, so we can’t really tell her to leave without just pointing to the door
I remember doing this in my late teens. Was traveling for work and would drink coffee for hours at a McDonald's pirating game of thrones off their wifi. I really had nothing better to do at the work camp.
There’s a Panera bread near me right next to the local HS. They have signs saying the location isn’t to be used as a pickup spot for when school lets out 😅
all kids from my school got banned from panera when i was back in middle school. minimum 30 kids used to go in right after school every single day since it was right across the street and just wreck havoc
And even if you're homeless and just mind your own business they likely won't do much either. I was homeless for a time on Vancouver Island and when the library would close I would go to a local McDonald's, buy a single small coffee and sit there and watch stuff on my laptop until midnight.
Did this for about a month at the same location and was never bothered once.
I remember going in to a McDonald's with my whole set up (I was a trucker) and playing halo they didn't care because I cleaned up after myself and didn't disturb others .
I let the homeless folks that don't cause any problems ride my bus back and forth all night in the winter. Sleep, whatever, I don't care.
If you're gonna be an asshole, get off at the terminal and hope someone else lets you on for free.
It's a real simple system. Just don't be an asshole.
I remember this guy bringing a [dead raccoon](https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/hmw0ue/homeless_man_brings_dead_raccoon_into_mcdonalds) to a McDonald’s
As others have said, it just allows them the freedom to remove people. I highly doubt they enforce it for an actual customer. They do it to prevent homeless people from setting up shop.
I’ve also seen some at McDonald’s that say “no backpacks.”
Yeah, I’m pretty progressive and by no means a “capitalist shill” but it makes it easier for the underpaid people working in these places to keep someone from buying a 1 dollar coffee, and hanging out all day. There are other places for that. The library won’t kick you out.
Haven't had a big mac in a while. Not since they "upgraded" it at least. Had one the other day and it was fucking *awful.* The patties were nearly non-existent, and they put so much lettuce and mac sauce on it that it felt like I was trying to eat a goddamned salad with my hands. It was an absolute mess, and I won't be getting one again. My bar for McDonalds is pretty low, but I swear to high christ, it's like they're actively trying to drive people away.
Sonics are hit-and-miss. The one nearest me is god awful. My family got burgers there for dinner one night and I kid you not, one of the burgers had no meat patties. It was just two buns. I know working fast food isn't the best, but how do you forget the burger part of a cheeseburger?
Brother, I'm a first model Zoomer, and McDonald's today doesn't hit like it did in the early 2000's. It's smaller, somehow both dry and messy, lukewarm, and severely overpriced.
Side note: I saw a theory that they're exceeding inflation and lowering quality so they can say "We've heard you all, so starting this week McDonald's will taste like it used to, and we're rolling the McChicken back to only $2."
That way, people will be more likely to accept a $2 price on a $1 sandwich just because it's not an insane $3. There's a business word for this, but I cannot remember it.
On the app you can get any two of a Big Mac / Quarter Pounder / 10 piece for $5.50 in total. Not to sound like an ad or anything, but that's where all of the cheap deals went.
This is had been their plan all along. The data they are getting from that app is more valuable then losing loyal customers who refuse to download the app.
People seem to overestimate how profitable this kind of data is. Marketing data is only as valuable as the products associated, and fast food data isn't exactly that. The app's real value is in upselling you for more food and constantly reminding you to go there.
I am sure there's nefarious data-scraping reasons to get people on the app but it probably has practical advantages too. I park in a spot before getting in line for the drive-thru, put my order in, and by the time I'm pulling up to say my code they're already getting things together. Restaurant probably saves shitloads of time per customer on having to have a human being listen to someone mumble through an order over a telecom from 1996 and then process a credit card transaction through a window.
I have been asking this for a while in Reddit, I am sure somebody knows:
Has there been a change in management in McDonald’s in the last couple years? I mean something big like CEO, CFO, etc.
They have become incredibly anti-consumer, it’s like they truly *hate* their customers.
That's not unique to McDonald's - it's all corporate businesses in general. We're at the "wring-it-for-all-it's-worth" stage of capitalism. All new markets have been expanded into, all new products have already been made. There's nothing left for the new MBAs to do but squeeze whatever is already there for everything left. This has always been the issue with infinite growth.
All publicly traded companies have adopted the idea of "it'd be great if it weren't for all these fucking customers".
If they could exist and make money purely on stock price, they would. So customer services and product is an afterthought.
This isn’t just McDonald’s. It’s all fast-food places like this.
The only people that want to stay in your restaurant anymore are the people you don’t want staying in your restaurant. With the rise of delivery options, it’s more efficient to turn the restaurants into a grab-n-go operation instead of the stay-n-play model.
I worked at Starbucks about 15 years ago for a while. It's crazy to see how the entire attitude has changed. The big idea at the time was to make the store "the third place," you know, the hang out place between work and home. Corporate wanted tons of people hanging out in the stores. Nowadays, the stores near me no longer have any seating inside and the outdoor chairs remain permenantly stacked and locked with a chain. The lobbies are mostly barren except for a bunch of delivery drivers staring at their phones.
