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>>21989947
Most parents in the 80s and 90s didn't touch McDonald's. It had to be marketed toward kids to get the parents to take them as a fun place to go. McDonald's also kept it dirt cheap as an incentive to the poor. Now those kids are all grown and eat McDonald's on the regular they don't need to cater toward kids because the retarded parents take them there regardless.
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>>21989950
that haunted house is the bees tits. I have great memories of going there when I was a wee chile and getting traumatized. I looked at a walktrhough video in recent years, and sadly they changed a few things and they don't have the pit and the pendulum scene anymore which is burned into my brain
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You just grew up. Well, you were supposed to.
You shouldn't want Mcdonalds to be a colorful kids playground now that you're an adult.
Times change. Every single generation gets upset when the world moves on.
>Waaah!! The SOUL is gone!!
Mcdonalds has always fucking sucked. If you had your birthdays there as a kid you have my sympathies. If it weren't for them hooking you early you wouldn't be making this thread or even thinking about dumb, overpriced chemical fast food.
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>>21989968
This exactly. It was a long term plan and it's worked.
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>>21990236
Civilization went from being a place to have children to a place to spend your worthless legal tender to catch a work call and fill yourself with bean brew and protein calories before returning to your rent cage.
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>>21989947
Everything is so souless now.
Going outside with friends is kinda boring. Now wonder shopping malls are dead.
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>>21989968
>Most parents in the 80s and 90s didn't touch McDonald's.
Utter nonsense. McD's was aimed straight at the adult crowd -- what do you think the Big Mac, the McDLT, and the Arch Deluxe were all marketed toward?
FFS in the 1970s my father's business was about half a mile from McD's, and he ate there literally every day. If he was too busy to go himself, he'd send one of his workers to pick up a Big Mac and a thing of fries.
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I've heard several times over several years all the fast food companies eliminated the unique buildings and they're all grey boxes now such that the real estate value goes up and the building/property is easier to sell if they want to shut it down quickly.
Increasing property value almost makes sense because your assets sheet will always go up giving your shareholders a fuzzy feeling and access to bigger loans (in the medium to long term future).
But if your plan is getting every location up and ready for rapid disposal of the real estate, isn't that just planning for failure? Are both of these points really what every major corporation come to the conclusion of? What am I missing?
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>>21990479
>isn't that just planning for failure?
No, it's making any possible future failures less expensive for you to deal with. That allows you (and your franchisees) to be more financially stable.
>What am I missing?
You're missing that the franchisee is the one that becomes the landlord of the property after they finish paying their initial loan or lease on the building they either converted into a McDonald's or built from scratch. If the McDonald's goes bust for some reason, they get left with owning the property, and it taking less time to be converted to another business so it can be leased means they have less risk of going bankrupt over the closure of the (formerly) McDonald's franchise location.
This makes the initial investment of building/converting the McDonald's location less risky for the franchisee.
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>>21990505
>You're missing that the franchisee is the one that becomes the landlord of the property after they finish paying their initial loan or lease on the building they either converted into a McDonald's or built from scratch.
I thought mcdonald's whoel schtick was owning the land and the franchizee only owns the business and license to do the business.
>No, it's making any possible future failures less expensive for you to deal with.
So instead of increasing profits today, you're going to try and marginally reduce losses at not determinate point in the future?
>>21990527
which kinda contradicts my understanding of the last sentence above. I'm not arguing with you guys, I just don't understand it.
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>>21990477
You're half right
The FOOD is marketed mainly towards adults, but the locations themselves was marketed towards families
Most adults would just order in the drivethru and GTFO, like you described, but to attract families they would have the fun building and the play place. That is moreso what OP is trying to get across.
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>>21990251
I was just gonna say the same thing. Looks like a more recent photo to me as well but I guess it could have existed, there are occasional themed McD's scattered around and I think they used to be more common so some franchise owner could've gone really hard on the jungle animal thing.
Incidentally I'll forever be sad that photos of my childhood local McD's don't seem to exist, it was the most stereotypically late '80s/early '90s vaporwave neon looking shit I've ever seen.
