Michael Kimb Jones

Well, the local McDonald’s in town closes today. Its been there 10 20 years, amazing really.

I’m not really a McDonald’s (yes that’s ‘Mc’ not ‘MAc’ if I hear anyone else calling it MacDonald’s I think I may go around calling KFC, KFB) fan but it will be quite sad to see it go.

A few years ago, before I knew what healthy eating was I would see a Big Mac and Fries as a staple part of my weekly diet. After going to the Odeon to see a film (which has also closed) it was ritual to go and gorge on over fried produce in cardboard packaging while waiting for the train home.

Of course this ritual stopped years ago when I began to see the utter banality of their produce, not to mention the associated health issues. With age comes wisdom and a more sensitive palette.

Still, even if I didn’t eat there as regularly as I once did, the local McDonald’s became focal point for our sometimes sorry town center. Its the largest social building in the middle of town. Its closing will leave a huge void. No longer will we be able to “Meet outside McDonald’s” or laugh as drunken revelers abuse staff members at 4.15pm on a Bank Holiday.

The 100s of children who see the building as the only place they can realistically “hang out” (until they reach the masterful age of 18 when they can visit one of the many, many, many bars and pubs we have dotted around the place) will have to find new (hopefully healthier) places to relax.

To commemorate the closure I ate there twice today (hardly a super-size me style challange I know).

The first was a breakfast meal at 8am. I ordered one of the new bagels and coffee. They got the order wrong (as usual) and I ended up with a McMuffin. I didn’t have the heart to complain.

The last meal I ate there simply had to be the Mig Mac and Fries. For all the stick I have given there sorry restaurant, it wasn’t bad. I even managed to dig a copy of the Guardian from the free news stand to read as I ate.

Of course the hideous McDonald’s fries tasted like over-salted shredded cardboard but the Mac did sort of look like the one in the picture and for once my guts didn’t feel as if they had been strangled. Overall it wasn’t as bad as I wanted it to be. Maybe my rose-tinted lower intestine was to blame for that.

Originally I was happy that the place had announced its closure. I gloated to my Happy Meal addicted younger brother that it was a “good thing” and how “10 20 years was long enough!” But now I feel a little sad. I DO have decent memories of the place somewhere deep within my brain, memories with friends and family. Even memories alone.

EDIT: Turns out it was open over 20 years, not 10 as I first assumed. Sometimes I forget how old I actually am!