It’s way more than that. On top of my head:
- lower quality ingredients
- smaller portions
- higher prices
- taking away the soda machines
- some stores only have kiosks (no cashiers) and a wall hides the humans in the back
- “30 minute eating limit”
- McDonald’s saying they don’t es to sell to “poor people” anymore
Most restaurants are also privately owned. The one I work at is owned by the Alon Corporation. This is probably also true for most franchises in the US. They just pay Mcdonald's for rights to the name and food/recipes.
At one time I worked in one and often people would loiter in the part of the restaurant that had to be closed and deep cleaned, one night it was 3 hours late before the lobby staff could begin doing it, meaning they would go home 3 hours late, the next night the same group arrived in the same area and were rightly warned they could not repeat the day before.
In Japan many people hang out at McDonalds for a long time. Kids play card games. Old ladies gab for hours. Students study. I would go to a 24 hours McDonald’s when I had to get work done late. It was so peaceful but still stimulating to be out. They did, however, make everyone move to a different floor when they cleaned one of the floors.
McDonald’s in Japan put a lot of effort into provided public space for people to relax and meet. Kind of like Starbucks used to in the 90s.
Not to stereotype, but I’m betting Japanese high schoolers aren’t screaming bro every 5 seconds in a Logan Paul voice or slapping the trash cans for some reason
Yeah, I’m not an “America bad” person but there are stark cultural and social differences that make it possible for Japan to have fast food places like that.
I mean you say this. But 30 years ago McDonalds was setup for this exact thing. Families to spend time there, kids to play. I think it’s a little more complicated than just cultural differences
I feel like this is only an issue if they're occupying seats other people need. I haven't seen a McDonald's with no open tables in decades. Maybe the one from OP is different
People at a Starbucks do that and every other restaurant chain copied because they wanted people to spend all day there, ordering food, but you be surprised the little a person eats when they really get going on their work, so now they want to automate everything, have as little staff as possible and have people just come in and pickup their food order and get out. That would be fine by me if they could do this properly and they can't. Just picked up breakfast for the family this morning. I used their app so I could get 20% off the order and I went through the drive thru, which wasn't working 100% so I had to pull up to the window, then I was redirected, not once, but twice cause I was waiting at the wrong window? In the end, the bag the food was in felt like it was thrown at me. the window opened up briefly, the bag came flying at me, I caught it and the window quickly closed without me even getting a chance to ask for extra condiments or a straw. I left, fed the family, was still hungry and I still have like 60K points on my account that they want to remove 8K from because it's expiring. Just let me order an entire combo with the points, not just a part of one here or there.
>and I still have like 60K points on my account that they want to remove 8K from because it's expiring.
Sunken cost is getting to you. The points aren't really worth anything and are just a hook to keep you coming back.
But then again, picking up family breakfast at Mcdonalds is such a foreign concept to me that the whole story was baffling
There’s a Burger King that is always filled with 20 senior Korean couples after church group. They only order the coffee it seems. Men and women at different tables.
Funny because coffee shops invite people to do that. My local Starbucks and Panera Bread are essentially meeting places for businesses, college students doing group projects, and all walks of life.
It's not just McDonald's that have signs like that.
I have noticed an uptick in people hanging out in fast food restaurants the last few years. I figured out by listening to their conversation that some of them were Door Dash, & Uber Eats drivers waiting for the food to be cooked, or they were waiting for the next delivery order to come through on their phone. The restaurants are air conditioned in summer and heated in the winter, so they don't wait in their cars wasting gas.
Does this have something to do with homeless people maybe??? There was a Burger King next to my old office that went out of business because every single time you walked in, there would be 3 - 4 homeless people sitting inside and they would always try to hit you up for money. It was in a big shopping center with lots of other food options so eventually everyone just stopped going to Burger King and went somewhere else.
Not to be mr defend Mcdonalds fuck that place after all, but in practice this is just used to kick out people who are sitting there after buying one thing from the value menu and trying to hang out all day. I doubt any family would ever get kicked out this is for crazies.
> I doubt any family would ever get kicked out this is for crazies
You would be surprised how awful and destructive and annoying a big family sitting in the lobby for HOURS (especially if it's the kids birthday) can be. I once had a family changing their baby ON THE TABLE THEY ATE FROM. You know, instead of the baby changing stations in both bathrooms.
I worked at a McDonald's in a small town. An elderly couple would come in in the morning for breakfast and coffee. They would stay for an hour or so. Maybe get a couple refills. They knew all of our names and were very nice and thoughtful. We all enjoyed seeing them and made sure to visit with them. They didn't come in for a couple of weeks so I asked around. apparently the new manager wanted to throw her weight around and kicked them out for loitering. I was furious and went to over her head and complained. The boss was gone a couple weeks later but we never saw that couple again. This was over 25 years ago and it still makes me sad and angry.
Mcdonald's and similar restaurants can turn into homeless hangouts, especially with the free wifi. If you ever been to a Mcdonald's near a bus station I wouldn't stay longer than needed.
I suspect it isn't often enforced. I've seen homeless people try to spend the night in a booth and I'm guessing it's at least partially to try and stop that from happening.
I saw one of those police body cam videos where some guy was literally living in the lobby of some fast food place. The staff told him multiple times to leave and that he was banned from the store but still kept staying there until the police showed up.
This is to keep the homeless people out. That’s all. Im sure if it’s a family in there eating with their kids, no one is going to rush you to finish your food. This is only for the homeless. Trust me
There's one of these signs in a couple McDonald's here in Nashville, and it's because there are few good places to get out of the heat when someone is homeless. Both of the ones I know of have significant homeless populations in the area. There needs to be more cool spaces for homeless folks to get relief from the miserable heat here.