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>>21990477
In the 70s it was real beef, real bread and real cheese. It wasn't till the 80s boom of processed food steming from the break through in MRE technology that shit began to change. Of course they'll have adult meals, you don't build a magic place for kids and not give the adults something to eat.
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I remember this non-standard McDonalds documentary getting shilled for awhile but then it came out and no one talked about it or even watched it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vudDjqGu0LU
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>>21989947
Nostalgia threads are just,
>I WANNA BE A BABY AGAIN!
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>>21991906
I forgot to add:
they originally tried to pivot to the frat boy dudebro demographic which is where the 'quadstacker baconator five pound superburger' trend came from, but that got shuffled off really quick because it was "sexist". so since the 2010s they've primarily marketed towards 30-something women, because 30-something women are the only demographic that you are allowed to court these days.
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Fast food killed the Cafe in the US, so mcdonalds just rebounded as a Cafe.
This decision was also due to fast food no longer being cheap, which was the whole point.
No dishes, no service, no seating, small menu, fried shit. Cheap.
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>>21989947
>be McDonald's franchisee in the 80s
>saved money for years to afford one (1) franchise
>McDonald's gives me a location in a lower-middle class neighborhood
>ohwell.jpg, its still a McDonald's it prints money
>have to work harder than franchisees in nice neighborhoods, per-order revenue and order volume lower than average
>corporate comes in
>tells me they're going to tear my restaurant up for six months to put in a play place
>I foolishly think this will help me make money
>Deal with even lower revenue for several months, start missing sales benchmarks for my location
>Play place opens
>Restaurant always looks crowded, think I should be making tons of money
>Receipts somehow staying low
>Realize poor people are using the play place as free daycare
>Corporate says I can't kick people out after they've bought something to protect brand image
>Check contract, have no recourse
>Parking taken by people who bought one happy meal three hours ago
>Spending money for dedicated employees to clean the play place whenever a kid inevitably shits in it (at least once a day)
>Turns off tons of customers who don't want to look for parking for a McDonald's but want to eat inside
>Franchise owners group organizes; forces McDonald's to acquise
>Finally remove all the play places in the 2000s
The play places were dogshit for poor people who were too fat to stand outside while their kids played in a park like a normal family. I'm glad they are gone.
>>21989957
Where do you fall-of-civilization retards live where McDonald's play places represented some core of your childhood? If you lived in a city or suburb you had nice parks to play in that were way better; if you lived in a rural area you had literal nature to go and explore. The dystopia is a chicken nuggy restaurant being the focal point for children's playgrounds, not today where (most) western cities are investing more than ever in nice, child-friendly public spaces.
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>>21992414
> Play places were for fat poor people
Not in nice suburbs
There were nice parks too but it was always a treat to go to the indoor place where you also got a new toy, especially if it was really hot, really cold, or raining.
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>>21992422
>It was always a treat to go to the indoor place where you also got a new toy, especially if it was really hot, really cold, or raining
That's how it should have been, but in practice most McDonald's were treated like temporary day cares. And I think that was always obviously going to be the case?
It really seems like a disconnected MBA idea to me. On paper, McDonald's food is really for kids, right? So a giant playground will get kids to beg their parents to take them to McDonald's. Line goes up!
In practice, the playground becomes an incentive for:
>customers with kids to stay for longer without buying more
>customers who wouldn't come otherwise buy something extremely cheap to justify using the playground
It's shocking how little consideration appears to have been given to second-order effects. Sure, you get more kids at McDonald's... but there's no reason to think those kids are translating to more sales.
This effectively crowds out people who are spending money, either by taking up parking for longer or by turning an easy choice for a meal out into an unpleasant experience due to shrieking kids running around. The people who were wanted at the restaurant were already coming anyway; McNuggets are literally designed in a lab to be borderline addicting, especially for children. If you could afford it, you were probably already eating at McDonald's before the play places.
And I suspect even in nice areas where people weren't lingering for literally hours, there was probably some non-zero impact due to people staying a little longer than they would otherwise/kids being more active and loud. Not to mention the expense of keeping up the play place.
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>>21990577
>So instead of increasing profits today
You're implying that the appearance of the outside or inside of the business has an impact on profits, but it really doesn't if you're comparing an older kitchen McDonald's to a newer more gray one.
