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Artist Angus MacLane made Corellian Cheeseburger — a Millennium Falcon-type vessel. Except that it’s a cheeseburger made out of LEGOs.
You can view more images at the link, including a R2 unit that appears to be modeled after the McDonald’s mascot The Grimace.
Link via Super Punch
What are these people in Moscow lined up for? Jobs? Cash? No, about 30,000 people lined up for the opportunity to eat at the first McDonalds to open in the city, in 1990. -via Buzzfeed
J. Kenji Lopez-Alt of The Food Lab (over at Serious Eats) likes a challenge, so he decided to reverse engineer what is considered to be world's most perfect fries: McDonald's french fries.
Now, you may disagree that the words "McDonald's" and "good" belong in the same sentence, let alone "perfect" - but there's something in their french fries that makes Americans go nuts. I personally don't get it - perhaps because I didn't grow up eating McDonald's fries, but my wife swears by 'em. And she's not alone: over 2 million pounds of McDonald's fries are consumed every single day. That makes Mickey D the largest potato buyer in the United States.
Back to Kenji's quest. So how hard is it to reverse engineer McDonald's french fries? Turns out, it was very, very hard, so Kenji decided to do the next logical thing: he's going to steal McDonald's recipe.
Anyone with a buck can get a batch of fully cooked McDonald's fries, but I was after something more. I wanted to get fries from the store in their fully frozen state so that I could examine their surface for clues on how they were parcooked, as well as attempt to fry them myself at home to discover if there is any secret in the fry oil in the shops.
I figured I'd be just be able to walk into the store and order them straight from the cashier.
"Welcome to McDonald's, may I take your order?"
"Yes Ma'am. I'd like a large fries please, hold the cooking."
"Excuse me?"
I know she's already said no in her head, but I press on just the same: "Um... I'd just like the frozen fries please."
"I'm sorry sir, we just don't do that."
Time for some intimidation tactics: "Ok. Could I speak to the manager please?"
"I am the manager."
Sh*t. I bring out the really big guns: "Listen, the thing is, my wife is pregnant—like really pregnant—and she sent me on a quest for McDonald's french fries. But she only likes them really fresh, like straight out of the fryer fresh, so I figured I'd just get some frozen, and fry them for her at home. You know how it is. Women—no accounting for'em, right?"
She remains unimpressed, and needless to say, I go home fry-less, contemplating whether attempting to leverage an unborn, un-conceived son in exchange for a couple dozen frozen potato sticks is grounds for eternal damnation.
Thank goodness that Kenji didn't give up easily. One of his Facebook fans managed to come up with the perfect ruse. Head on over to Serious Eats to find out exactly what happened and how you can make your very own McDonald's fries in the comfort of your own kitchen: Link
On April 15, 1955, Ray Kroc opened his own McDonald’s franchise in Des Plaines, Illinois (seen below). While tons of people head to this so-called “first McDonald’s” every year, the fact is, the building standing there is not only not the first McDonald’s (Kroc actually opened the ninth location of the franchise), it’s not even the original building, but just a reconstruction. Even so, that spot of ground did have a huge impact on American life as we know it and spawned what was at one point the largest restaurant chain in the world –the title is now held by Yum! Brands (KFC, Taco Bell, etc.) and followed by Subway.
Image via ChicagoGeek [Flickr]
When I was a kid, I always thought whoever Mr. McDonald was, he must be super rich. As it turns out, Richard and Maurice McDonald, who started the original restaurant, only made $2.7 million on the deal. While that does seem like a good amount of cash, just think how much the restaurant is worth these days. To make matters worse, the brothers insisted on retaining the rights to their first restaurant in San Bernardino, so Ray opened a McDonald’s restaurant right by theirs and ran them out of business. Worse still, even though the original deal involved the brothers earning 0.5% of the chain’s annual revenues, Kroc refused to honor that part of the verbal agreement after the McDonald’s brothers refused to sell him their original restaurant and the land it stood on.
And it’s not like the McDonald’s Brothers didn’t do anything but open an everyday burger joint; if they did, Ray probably wouldn’t have been so interested in taking the whole thing over. They innovated many of the ideas that have made modern fast food restaurants so successful, including assembly line kitchens, simplistic menus and self-serve counters. The menus had nothing on them but hamburgers, cheeseburgers, French fries, potato chips, sodas, milkshakes and apple pies. Because things were so quick and efficient, prices were about half of what it cost to get a similar meal at a diner.