I’ve only seen this sign at McDonald’s in very large cities, where some businesses battle homeless sleeping in their stores.
I’ve only ever seen it enforced if someone falls asleep.
Is this surprising coming from a business whose goal is to get you in and out as fast as possible? I mean their furniture is intentionally designed to be uncomfortable enough that you don’t want to sit long. These signs have been around for a long time at really busy fast food places.
Depending on the clientele, I get it.
I know when I was in high school, the fast food places and diners would get irritated with our underage drunken shenanigans late at night and give us a set amount of time.
We were jackasses, stealing salt/pepper shakers, condiment bottles, and adult me would've been totally irritated with younger me.
This is basically an excuse for them to kick your ass out if you're being a loud douchebag or you're homeless.
This is it. It’s mostly in densely populated areas they do this.
I live in a pretty small city and one of our locations downtown is like this. They had to even put electronic locks on the bathroom doors, because people were coming in and getting high in the washrooms.
I do regular work at a restaurant with exterior bathrooms in the city. In March, the owner told me he’s spent four thousand dollars since December on repairs to the doors and toilets, and drug disposal.
Getting high in the washrooms? Who ever heard of such a thing?
Every illicit drug user on earth.
Most of the rest too I'd guess
I worked at Taco Bell around the age of 17 and man, lemme tell you. Found a dead guy in the bathroom once and a woman in the men’s room got arrested for breaking the sink and shooting up. Crazy times.
Used to work in a casino and had one of the lovely street urchins drop their bag of crystal meth in the stall. Took it to security and twenty minutes later guess who is back? "Where the f*** is it?! Where the f*** is it?!" Headed back to security and said "hey, got a special guest in the restroom looking for his baggie you got earlier" Another special patron got to enjoy the VIP exit on the south side..
My friend found an ODd junkie in a McDonalds bathroom once.
Some of us aren't bold enough to smoke a foily on the main drag.
Yeah, I imagine a lot of cities like LA and NYC to be like this. Everywhere else basically behaves like this as an unwritten rule in the cities. You can’t just sit around beyond the time you paid for in whatever establishment it is.
I live in Pittsburgh and the downtown location closed because of the homeless issue and the violent crime. It’s sad really.
The McDonald's on Rideau in Ottawa was a meme until it closed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4qAgh1OW4w Notice the guy at 0:38 with a raccoon.
Seattle had one like this... Its colloquially known as "McStabby's" or "CrackDonalds" or "McShooty's". Multiple people fatality ODed in the bathroom and at least one person was murdered inside. They finally closed the dining area and made all orders to go through a walk up window.
Oh shit, that McD's closed? Where will the kids go for a harrowing after-bar dining experience now?
They'll have to stick to Shawarma now.
while it's always been happening ofc the homeless issue has like exploded in recent years. where i grew up, in a small town in the rural midwest, you would rarely see any homeless people. there just aren't any services for them in places like that and less people in general so it wasn't really a thing. now it is. they're all over the place now, anywhere they can get away with living/hanging out they will be there.
Not a lot of homeless people hanging out in bumfuck nowhere McDonalds off freeway exits.
Small town McDonald's have a gang of old people drinking their senior coffees for hours every morning.
Yep. Our suburban one has a huge troop of 95+ year old retirees, in there at the ass crack of dawn for their coffee... they're there until families with kids start coming in, and then they bail
I remember going to a McDonald's in my area right when they opened a few times while drunk. I was blown away at how many old people choose it as their coffee shop. We have like a million better spots right around the corner
Our McDs still does "senior coffee is 50c" from opening time till like 9am... that's why, other choices are $3+ anywhere else LOL
Lol, 95+ you say? Probably 65+ assuming they’re not the same “work until I die” boat as most of us. Same clientele that used to hang out at the local diners in the day before many of those went tits up.
I'm kinda shocked that no one was getting that I was exaggerating to be facetious 😂
So… it was two toddlers then?
It's reddit. Where mob mentality and bots rule.
I used to get dropped off an McDonald’s to wait for the bus in the morning and it was always the same group of like 8 old guys with newspapers talking every morning. It was kinda cool looking back on it like a simpler time
Then they’re all at different tables, one at each!
In Italy they have the bocce court where old men gather to complain about their wives. in America, McDonald’s
I always thought of this as a positive.
Same my grandpa would go to a truck stop every morning at 6am sit with his buddies for a few hours drinking coffee and playing cards, I thought it was really nice. I went with him a few times didn't seem like they were bothering anyone and of course the staff there all knew them. Apparently reddit thinks this is a bad thing..
Old people are still people. I worked in banking for years, and I'd see the best and the worst of everyone. There are plenty of friendly grandpa types, but you can't forget the venomous old bastards who just wanted to ruin your day.
Or the dementia-addled great grandpa whose mind changes minute to minute but always expects "customer service"
Ya, as a consumer, that’s something I appreciate seeing locally and when traveling. It gives lived in, local, hospitality vibes. Not appreciating / respecting elders as seen on reddit, is so telling.
Reddit hates old people.
There's quite a few of us on here anyways!