>marginally reduce losses
No, it significantly shortens turnover or resale of the property. That can make a huge difference in their overall finances. If it didn't, they wouldn't have continued to do it.
Part of the reason Pizza Hut is in the rough financial state they are in now is due to having overspent on unique construction and being stuck with so many restaurants that they had a slow process of liquidating. Being able to quickly liquidate assets of any kind in response to changes in market forces allows a company to be more adaptable.
Dominoes and plenty of their other competitors have been in better financial shape over the past 20 years because they didn't burn capital on unique construction and styling that would have become a liability later.
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>>21992454
>an unpleasant experience due to shrieking kids running around
Nailed it. Thats when I realized the corporate dicks generally make shit up and when the line goes up, it wasn't because they actually predicted it.
I hated going to mcdonalds or BK as a kid that had a play place. I hated even when they scaled it way back and had a kids corner. Kids are fucking awful and never made me want to eat there. I don't even go inside a 'busy' looking fast food place. I know it'll take too fucking long, workers are too busy to clean anything so the place is a sty, and god help you if you wanted anything like a ketchup packet or they got the order wrong.
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>>21992658
at least it still says sovl, even in death.
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>>21992593
>You're implying that the appearance of the outside or inside of the business has an impact on profits
It somewhat does; when I'm looking for something familiar, I know what I'm looking for. When I have a choice of 5 grey-box places that all look the same, I'm less likely to go with an old favorite.
Take soda cans: theres a definite reason they all try to differentiate mostly by color. We know pepsi is blue, coke is red, dr pepper is that maroon color, mtn dew is green, etc. If they adopted the packaging motif that fast food does, they'd all be a plain silver can with just the logo trying to differentiate. I hope you don't take the hyperbole of thinking a bright red and yellow buildling specifically draws in sales, but theres a reason McDs looked that way for 50 years, they go corpo-grey, and wa-la their sales are struggling. The food is worse and more expensive sure, but 80% of your traffic is from 20% of the customers.
>No, it significantly shortens turnover or resale of the property.
You're so close: that slower turnover costs money. How much? Probably a negligible amount compared to how much the business brought in and how much the real estate appreciated in value.
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>>21992625
nostalgia is always weird. People just get used to the current state and get tired of it.
The old '2000s' interior was shit ugly. brown tiled floors, horrible color composition, plastic everywhere, old tube lighting, rarely cushioned seating.
The new design may be bland, but its much cleaner looking, brighter and more comfortable. It's also way less prone to dirt and grime making the facade looks like a seedy public toilet.
The old design was more child friendly but just as soulless.
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>>21989947
It's gone everywhere, fast food establishments are just the canary in the coal mine. At least we got to live through the last great days of the empire. We have good memories, that's more than the newest generation can claim.
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>>21989968
The only people stupid enough to eat it are brown people. They decided they can just turn it into a greywashed food factory with kiosks and bulletproof glass, no need to market to real people. The browns will just keep using their food stamps on it.
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>>21990479
I also think that talking point was always bullshit because look at any abandoned building or gas station or construction site that ran out of funding. As a homeowner you need the place to be clean on your way out but as a business owner? Not your fucking problem, the signage, the finish, the dust on the tile floor is all for the next guy to clean up
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>>21992422
>new toy
A shitty cheap one that you'll lose in a week.
>really hot
Go swimming or play with the hose.
>really cold
Have a fire or play in the snow.
>raining
Play in the rain, or vidya at your buddy's place.
I spent my fair share of time at indoor play places, and let me tell you, they are only better than nothing.
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>>21989947
mcbrutalism at work
>>21989950
i knwo niagra falls is tourism hell but i'd visit canda just to see thsi
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My city used to have one of those McDonalds with the huge multi-storey play places that take up like half the building. It's still there but they tore the play place out and added more seating so now you can go eat a big mac in a room that has 3 walls that are entirely window and a ceiling like 25 feet above your head.
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Trends in art and architecture often seem to follow a pattern of reaction. Will a revival movement one day occur in the appearance of McDonald's? Or will strong economic factors ensure that this style remains unchanged for hundreds of years?