Image via _skynet [Flickr]
It wasn’t too long after Kroc took over completely that the chain expanded out of America, first to Canada, then Costa Rica, Panama, Japan, Europe and Australia. These days, there’s McDonald’s located all over the world. In fact, the image above shows just how widely spread they are in the U.S.
While this world-wide globalization has led to many negative views of the corporation, some people say the company has actually helped improve the standard of service in some areas of the world. For example, when McDonald’s opened in Hong Kong in 1975, it was the first restaurant to consistently offer clean public restrooms. Soon afterwards, customers began to demand the same from other restaurants in the area.
Whether McDonald’s has a positive or negative impact in the country it enters may be a matter of opinion, but one thing the restaurant takes great pride in is their localization of the menu based on the native tastes of the area. Some interesting menu items from around the world include:
Images via Weather Sealed, xetark [Flickr], Allan Reyes [Flickr],
Even in America, certain locations have their own specialty treats. The McLobster and McCrab are served seasonally throughout New England. And in the late 1990’s, Chicago locations offered a hamburger with barbecue sauce and Canadian bacon that was dubbed “the Beef Wennington” after a notable Chicago Bulls player.
Many of the company’s biggest successes were actually created locally by franchisees, including the Filet-O-Fish, the Big Mac and the Egg McMuffin. The Filet-O-Fish was made by a Cincinnati franchise owner who wanted to offer his Catholic customers a meal they could still eat on Fridays and during lent. Ray Kroc tried a similar idea at his original restaurant, but his Hula Burger, a sandwich a pineapple slice in place of meat was a huge flop.
As for the Big Mac, it was created by an early Pittsburgh franchiser who wanted to serve something adults would enjoy when feeding their kiddos at the restaurant. The corporate heads told him he could only create new menu items creating ingredients on the existing menu, which is where the Big Mac was born.
The Egg McMuffin was in a similar position as the Big Mac inventor, only he went ahead and added a new creation to the menu without contacting headquarters. The corporation was quite upset that he started selling the McMuffin without their blessing, but they quickly changed their minds when they saw how popular it was.
Image Via VirtualErn [Flickr]
It’s not only the menu that headquarters like to keep consistent. Locations are largely required to look similar to one another on the inside. That’s not to say there aren’t a few stand out locations though. The “Solid Gold McDonald’s” by the Rock and Roll of Fame is themed after fifties rock and roll. Victoria, British Columbia has a restaurant with a 24-carat gold chandelier and other fancy light fixtures (seen above). The McDonald’s in Stratford-upon-Avon has a very subtle design, as all buildings in the area are required to conform to the historic look of Shakespeare’s birthplace.
Whether you love McDonald’s or loathe it, there’s no arguing that the restaurant has had a huge impact on our society. Heck, Fast Food Nation has estimated that one of eight workers in America have been employed at the restaurant at some point of their lives. So you guys have any weird McDonald’s in your area? Maybe one with unique menu items or a strange design.
Image Via buschap [Flickr]
Sources Mental Floss #1, #2, Food Network Humor, Wikipedia #1, #2, #3
Can you get fired over a slice of cheese? Apparently so, if you work at McDonald’s!
The waitress was fired last March after she sold a hamburger to a co-worker who then asked for cheese, which she added.
The fast-food chain argued this turned the hamburger into a cheeseburger, and so she should have charged more.
The fired employee sued, and won:
The fast-food chain had argued that the waitress – who was employed at a branch in the northern town of Lemmer – had broken staff rules prohibiting free gifts to family, friends or colleagues.
But the court said in its written judgement: "The dismissal was too severe a measure. It is just a slice of cheese," reports AFP news agency.
McDonalds in Japan is selling a series of hamburgers called Big America. There are burgers named for Texas, California, New York, and Hawaii and they look really big. Too bad we don’t have them in America! Link
AdFreak has a list of the thirty strangest commercials of 2009. The above video is a Swedish commercial for McDonald’s featuring children who express their impatience with a long car trip in a particularly creepy way.