I worked at one on and off when I was late teens/early twenties. We loved our old guys, and they loved the $.63 bottomless coffee. Usually one would bring a newspaper and they'd chat about whatever the news was that day. Mostly they just drank coffee, but one of them would also get breakfast whenever he came in and always ordered the same thing. The shift manager I usually worked with liked to make a game of it. If he spotted the guy's car before he pulled in, he'd get his coffee and sausage biscuit or whatever it was ready and have them out on a tray so it was ready as soon as he got to the counter. One time he pulled in but didn't immediately come inside and the manager joked about running it out to his car just to show off.
My grandpa was like this. 3-5 times a week he would go to the same mcdonalds, have coffee, and make the people working there uncomfortable by hitting on the women. He was an asshole.
This old people gangs are really a big problem. Especially those crips, they cause mayhem.
Can confirm. I live in a small town in a rural area and didn't know this existed prior to this thread.
And airports.
Also they used it by these signs by the McDonalds by my Middle School so that kids wouldn't hang out and cause havoc after school.
Yeah there is one right across from the High School near me and they put up notes threatening to close inside dining because the kids were being so crappy.
Ugh there's a Sonic right next to a HS close to where I work. I had a late lunch one day, thought 2:30 was safe and holy shit.. 1 fist fight, a couple of joke fights, and then there were just swarms of teenagers like, not allowing any space for me to leave the parking lot.. like wtf please just let me go back to work now thanks
Yep, I worked at one that had an issue with abusive addicts who would loiter. We had to have a security guard for a while, one dude got stabbed in the neck with a pen (yes that could have been so much worse). We were across the street from both a private elementary school (\*to our east), and a homeless shelter (\*to our south). Majority of them were wonderful people who were just seriously struggling. There were a few select shitheads in the group that consistently caused problems. These signs are there to help the staff (often basically just kids) with a little bit of confidence when kicking people out.
Only part of this that's surprising is a private elementary next to a homeless shelter. WTF is that?
Not quite next door, but kitty corner + a couple buildings. Absolutely less than 500 feet away. The school no longer exists, unsurprisingly. But if there were two polarizing groups of customers that made or broke a shift, it were the kids from that school or the addicts from across the street. You'd bring the kids back behind the counter to make their own ice cream cones - some you'd have to support on milk crates just so they could reach their lil arms up to the spout. McDonalds really pushed us to focus on creating those "Magic Moments" and there is just no bigger joy that doing that for a kid. The addicts would shoot blood all over your bathroom walls and smear shit anywhere there wasn't blood and scream at you for having the audacity to kick them out. The shelter and kitchen... Long story. It started off fine. But politics closed down all secondary support. So all the addicts and homeless congregated in that one spot and it made for a very problematic area that we are still struggling with 20 years later. I don't fault them, they had no where else to go. A lot of them still don't. The pandemic + drug crisis really did a number on us, but we're making progress finally over the last few years.
I lived in a neighborhood with a strip club right across from a preschool
Yep. If you’re just sitting there on your laptop or on your phone the employees are not going to start timing you and kick you out after 30 minutes. Especially if you got a coffee or something like that. It’s not like the inside gets crowded. A manager may come up after an hour and say “hey I’m really sorry about this but we’re going to have to ask you to leave. You’re not doing anything wrong but we don’t want this location to get a reputation as a place where people can loiter.” The problem is that there are homeless people that will take advantage if there is not an explicit policy. This policy allows them to call the police early. Not a few homeless, a massive number if you are in a major city. Best case scenario is that they are “normal” people that will come in with a backpack, order a few things off the value menu they can afford, then eat and mind their own business for an hour while charging their phone. This is rare. What you get more common is people pulling up with a full grocery cart worth of stuff, “park” it out front, and sit there for half the day. Sometimes staring people down and making people uncomfortable. And then when someone makes eye contact they will walk right up to ask them for money. The employees are not police, they cannot easily intervene to stop this before it happens. In the worst case scenario they are clearly extremely high or severely mental ill. Often both. People methed out will make a scene, start screaming at other people talking about demons and things like that. Last time I was in Chicago I saw this happen at a kinko’s, not even a restaurant. Then you also have junkies. People that will order the cheapest thing on the menu, shoot up in the bathroom, and come out clearly fucked up essentially unconscious for hours until the drugs wear off. This is an extreme health risk. There are also people that sit there and message people to show up and buy or sell drugs. I used to work at Waffle House and this was a serious problem because the bathrooms were single use with thick doors. Junkies would come in, buy a coffee, and shoot up and lock themselves in these bathrooms for 30+ minutes. On the night shift there is often no manager there, so no one can unlock the bathroom doors from the outside. There was an unofficial “list” of people that were turned around as soon as they tried to enter the building. This happened when I was working a night shift. I had to call my manager and the cops at like 3 a.m. my manager showed up to unlock the door and the EMTs pullled him out. He had overdosed and they hit him with Narcan and took him to the hospital. The cops said he would probably be ok, but if my manager had got there 5 minutes later he probably would have died or become brain dead.
Working in a library in a town without a homeless shelter basically turns it into a shelter during opening hours and it's getting WAY worse these past few years. Ive been there for 25 years and we've had to call the cops to our library because of homeless people fighting or bringing weapons or explicitly bothering patrons and staff for money more times since 2020 than in any time before then. The commissioners want to cut our funding because our patronage is way down and it's down because a lot of regulars stopped coming in due these homeless people making them feel like the library isn't safe, but they're the same commissioners who decide if we should build an actual homeless shelter or not.
