McLuxury
Sunday, June 19, 2011
(Mount Vernon, Ohio)

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Much to my surprise, I'm already starting to forget the very familiar exterior of almost every McDonald's I have ever seen. What color was the mansard roof? Red? And what about those plastic neon light fixtures on the roof? Were they yellow? Or were they white? And did McDonald's even have a mansard roof?

The red mansard roof has become just about as synonymous with McDonald's as the yellow arches and the little burgers that the company charitably calls food. But the mansard roofs are disappearing, making way for natural-looking stone and earth tones and an all-around quasi-upscale appearance. The Mount Vernon McDonald's, less than a mile away from my house, is undergoing the finishing touches of such a transformation. One day, a piece of the mansard roof was ripped away, exposing the hollow lumber frame that gave it its shape. Soon after, I found that I was having trouble recalling exactly what it had been—a familiar piece of Americana already fading from my mind.

The company wants it that way. They've worked to build a brand, and the familiar little red-mansard-roofed buildings, ubiquitous on commercial strips and highway interchanges throughout the world—those buildings that looked only like McDonald's and turned their back, architecturally, on their host communities—immediately said "quarter pounder with cheese" to anybody who saw them. But the brand is changing, the cheapness and speed and genericism championed for decades quickly falling into disfavor with a more discerning public. So, cheapness out, and luxury in. Forget that McDonald's was once the place with the red mansard and the plastic tables, and associate it instead with the kind of richness and luxury found in places that serve better food for more money.

Richness. Luxury. McDonald's? Really? Strangely enough, that's what they are going for. The restaurant up the street from me, which was a run-of-the-mill McDonald's in every respect since long before I ever arrived in town, now has all the trappings of the made-over McDonald's of today. The exterior is clad in natural-looking stone and brown-painted brick. An single, asymmetrical arch, contrasting in yellow, swoops over the front. The same arch design appears a few more times on the premises. Modern, expensive-looking light fixtures hang inside, in the earth-toned interior, and customers sit (and are invited to remain seated) on soft seating.

The burgers cost the same and, I would assume, taste the same. But the environment in which those burgers are being consumed is new: dignified, luxurious, adult. And I'm left wondering what this all means.

Why, in this age of supposed scarcity—when unemployment is high, and when even the unemployed feel financially stretched to the breaking point—when government leaders are ushering in a new era of austerity—when schools cannot afford music programs and school children are forced to pay two hundred dollars per sport just to participate in athletics programs—when cities are cutting bus lines and states are putting off routine maintenance on highways and bridges—why do we nevertheless seem to be living in an age of abundant consumer choice, demanding to be surrounded by luxury when eating a McDonald's burger? What does this say about us?

Don't get my wrong: I want to be surrounded by nice things and places worth caring about. And the disposable society (perhaps best summed up both by McDonald's food packaging and the old red-mansard-roof-centric brand being summarily discarded) bothers me. The trends expressed in the McDonald's makeover are, I suppose, ones I should be applauding.

But I suspect we're being duped by the appearance of meaningful choice and luxury. I observed the stages of renovation as I drove past the McDonald's near my house. As the old mansard roof was peeled away, I saw the box underneath: a plywood shell covered in Tyvek. Brick-shaped tiles were installed over it and painted brown. In the front, a thin stone facade was installed over a scratch coat of mortar.

It's a veneer: a quick coating of brick and stone, of rich-looking paint and thin glass light fixtures, that can't obscure the cheapness of the food served within. Come in, sit down, make yourself at home—and enjoy a one-dollar burger.

Real luxury would be unique to its surroundings. Real luxury would arise organically rather than being developed through focus groups and dictated by a worldwide headquarters. Real luxury would work with the community, not turn its back on its surroudnings.

But McDonald's isn't real luxury. It's McLuxury, and it's only skin-deep.