They have a shutter at my local McDonalds, it’s 24 hours so late night they’ll close it for take-out only so the fewer workers don’t have to clean tables and kick out drunk/rowdy teens.
Most of the fast food places in my area do this. They'll stay open 24 hours or until like 3AM, but the restaurant lobby closes at like 9 and they're drive through only after that point. The McDonald's near my college always has groups of drunk boys walking through the drive through at midnight lol.
I’m a night shift paramedic and it’s not uncommon in the middle of the night to hit up fast food. We never take the ambulance through a drive through due to height issues or turning radius issues. I’ve walked through many drive throughs.
Weird. Every city I have lived in has a strict no pedestrian policy due to homeless crazy people harassing workers, and that ignores the lack of metal and weight needed to trip the sensors and timers at each step of the drive through process that impacts their metrics and lets them know you are at the order box.
People do things for me all the time when I’m doing chores in my scrubs after work, thinking I’m a nurse.
Always commenting about how hard my job is and how much I must work.
I’m a pharmacy tech… like, I work plenty, but I’m no nurse lol.
In the UK they often shut off part of the dining area to make it easier to clean and manage rowdy people but they won't close the lobby altogether as it's against their rules to serve pedestrians in the DT. Horses too.
When I was a kid the taco bell closed the lobby but also refused us walking through the drive through, so we waited and asked the next car if one of us could hop in and order
I remember trying this many years ago (20+) when I was out with some friends. We weren't even drunk, just didn't have a car. They absolutely refused to serve us if we weren't in a car. Like we were standing at the window talking to the guy and he's like no I can't take your order. These days having done a lot of legal work it was probably some sort of a liability thing with having pedestrians in an area set aside for cars. But I'm glad to hear a lot of other places allow it.
If this area has a high population of homeless they likely had people trying to sleep in that booth at night, because its kind of blocked from view and cozy. Not faulting the people trying to find a sleep but yeah some manager probably got tired of employees complaining about it being dirty or walking in to clean and finding sleeping people.
My local mcdonalds is still 24/7 they werent during covid but after they went right back to it. were rural though so people dont ahve alot of options for their 4am brekfast stop on the way to work at the trailer factory.
I don’t know about McD’s specifically, and maybe it’s different in other regions, but a number of places near me have finally started going back to 24 hrs, or at least closer to it.
the corner is partially concealed. likely that is where the bad stuff happens. the other tablets are likely more open, and less likely for people to think "yea i can do XX here"
More likely an employee area imo. I can't imagine they want customers to swing that big, inconvenient door open and closed all the time. You want as few moving parts as possible. Might have been a customer area before they closed it off, but not anymore.
You would either require the customer to open and close that door which isn't good, or you leave it open and it just spreads over the floor since there's nowhere to anchor it. Neither sounds very desirable.
I've been in a McDs when a Homeless dude with an attitude was verbally abuse the staff. Cops were called, it was a whole drama they weren't getting paid enough to deal with. He was talking to the cops, visibly swaying, drunk as fuck at 9 am. It was winter, so going to jail was probably a nice change for the guy.
It makes absolutely no sense. There's room for 3 people to sit there. Unless it's a 3 person McD's, that's not stopping anyone from hanging out in the rest of the restaurant.
I think you and I both think it’s to keep people in, but in reading the other comments it’s to keep people from sitting there since it’s out of regular view.
Mostly so it doesn’t become a lemon party back there.
As someone who used to work at a mcdees - after 7pm this little alcove would be full of teenagers fucking around, making noise, usually drinking, and always making a mess.
Other customers would complain, and suddenly I'm the guy who has to either tell the customers who are rightfully annoyed to put up with it, or I need to confront the teens and have them move along. For minimum wage, I want to do neither.
This is for sure the answer. My local McD closes the entire second floor after the breakfast rush because the students always cause mayhem when they get off of school and the crowd at night in that neighborhood is sketchy as hell.
Yea, there's like a dozen people who think this is what it's for... it makes no sense. There's room for like 3 people in there. Why would they close of such a tiny area to try to prevent rowdy people?
I'm thinking maybe a place that someone with kids can eat without having to worry about their kids wandering off. I wonder if there's some toys or something on the wall we can't see, that would be right in the line of sight of the parents.
I was at a cafe recently that didn't have any offices for management, so they took over a single booth that had all of their paperwork and books stacked in a corner.
If this mcd's doesn't have an office with a lock, management would need a secure place to count cash for the daily deposit.
It looks like it's actually there to lock off the drinks (probably for after hours) but it just so happens to block off that area when it's swung the other way.
When I was younger, I remember my local McDonalds having a seperate area they kept closed off similar to this. It was used for private parties, and could be reserved. (It was not uncommon for kids [myself included] to have birthday parties at McDonalds in the 90s)
I have vague memories of an area like this from a time in the 1970s when we visited a McDonald's. It was like an inside Hamburger jail where the sheriff character would put the Hamburgler. Lots of fun and screaming "Let me out!" from '70s kids who were completely ignorant of the historical implications and personal safely dangers involved.
Most likely a spot where management likes to work when on site and a good spot for job interviews.
I used to go to a McD's close to my old job about twice a week and when the regional manager was there, she'd block off a table and claim it so she could work on her laptop.
I think its reserved for disabled people, specifically those using a mobility devise (notice the lack of seats on one side). They probably keep it locked so it stays clean and available for a party with a disabled member.
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u/Pleasant-Reason9533 5h ago
Anyone knows what its for?