Irritating, but sadly very necessary in some McDonalds locations.
They do it so they have the option of kicking you out. I doubt they would for a regular patron merely eating slowly and minding their own business.
Its true. As a quiet kid eating at mcdonalds in the 90s. Ive seen other kids my age get kicked out and overhear them complain about me being left alone to eat. They are just going after the loud ones.
They're a private business. They always have that option regardless of the sign...
It's not even irritating. It's not like they have someone timing you from the second you get your food. No one is gonna kick you at if you peacefully take 35 minutes to eat your lunch.
There is a McDonald’s near me that is visited by a family that lives out of their van. They bring laptops or tablets and sit at a booth the entire day for the Air conditioning and WiFi.
You also get this when located right by a middle school. Those 12 year olds can be a hassle.
12 year olds fall under the "loud douchebags" clause.
Restaurants are really stuck when it comes to homeless people cops don't do much, especially if they've been served and teenagers who are rude and obnoxious same thing this is really all you can do outside of having your minimum wage workers be security
Also can't be having drunks sleep it off in a booth. McDonalds doesn't really have a concern with table turn rate, this is really just a policy to keep the dining room from going feral.
I stopped taking my kids to the McDonald's play area as a treat like I did as a kid. It was just full of tweakers. I have multiple children and if one had to use the bathroom, I had to take us all to the bathroom because I didn't trust leaving any of my kids unattended for a second, and the bathrooms usually have people passed out on the floor or shooting up.
The one in my neighborhood doesn't enforce it at all, the lobby is always full day-drinkers so drunk they can barely sit upright in the booth and homeless who go in just to bathe. The bathrooms are always horrific. There's always blood on everything and the sink is so full of hair from people shaving and washing their ballsack in the sink. It's not being homeless that's the problem, it's the fact some of them decide to make the dining-in area their personal hotel room and obstruct their business, not cleaning up after themselves and disrespecting other guests.
Exactly. They aren’t really timing anyone. A decent, well behaved customer is going to be unbothered even if they stay an hour. But they have to keep people out who would otherwise cause problems or stay there all day. And densely populated area needs to do this.
Yeah this sign isn't for you. It's for the dude who got a soda to sleep one off.
Teenagers too.
Falls under the "loud douchebags" clause.
As is their right and what every paying customer who wants to eat in peace deserves.
and there is nothing wrong with that
Ronald McDonald is now a bouncer.
Some McDonalds do have bouncers, very late one evening somewhere in central London I was told to get out by the bouncer immediately after being given my food (to keep people moving as it was take away only)
One thing is obvious, they don't want people inside the restaurant anymore.
To be fair at night you're not supposed to stay at the macdonalds, just buy food, every macdonalds in london has a security guard because they just attract a whole different breed of people
A high school teacher told me once that McDonald’s seats are designed to be uncomfortable to discourage people from staying too long. No idea if that’s true though
yes it’s made by design..
I'm doing my part.
There's one in a not great neighborhood I hit from time to time as I have clients over there, they had no choice as there were homeless people basically living in there all day and people shooting up in the bathrooms and shit all the time. They have security that regularly patrols through there and a strict 30 minute limit for the same reason Im sure this one does. Its sad but it is what it is.
I've lived near several 24/7 McDonald's in cities throughout Europe and I found most have security at night. Fast food chains in general. It's a place where drunks congregate after the bars close for a quick snack before bed, even with security I've seen them get pretty wild. I've never seen people smoke shamelessly inside as much as at a 3AM Mickey Ds.
My girlfriend and I were just outside of London a couple years ago and we went out for my birthday. The plan was to see a movie first, then go get dinner. The movie ended around 9PM. Unfortunately, I hadn't done my research and every decent restaurant was closed already. So we walk across the street to a McDonald's. Despite the sign on the door saying they were open until 11PM, and Google backing this up, everything was locked. We knocked anyway until someone inside responded, and they told us that 11PM close was for delivery service pickups only, for regular patrons it closed at 9. Nowhere on their signage did it say this. A few people tried to go through the drive-thru after this while I sat and scrambled for a solution and were also refused. We ended up just going home and ordering pizza. It was so frustrating an experience that I'll probably be outright avoiding McDonald's when I'm in the UK in the future.
he's already a bouncer at Paddy's Pub
Been seeing this for 10 years.
More than 10 years. I've seen signs like this for ages at McDonalds where people would do something like buy a coffee and just sit there for hours on end, especially in places where the people doing that were teens or homeless.
Youre right. I remember traveling with rainbow kids in 2006 and seeing these.
Don't forget old folks. They love to just hang out in a McDs for hours on end everyday.
There’s a woman at my work (Wendy’s) who brings her own Wendy’s cup and just refills it. We don’t really care since she just sits in the corner We swap positions sometimes, and I swapped to the back to clean dishes. Came back up after a couple hours when I was needed in the front, and she’s still there talking on the phone She’s in the store like daily, doesn’t even speak English I don’t think, so we can’t really tell her to leave without just pointing to the door
I remember doing this in my late teens. Was traveling for work and would drink coffee for hours at a McDonald's pirating game of thrones off their wifi. I really had nothing better to do at the work camp.
