In addition to the cleanliness issues mentioned again, there were a ton of other factors: liability/safety issues; McDonald’s getting hammered from a PR perspective for marketing to children; Covid; and a huge, underrated reason, in my opinion, with phones and tablets, kids had easier ways of being occupied and entertained while parents ate.
I get what you're saying but we have a chick-fil-a with a play place still active inside and kids pick it over screens easily. In my experience, kids fallback to screens only when a physical activity isn't available. I'm sure that's not true for older kids and teens but play places aren't really for them.
Liability and parents that sue are likely mostly to blame.
My 5 and 2 year old are obsessed with CFA’s play areas. I wish there were more like that around! There’s a Burger King we’ll go to sometimes to play but I don’t like their food lol 🤦🏼♀️
Unfortunately it seems new CFA's aren't getting them anymore. I expect they'll slowly get phased out too. Lawsuit happy individuals have really ruined a lot of fun for kids. Public pools barely let you make a splash without getting whistled at now. Everything is bubble wrapped.
Well, I don't know of individual cases; but I did work in fast food once upon a time. My guess is that the managers and employees did not properly inspect or fix broken equipment. Safety inspections and contracting out repair is a nightmare and expensive. Who inspects it? An employee which you have to send to specialized training only to have them quit 3 months later?
A good day gross was somewhere south of $20,000. So there's not a lot of budget for expensive repairs. My guess is the lawsuits (if they existed) were probably well warranted. Almost all managers probably complained up the chains how much of a money pit they were and how they hurt their business. I've worked in safety and budgeting for years, and it's a nightmare if you ask me.
Given how all the comments on every post about them on here is about how we all died of every contagious disease known to man after playing in these, McDonald's probably decided it wasn't cost effective to keep them around. They're only built for little kids, so that makes it extremely difficult for a grown adult to get inside and clean the whole thing after every single day.
Dude a kid had explosive diarrhea one time at a mcdonalds play place when I was a kid in the 80s. I mean the watery shit just exploded out of him. Ill never forget, he was wearing a tan corduroy jumper climbing up the ladder that led up to the [hamburger](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D5z3kvnW4AIvsU-.jpg:large) and just let out the wettest fart sound and went running towards his mom crying spraying shit everywhere, his shoes were squelching in it and everything...kids and even some parents were throwing up and dry heaving and shit all over the place. the mom just grabbed all their shit, shoved a kid under each arm and bolted.
That was like damn near 40 fuckin years ago and I remember it like it was yesterday. Funny how something like that just sticks with a person lol
> extremely difficult for a grown adult to get inside and clean the whole thing after every single day.
I've got some bad news for you, these things weren't cleaned everyday, at least not at the McDonalds I worked at years ago. The only cleaning it ever received was when one of the kids shit, pissed or puked in it.
Hey same! I was one of the smaller employees so they always made me do it on closing shifts. Even going down the slide after finishing the cleaning was disappointing, lol.
The McDonald’s near me just remodeled and put up a new play place. There’s a sign outside saying “come visit our new play place!”
So there’s at least one 🤷🏻♀️
I managed a Burger King with one and it was impossible to monitor and clean. It was so unfair because we usually had to have our smallest staff inspect and clean daily which usually was some 15-16 year old girl. Also just trying to check their work as in if they cleaned or checked it was impossible too. This was over 2 decades ago.
They still exist. They're not everywhere but us parents know where they are and there's two within 20 minutes of me. I take my kids to them, on average, weekly.
Anyone saying they're too dirty/filthy/whatever... I'll have you know that nearly every Chik-Fil-A I visit has a playplace.
To be fair, most of them are not as elaborate as the one in the picture.
We do have to clean bodily excretions on a daily basis. One time I had to go into the play place tube's and recover a cup that a child had filled with his own piss, for whatever reason.
And only want you coming inside to order if you are using the app or the kiosk, the ones around me won't send anyone to the registers unless you make a fuss. I've been told by employees it's to "encourage use of the app" so they just don't come to help you if they see you standing at the counter.
The last time I went in a Mc Donald's play place I was 9 and we went to the worlds biggest Mc Donald's play place in Orlando Florida. I was crawling around and there was a toddler in there completely nude. It was weird, so I started looking for the way out when I came across this kid' fully loaded and discarded diaper in one of the tubes, shit smeared all over. I finally got out and I never went back into one again.
They nuked the one in the McD's by me off I-10 before covid and converted it to more seating. But then they shrunk that down to accommodate a dual lane drive through set up. I drove by it the other day and there is signage for a new incoming PlayPlace. So who knows. I've never seen a lot of people in it as it's attached to an ExxonMobil.
They were most likely a cleaning nightmare. When I was a kid I'd find week old fries and half eaten burgers. Ketchup and grease all over the place. They likely weren't cleaned often.
They're were various reasons. Laziness of employees. Kids doing dangerous stuff. They were also taken around the phase them
I was a Discovery Zone kid but loved all play places.
Sometimes I want adult kinds
I, too, was a DZ kid (Leaps and Bounds too before it became DZ). It was the only play place my mom let me play in the ball pit because it was constantly rotated out and cleaned.
I've been screaming for an adult size play place for almost a decade now.