Stephen Von Worley created a map of the USA showing where McDonalds outlets are. As you can see, they are (almost) everywhere! You’ll have to go to South Dakota to get 100 miles away from a McDonalds. Link -via Buzzfeed
This lamp post is an ad for McDonalds in Vancouver. You have to wonder 1. how much light does it really emit, and b. is the coffee still free? -via Gizmodo
A woman arrived in prison to visit her husband – cue the ominous music – then was led by a leering guard down a dreary hall to the visitor’s room. As soon as she sat down, her jailed husband ratcheted up the pressure: did she bring it? Would she do it right then and there for him? Curious inmates began to stare …
You’ve won’t see an advertisement quite like this on US television (and for McDonald’s no less!), but thankfully our partner Very Funny Ads got it: Link
Photo: Leah
McDonald’s food is often the butt of jokes, but those days are gone if foodie Georgia Hardstark of The State That I Am In blog and her friend Alie Ward of Curiology have their way.
You see, they’ve concocted that could surely be called as the perfect alcoholic beverage/dinner/dessert, the McNuggitini:
Recipe by Alie and Georgia
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook Time: 0 minutes
Yield: 2 servingsIngredients:
2 McNuggz (plus more for snacking)
1 tub McDonalds Brand Barbeque Sauce (plus more for licking off pinky finger)
1 lg. Mcdonalds Brand Chocolate Milkshake (plus more for bringing all the boys to the yard)
1 bottle Vanilla Vodka (recommended brand: Absolut)Open the McDonalds bag. Eat one McNugg each, followed by two bites of the Filet-o-Fish (make sure you don’t tell anyone that you eat Filet-o-Fishes).
Mix three or four shots of vanilla vodka in the McDonalds Brand Chocolate Milkshake, followed by one shot each directly into your mouth.
Rim each martini glass with McDonalds Brand Barbeque Sauce, and pour milkshake/vodka mixture into the glass. Garnish with a McNugg (which is to be swiped along barbeque sauce rimmed glass after the milkshake has been finished, and consumed with pure, unadulterated glee).
Details at This Recording blog: Link – via Didn’t You Hear?
Latreasa Goodman had an emergency. A food emergency: her local McDonald’s ran out of Chicken McNugget, so naturally she called 911!
Told McDonald’s was out of Chicken McNuggets after paying for a 10-piece meal, a local woman called 911.
Three times.
“This is an emergency, If I would have known they didn’t have McNuggets, I wouldn’t have given my money, and now she wants to give me a McDouble, but I don’t want one,” Latreasa L. Goodman told police. “This is an emergency.”
The McNugget meltdown happened last week at a McDonald’s in the 600 block of North U.S. 1 and ended with Goodman, 27, getting a notice to appear in court on a misuse of 911 charge, according to a recently released police report.
Goodman told investigators she tried to get a refund for the 10-piece McNuggets, but the cashier told her all sales are final.
“I called 911 because I couldn’t get a refund, and I wanted my McNuggets,” Goodman told police.
Wow … we all knew fast food was bad for us, but really? For starters, their burgers can apparently last for 20 years … longer than the average vehicle. Next up: you would have to walk for seven hours to burn off a Super Sized Coke. Seriously.
Heck, even pet food can be healthier than McDonalds according to a recent study – and the list goes on. So, before you head out for your next set of burger and fries read this and be amazed (or utterly disgusted). Of course you could also watch Supersize Me but this list arguably tops even some of his encounters.
In 2007, the employees of an Orlando-area McDonald’s were caught on camera pouring milk into the milkshake machine out of a bucket labeled “Soiled Towels Only.” That particular restaurant had already been cited for 12 different sanitary violations. Though McDonald’s proudly stands by its safety standards, and not every restaurant has such notorious incidents, the setting of a fast food restaurant staffed with low-paid employees at a high turnover rate arguably encourages bending the rules. (McDonald’s isn’t alone in this, of course – Burger King is actually ranked as the dirtiest of all the fast food chains.)
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by 
Self proclaimed mainstream-subversive art collective Superflex, decided they’d answer a question nobody had ever bothered to ask: "What does a McDonald’s restaurant look like as it slowly fills with water?"
Although we should thank them as they took the time to painstakingly recreate a McDonald’s and slowly flood it, filming it all for an exhibition at the South London Gallery.
It’s actually quite a satisfying thing to watch a generic boring fast food joint wash away, be sure to check out the video on the page.
Their latest work is a short film, “Flooded McDonald’s”, where they’ve (shockingly accurately) created a full-size replica of the inside of the ubiquitous fast food joint and then slowly filled it with water. Playing now in an exhibition at South London Gallery, the film is exactly what the title suggests and yet so much more.
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Jake.
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