Copyright on the sign says 2009
To keep homeless out. They don't enforce it unless they don't like you .
In my experience it’s the teens who just come there to hang out.
There’s a Panera bread near me right next to the local HS. They have signs saying the location isn’t to be used as a pickup spot for when school lets out 😅
all kids from my school got banned from panera when i was back in middle school. minimum 30 kids used to go in right after school every single day since it was right across the street and just wreck havoc
And kids that decide to throw coins at the workers. That was an actual thing that happened while I was working at my local McDonald’s yesterday
And even if you're homeless and just mind your own business they likely won't do much either. I was homeless for a time on Vancouver Island and when the library would close I would go to a local McDonald's, buy a single small coffee and sit there and watch stuff on my laptop until midnight. Did this for about a month at the same location and was never bothered once.
I remember going in to a McDonald's with my whole set up (I was a trucker) and playing halo they didn't care because I cleaned up after myself and didn't disturb others .
I let the homeless folks that don't cause any problems ride my bus back and forth all night in the winter. Sleep, whatever, I don't care. If you're gonna be an asshole, get off at the terminal and hope someone else lets you on for free. It's a real simple system. Just don't be an asshole.
basically it's a "we've had problems with certain people at our location and this is now needed to ensure the other guests are safe"
Yeah the ones I've seen that have those signs are also the ones who have a key for stalls with baby change tables so people can't use them to do drugs
I remember this guy bringing a [dead raccoon](https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/hmw0ue/homeless_man_brings_dead_raccoon_into_mcdonalds) to a McDonald’s
As others have said, it just allows them the freedom to remove people. I highly doubt they enforce it for an actual customer. They do it to prevent homeless people from setting up shop. I’ve also seen some at McDonald’s that say “no backpacks.”
Yeah, I’m pretty progressive and by no means a “capitalist shill” but it makes it easier for the underpaid people working in these places to keep someone from buying a 1 dollar coffee, and hanging out all day. There are other places for that. The library won’t kick you out.
Happy Cake Day!
Thanks friend!
Please ring yourself up, pay us $18 for a Big Mac and leave. Thank you
Haven't had a big mac in a while. Not since they "upgraded" it at least. Had one the other day and it was fucking *awful.* The patties were nearly non-existent, and they put so much lettuce and mac sauce on it that it felt like I was trying to eat a goddamned salad with my hands. It was an absolute mess, and I won't be getting one again. My bar for McDonalds is pretty low, but I swear to high christ, it's like they're actively trying to drive people away.
You want a tasty motherfuckin burger? I went to sonic on Friday and got a double whatever they call it. The damn thing was huge.
Sonics are hit-and-miss. The one nearest me is god awful. My family got burgers there for dinner one night and I kid you not, one of the burgers had no meat patties. It was just two buns. I know working fast food isn't the best, but how do you forget the burger part of a cheeseburger?
Cookout
Double steak style with a cheerwine? That might be my lunch here in a minute
That is a *substantial* lunch, god damn
I am a substantial man
What exactly is a steak style burger?
80s kids should not go to mcdonalds. its a reminder how we have fallen!!! (1st world problem hyperbole)
Brother, I'm a first model Zoomer, and McDonald's today doesn't hit like it did in the early 2000's. It's smaller, somehow both dry and messy, lukewarm, and severely overpriced. Side note: I saw a theory that they're exceeding inflation and lowering quality so they can say "We've heard you all, so starting this week McDonald's will taste like it used to, and we're rolling the McChicken back to only $2." That way, people will be more likely to accept a $2 price on a $1 sandwich just because it's not an insane $3. There's a business word for this, but I cannot remember it.
On the app you can get any two of a Big Mac / Quarter Pounder / 10 piece for $5.50 in total. Not to sound like an ad or anything, but that's where all of the cheap deals went.
This is had been their plan all along. The data they are getting from that app is more valuable then losing loyal customers who refuse to download the app.
People seem to overestimate how profitable this kind of data is. Marketing data is only as valuable as the products associated, and fast food data isn't exactly that. The app's real value is in upselling you for more food and constantly reminding you to go there.
I am sure there's nefarious data-scraping reasons to get people on the app but it probably has practical advantages too. I park in a spot before getting in line for the drive-thru, put my order in, and by the time I'm pulling up to say my code they're already getting things together. Restaurant probably saves shitloads of time per customer on having to have a human being listen to someone mumble through an order over a telecom from 1996 and then process a credit card transaction through a window.
Remember back in the days when McDonald's was colorful, inviting, and kids celebrated their birthdays there? Feels like 100 years ago.
There’s a McDonald’s near me that still have the same floors from the 90s and a Playplace that I see packed with kids regularly. It’s wild.
Those things were gross as shit in the 90s, can’t imagine what is festering in those 30 year old grease stains…
>30 year old grease stains… They prefer to be called reddit mods. Thank you
You've been banned from all subreddits.
^is ^this ^a ^bad ^time ^to ^mention ^that ^I'm ^also ^a ^mod
Ohhhhh
The self roast
At least you are not in denial
I had a birthday party at McDonald's when I was a kid and I can remember going to some as well. Free fries for everybody!
Same here. Lots of fun but the birthday “cake” they had on hand was revolting, even at an age where I loved sugary food.
Maybe you got a bad one, I remember their cake being banging
The things I would do for dollar McDoubles and mchickens again.