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>>21989947
I can easily imagine nostalgic people living in the '90s looking around and complaining about the magic being lost.
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>>21989947
it feels like going to the bank now
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>>21989955
I'd understand that. Like how you still see re-purposed old pizza huts around. But, I don't think I've ever seen a mcdonalds close and the building turn into something else though. Like, ever. I feel like every mcdonalds location has always stayed a mcdonalds location. All that I can think of and remember. Other than major infrastructure changes that forced it, like I'm thinking of one that was bulldozed to widen a highway. But, mcdonalds's stay macdonalds's. Always. They're only constantly building new ones. I actually think the reason they make them grey cubes is because they honestly think it's a good style.
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>>21996453
Using the touchscreen to order. It feels even worse than going to a bank. It's just an ATM. Feels like nothing.
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>>21989955
Bullshi!
BULLSHIT!
When the fuck was any Mcdonalds ever turned into anything else? They're in teh same place for fucking decades and they are FRANCHISES retard, they are not fucking owned by McDonalds yet great expense has been spent on turning them into hostile concrete boxes, it has nothing to do with fucking real estate
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I have never eaten at McDonald’s even as a kid. I am Jewish and my dad taught me the only thing Kosher to eat there is the ice cream, so that’s all I’ve ever had. Am I missing out? Filet o fish might be OK too but I never checked.
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>>21996463
Exactly. When has a McDonald's ever closed down? I can't think of any. So I don't buy that. I think there are only two possible reasons why they use the bland grey cube design: 1) it's what marketing specialists believe will attract the most customers, or 2) it's just part of the Jewish plan to demoralise everyone in the world, particulary in the west, so that Jews can reign supreme forever. Either way, fuck McDonald's
I'll still eat there from time to time though.
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>>22000554
The bland grey cube design had to have been an intentional decision to make their image more adult and boring. Because you think about when this shift happened, in the wake of Super Size Me. When they were facing a lot of criticism. Especially for things like childhood obesity. And they had a very childish image, i.e. Ronald, playgrounds and Happy Meals. So, move a bit away from that to stop getting so much blame. And also, about the same time. You had the rise of Starbucks. So, they pivoted to be a bit more mature like that too.
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>>21993459
>kidnapping
Lol no. Most if not all over them were 16-17 year old whores who were actively recruiting other whores to be part of their glamorous lifestyle of being flown around the world to stay in swanky hotels and go to fun parties in exchange for occasionally fucking rich old men. If they waited a few months and splayed themselves on Onlyfans it would be termed a rich, empowering career.
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>>22000585
That makes sense, especially when you compare it to other restaurants. KFC and Hungry Jack's (Aussie version of Burger King) for example haven't changed their building designs much. They've simplified the shape of the building, but they've kept their original colour schemes and haven't gone full grey cube like McDonald's has. I feel really uncomfortable when I sit in McDonald's, it's like being in a prison where all the tables and chairs are slightly greasy. And that god damn cooking timer beeping all the time, I don't know how the workers can stand that all day.
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>>22000510
Reminds me of the two married jews I saw at McDicks.
They looked identical. They could have been twins. But the wedding rings gave away their true relationship.
Shriveled limbs and faces, sunken eyes hunched over, hoked noses and expressions of utter contempt.
This was back when there was still a dollar menu.
They were complaining about the price of the $1 ice cream cones.
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>>22000554
>When has a McDonald's ever closed down?
I've seen a few abandoned McDonald's buildings that haven't been repurposed on my road trips. McDonald's is a franchiser so the company itself doesn't own every location. So it's not difficult to imagine franchises that compete, fail, or get into their own deals. IIRC they just have to please the corporate reps who go in to evaluate them superficially. One in my hometown was a 50's style one until the soulless remodel 10 years ago.
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>>21989955
>Most of mc Donald's money is in the real state now
Yep.
Here in Australia even in our small economy our real estate market is worth like $11.6 trillion.
When you trace problems in society back far enough, most of the lines go back to the fucking housing market.
