I haven’t been to a remodeled McDonald’s or any McDonald’s fast food restaurant in a long time. It hardly seems worth it. Paying over $10 for a “value meal” to be served a crappy frozen burger, fries and a soda, when you can spend a few bucks more and get something healthier and better tasting.
We had an offer for $10 off a $20 meal from Capital One so we decided to stop in at the West Lebanon, NH location after an afternoon of shopping and boy was it a depressing experience.
Spending over $20 for two people was easy enough as all the “value meals” hit the $12 – $14 mark. Like many of the new MickeyDs, there is no actual person to greet you, just a row of kiosks to place your order. At this location you get your meal delivered to the table of your choice via a table number.
It took 15 minutes for our “fast food” to arrive – Filet of Fish value meals and a Quarter Pounder value meals – nothing fancy that should take extra time – so we got a good look at the restaurant. Crumbs and dried ketchup on every table. Every single napkin holder in the restaurant empty.
And the decor! They must have used East Berlin circa 1958 as the inspiration. Mind you this is in the beautiful rural area of the Upper Valley, New Hampshire and Vermont – far from the urban decay of a rust belt city but that how the interior was decorated. Metal mesh room dividers like you’d see in prison, fake distressed “wood” panels and even some faux-Banksy type spray painted images on the fake concrete walls. Pigeons of all things sitting on a fake spray painted window sill. The whole place was sad and depressing. Surfaces made to be hosed down occasionally and metal grating to keep the prison rioting to a minimum.
The food was depressing as well. The quarter pounder looked like a single they used to sell for under a $1. Fries were heat lamp temperature.
Nothing about the experience made me want to return unless I wanted a filming location for a horror film or I was depressed and wanted an “Unhappy Meal”.
To top if off, I saw signs for the Monopoly contest but curiously we didn’t get any of the tickets to play. I did see one employee take a bag out of the trash and peel off one of the tickets.