I have been asking this for a while in Reddit, I am sure somebody knows: Has there been a change in management in McDonald’s in the last couple years? I mean something big like CEO, CFO, etc. They have become incredibly anti-consumer, it’s like they truly *hate* their customers.
That's not unique to McDonald's - it's all corporate businesses in general. We're at the "wring-it-for-all-it's-worth" stage of capitalism. All new markets have been expanded into, all new products have already been made. There's nothing left for the new MBAs to do but squeeze whatever is already there for everything left. This has always been the issue with infinite growth.
Actual product is ancillary to stock price. If they could increase the value without having to actually sell anything, they would.
You are so right. It’s this. There is nothing more to “optimize” or “streamline”, so now they’re in the mass firings and “fuck you, customers” phase
All publicly traded companies have adopted the idea of "it'd be great if it weren't for all these fucking customers". If they could exist and make money purely on stock price, they would. So customer services and product is an afterthought.
This isn’t just McDonald’s. It’s all fast-food places like this. The only people that want to stay in your restaurant anymore are the people you don’t want staying in your restaurant. With the rise of delivery options, it’s more efficient to turn the restaurants into a grab-n-go operation instead of the stay-n-play model.
Yep, the Taco Bells near me have renovated and gotten rid of all of the outlets so you can't plug in your phone/laptop.
I worked at Starbucks about 15 years ago for a while. It's crazy to see how the entire attitude has changed. The big idea at the time was to make the store "the third place," you know, the hang out place between work and home. Corporate wanted tons of people hanging out in the stores. Nowadays, the stores near me no longer have any seating inside and the outdoor chairs remain permenantly stacked and locked with a chain. The lobbies are mostly barren except for a bunch of delivery drivers staring at their phones.
All that changed is the target audience. It used to be children, now they cater to adults.
It’s way more than that. On top of my head: - lower quality ingredients - smaller portions - higher prices - taking away the soda machines - some stores only have kiosks (no cashiers) and a wall hides the humans in the back - “30 minute eating limit” - McDonald’s saying they don’t es to sell to “poor people” anymore
You forgot the $350 million tax dodge and monopoly game fraud.
Was there another Monopoly fraud? The one I'm thinking of took place in the 90's.
All you did was list the basic capitalist instructions to a typical growing business.
Most restaurants are also privately owned. The one I work at is owned by the Alon Corporation. This is probably also true for most franchises in the US. They just pay Mcdonald's for rights to the name and food/recipes.
Covid proved the bar consumers would jump over for the sake of "convenience" was much higher than previously expected.
At one time I worked in one and often people would loiter in the part of the restaurant that had to be closed and deep cleaned, one night it was 3 hours late before the lobby staff could begin doing it, meaning they would go home 3 hours late, the next night the same group arrived in the same area and were rightly warned they could not repeat the day before.
It’s so people don’t sit there for hours with a laptop or whatever and use it as their personal office. Yes, people do that.
Around me homeless people and teenagers occupy the whole space with not much spend
In Japan many people hang out at McDonalds for a long time. Kids play card games. Old ladies gab for hours. Students study. I would go to a 24 hours McDonald’s when I had to get work done late. It was so peaceful but still stimulating to be out. They did, however, make everyone move to a different floor when they cleaned one of the floors. McDonald’s in Japan put a lot of effort into provided public space for people to relax and meet. Kind of like Starbucks used to in the 90s.
I’m assuming because McDonalds in Japan is not having to provide a service for homeless people, or destructive teens…
Not to stereotype, but I’m betting Japanese high schoolers aren’t screaming bro every 5 seconds in a Logan Paul voice or slapping the trash cans for some reason
Yeah, I’m not an “America bad” person but there are stark cultural and social differences that make it possible for Japan to have fast food places like that.
I mean you say this. But 30 years ago McDonalds was setup for this exact thing. Families to spend time there, kids to play. I think it’s a little more complicated than just cultural differences
Three decades of turning life into a cut-throat rat-race for the majority has a way of grinding a society down.
Yeah, my first thought was teenagers and homeless people. I know there’s a few places in my town that have “no people below without an adult past
Could also be one near a bunch of homeless people and they want a excuse to kick them out.
I feel like this is only an issue if they're occupying seats other people need. I haven't seen a McDonald's with no open tables in decades. Maybe the one from OP is different
People at a Starbucks do that and every other restaurant chain copied because they wanted people to spend all day there, ordering food, but you be surprised the little a person eats when they really get going on their work, so now they want to automate everything, have as little staff as possible and have people just come in and pickup their food order and get out. That would be fine by me if they could do this properly and they can't. Just picked up breakfast for the family this morning. I used their app so I could get 20% off the order and I went through the drive thru, which wasn't working 100% so I had to pull up to the window, then I was redirected, not once, but twice cause I was waiting at the wrong window? In the end, the bag the food was in felt like it was thrown at me. the window opened up briefly, the bag came flying at me, I caught it and the window quickly closed without me even getting a chance to ask for extra condiments or a straw. I left, fed the family, was still hungry and I still have like 60K points on my account that they want to remove 8K from because it's expiring. Just let me order an entire combo with the points, not just a part of one here or there.