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>>21996370
For me, personally, it was when they remodeled and replaced the comfortable padded benches with hard contoured seats. I used to take a long lunch break and eat a burger or box of tendies while reading a book in relative comfort before corporate board rooms decided they wanted people to buy their food and fuck off. It's not hostile architecture to the same extent as spikes on public benches but it's definitely an intentional move to make sitting there for more than a few minutes unpleasant.
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>>21992414
>Be McD's manager in the early 90's, when they still did birthday parties
>Moms would call wanting to set up birthday party for Junior
>McD's 2 miles away had a playland
>Oh ma'am, did you want the one with the playland? Junior world love that!
>Why yes anon, that's a great idea! Thank you so much!
>Dodged that bullshit bullet again!
I was SO glad that owner had the playland put in, we never did another birthday party after that.
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>>22004671
nice trillion dollar industry there
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>>22006297
I guess they got happy meals instead of actual food, huh, dipshit?
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>>22006368
When I go to McDonalds, I too eat with my crab claws and order one wide XS drink
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>>21992233
Fast food killed diners, not cafes. McDonald's never did try to be a diner. They were going for some kind of Starbucks style coffee shop appeal with their mccafe branding but it didn't work. They wanted the yuppie crowd to sit in McDonald's with their macbooks and sip coffee.
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>>22006362
>>22006412
What was it?
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You are a manchild on the same level of those guys who cry over marvel movies. Be so fucking for real right now it's fucking goyslop now and it was goyslop then lol, sorry it doesn't have pretty happy fun lights anymore.
I swear the people who say this shit unironically are the same people who fall for those nostalgiabait "return" commercials they pump out once in a while to sell Ronald McDonald and Grimace adult toys
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>>22009286
Some anon got IP wiped for https://warosu.org/ck/thread/21989947#p22000805
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>>21994117
It wouldn't be so bad if the walkways between viewing sites were more accommodating for retards with no spatial awareness or sense of urgency about them. It's like a bottleneck of retarded Indian people taking shitty pictures every 30 feet there, now. I don't think I could go back without pushing someone over a handrail or screaming for people to get the fuck out of the way. I'm mad just thinking about it.
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>>21992414
>Where do you fall-of-civilization retards live where McDonald's play places represented some core of your childhood?
Soyllennials grew up with neglectful parents and had to be raised by corporations instead
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>>21992414
I lived in a suburb, and the only time I could play at the mcdonalds playground was when my mum took me there, which was rare. A couple of times a year. Definitely wasn't a regular thing. I guess that's what made going there feel special. There was a nice park near my house with a big playground, but going to mcdonalds playground always felt special to me because the playground was bigger and had a big winding slide and one of those helicopter things.
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>>21989968
You’re weren’t even alive you twat.
Shit was marketed towards kids in the 70s. The first happy meals were test marketed in the 70s in Kansas City. I was fucking there man. The prizes we got were spinning tops, and the capt mcfish dude boats you put baking soda into and Star Trek federation iron on patches.
I fucking at my 4th birthday and my 6th in a fucking McDonalds with a McDonalds cake and McDonalds cone hats.
You’re maybe some European that don’t have American culture or hated America in our prime.
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>>21989947
Everyone I know in real life who whines about how much better things were when they were a kid is the kind of person who peaked in middle school and never recovered. Always the biggest losers and whiners and nothing is ever their fault or responsibility to make better. If your biggest achievement in life was visiting a shitty fast food restaurant 20+ years ago, you are objectively a failure at life.
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>>22015337
You might be right, but the pizza hut near me used to be one of those staffed by teenagers, rippled plastic red cup, sick lunch buffet, mortal kombat in the corner/skateboard sticker machine pizza huts, and you're just jealous I got to have that.
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>>22015337
>>22015958
I'm 45. I had what you described. Pizza Hut was gross back then and it's more gross now.
>Staffed by teens
This still happens
>Ripples plastic red cup
There was a roach in my sister's cup once
>Sick lunch buffet
Food was/is gross
>Mortal Kombat in the corner
Mine was a shmup. The roach and this game were my biggest memories of my local Pizza Hut.
Everyone looks at the past with rose colored glasses. You don't miss the stupid plastic cups, you miss the moments associated with them, a time where you had no real worries or debt or a job or problems with people.
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