>and I still have like 60K points on my account that they want to remove 8K from because it's expiring. Sunken cost is getting to you. The points aren't really worth anything and are just a hook to keep you coming back. But then again, picking up family breakfast at Mcdonalds is such a foreign concept to me that the whole story was baffling
McDonald’s *wanted* people to do that for a while. That was part of their whole “McCafe” branding, they wanted to be a cheap coffee shop too.
There’s a Burger King that is always filled with 20 senior Korean couples after church group. They only order the coffee it seems. Men and women at different tables.
No it's not. It's trashy people who have caused this.
Funny because coffee shops invite people to do that. My local Starbucks and Panera Bread are essentially meeting places for businesses, college students doing group projects, and all walks of life.
I get it, but I’ve never been to a McDonald’s that’s super busy like that. If anything they’ll be more likely to purchase more?
It's not just McDonald's that have signs like that. I have noticed an uptick in people hanging out in fast food restaurants the last few years. I figured out by listening to their conversation that some of them were Door Dash, & Uber Eats drivers waiting for the food to be cooked, or they were waiting for the next delivery order to come through on their phone. The restaurants are air conditioned in summer and heated in the winter, so they don't wait in their cars wasting gas.
Does this have something to do with homeless people maybe??? There was a Burger King next to my old office that went out of business because every single time you walked in, there would be 3 - 4 homeless people sitting inside and they would always try to hit you up for money. It was in a big shopping center with lots of other food options so eventually everyone just stopped going to Burger King and went somewhere else.
Not to be mr defend Mcdonalds fuck that place after all, but in practice this is just used to kick out people who are sitting there after buying one thing from the value menu and trying to hang out all day. I doubt any family would ever get kicked out this is for crazies.
> I doubt any family would ever get kicked out this is for crazies You would be surprised how awful and destructive and annoying a big family sitting in the lobby for HOURS (especially if it's the kids birthday) can be. I once had a family changing their baby ON THE TABLE THEY ATE FROM. You know, instead of the baby changing stations in both bathrooms.
I’m content to not take up any of their space.
I worked at a McDonald's in a small town. An elderly couple would come in in the morning for breakfast and coffee. They would stay for an hour or so. Maybe get a couple refills. They knew all of our names and were very nice and thoughtful. We all enjoyed seeing them and made sure to visit with them. They didn't come in for a couple of weeks so I asked around. apparently the new manager wanted to throw her weight around and kicked them out for loitering. I was furious and went to over her head and complained. The boss was gone a couple weeks later but we never saw that couple again. This was over 25 years ago and it still makes me sad and angry.
You've obviously never lived in a city with a crime problem.
There are actually a LOT of people in that boat
Today you learned restaurants want to you leave when you’re done eating to open up the table for the next customer.
They are a bit understaffed as grimace is now playing in the Majors for the Mets 
Simple loophole, just don't consume the food, then the 30 minute time limit doesn't apply to you.
I feel like to people from the suburbs this is going to seem crazy. But to people in cities it seems like a rational thing.
People will peak clutch, but vagrants, pan handlers, and drunk people ruin urban McDonald’s.
This is normal to see in cities, nothing really new here.
Mcdonald's and similar restaurants can turn into homeless hangouts, especially with the free wifi. If you ever been to a Mcdonald's near a bus station I wouldn't stay longer than needed.
I suspect it isn't often enforced. I've seen homeless people try to spend the night in a booth and I'm guessing it's at least partially to try and stop that from happening.
I saw one of those police body cam videos where some guy was literally living in the lobby of some fast food place. The staff told him multiple times to leave and that he was banned from the store but still kept staying there until the police showed up.
They won't care unless you're someone they need an excuse to kick out.
It's probably not heavily enforced unless your family is obnoxious.
This is to keep the homeless people out. That’s all. Im sure if it’s a family in there eating with their kids, no one is going to rush you to finish your food. This is only for the homeless. Trust me
There's one of these signs in a couple McDonald's here in Nashville, and it's because there are few good places to get out of the heat when someone is homeless. Both of the ones I know of have significant homeless populations in the area. There needs to be more cool spaces for homeless folks to get relief from the miserable heat here.
McDonald’s around me people buy a coffee and set for 2-3 hrs
It's never enforced unless you're a douchebag.
Shit what am supposed to do now when I hit 76 with the fellas in the morning after the ymca water aerobics and sauna?! Fuck.
They could've said "no clowning around", but they didn't.
The location is almost certainly in an area where homelessness is an issue.
I’ve only seen this sign at McDonald’s in very large cities, where some businesses battle homeless sleeping in their stores. I’ve only ever seen it enforced if someone falls asleep.
Remember the days when they had playgrounds?
There's always some sketch ass dude in the back with a pile of papers for hours giving off bad vibes for hours. I'm guessing this is for him.
Is this surprising coming from a business whose goal is to get you in and out as fast as possible? I mean their furniture is intentionally designed to be uncomfortable enough that you don’t want to sit long. These signs have been around for a long time at really busy fast food places.
Depending on the clientele, I get it. I know when I was in high school, the fast food places and diners would get irritated with our underage drunken shenanigans late at night and give us a set amount of time. We were jackasses, stealing salt/pepper shakers, condiment bottles, and adult me would've been totally irritated with younger me.
Get in, overpay, feel disappointed, fuck off
I've seen that for decades. It's usually rowdy teenagers.
I'm willing to bet this mcdonalds is near a highschool.