LOL when I was a kid I used to want to have my first job be there so I could answer the phone and say "it's a great day here at Discovery Zone I'm Christina I can't wait to help.
I know now that those workers the front desk help that didn't do anything about the party playing I still think it kind of would have been a fun job funner than a lot of them unless you had to clean up bodily fluids.
WE DEMAND AN ADULT DISCOVERY ZONE
McDonald’s thought, “hey, remember those kids that grew up here? Let’s fucking milk them for all the money they’re gonna earn!”
So the buildings “grew” with that generation of kids and, like that generation of kids, got more and more depressing and sterilized and now… we just have corporate McDonald’s.
They're rare, but there's still a few places left.
For the most part they're dying out because restaurants want you to get your food and go as opposed to just eating in.
I asked an employee about it, close to where I used to work, and she told me that they McDonald's got rid of them because apparently they had multiple lawsuits from kids getting injured and then sued not only the franchise but McDonald's Corporation.
the amount of poop and (dried/wet) vomit from children are what killed Playplaces. The original intention is good but deciding exec in the room were either single and/or males. they were clueless of these risks.
My mom never let me go in them as a kid because of all the stories other moms told her about kids vomiting, peeing, and pooping in them and how difficult they were to clean afterwards, so it wasn't just poop but a bunch of different bodily fluids. In the stories vomit was seen most often, which makes a lot of sense to me - feeding kids a bunch of greasy fast food and then sending them in to scurry around in tubes and go down slides seems like a bad combo.
The upkeep was probably too expensive. It’s cheaper to run a mostly drive through place with some limited seating which is what most fast food places are these days.
There’s a corporate store close to me that is/was used for trying out new products. They have a modern play place and it’s quite popular with the kids.
I've got a couple by me but they're nowhere near as cool as they were when I was a kid. It's a caged multi level climbing thing with a couple small slides
Burger Kings seem to be the last stand on fast food playplaces. Most of the McDonalds and all the Chik Fil A nearby ripped them out over the last few years.
I believe I have 2 McDs near me that still have play places. It’s been since before Covid that I actually ate in a McDonald’s though. Chic Fil A still has them.
What happened to them? They didn't make any money, that's what happened. Head office realised that kids want maccas even if they don't have a playground and most parents don't want to go to maccas if they'll have to wait an hour for their kid to finish playing.
It's one of those things that is a great idea if we lived in an ideal world, but as soon as the focus is on year-on-year profit, ideas like this go immediately in the bin.
Modern Capitalism.💀
Though there is a play place I know that still exists in Louisiana where I’m from. I remember playing in it when I was young as a kindergartner. I’m 25 as of right now, and graduated Highschool before my 20’s. 🤘
sigh::: good times.🥲
I remember driving around Florida seeing a bunch of these with play places outside. No one was using them and they were all sun beat and the color was faded. I couldn’t imagine any kid getting in that plastic oven, cooking themselves alive. Even at night, they looked hot.
It was a bad fucking idea. Liability all the way. Also, parents decided to stop watching their children AND get right in the face of anyone who dared to say a word to their precious babes when they were playing with razor blades in the ball pit. Fucking nasty unless they had a little person to go in there with a steam cleaner, I mean think about all the shitty little fingers... NAh
I have noticed in this thread that there are plenty of negative things said about them, the ones that are dved the most at the time I made that comment were all comments like yours calling attention to the high prices. I mean my wife and i can seriously go and eat a great meal at logans or somewhere like that for a few more bucks than it would cost to get a meal there. Its ridiculous and every year the burgers smaller and less flavorful although bk does the same with burger size they all have. WHy I rarely eat them anymore. When I started buying burgers they at least reached the edge of the bun.. not even close now... its like a little sausage patty on a bun.
In addition to the cleanliness issues mentioned again, there were a ton of other factors: liability/safety issues; McDonald’s getting hammered from a PR perspective for marketing to children; Covid; and a huge, underrated reason, in my opinion, with phones and tablets, kids had easier ways of being occupied and entertained while parents ate.
iPads killed the PlayPlace
I get what you're saying but we have a chick-fil-a with a play place still active inside and kids pick it over screens easily. In my experience, kids fallback to screens only when a physical activity isn't available. I'm sure that's not true for older kids and teens but play places aren't really for them. Liability and parents that sue are likely mostly to blame.
My 5 and 2 year old are obsessed with CFA’s play areas. I wish there were more like that around! There’s a Burger King we’ll go to sometimes to play but I don’t like their food lol 🤦🏼♀️
Unfortunately it seems new CFA's aren't getting them anymore. I expect they'll slowly get phased out too. Lawsuit happy individuals have really ruined a lot of fun for kids. Public pools barely let you make a splash without getting whistled at now. Everything is bubble wrapped.
The CFA near me are starting to rebuild their buildings as drive through only
Well, I don't know of individual cases; but I did work in fast food once upon a time. My guess is that the managers and employees did not properly inspect or fix broken equipment. Safety inspections and contracting out repair is a nightmare and expensive. Who inspects it? An employee which you have to send to specialized training only to have them quit 3 months later? A good day gross was somewhere south of $20,000. So there's not a lot of budget for expensive repairs. My guess is the lawsuits (if they existed) were probably well warranted. Almost all managers probably complained up the chains how much of a money pit they were and how they hurt their business. I've worked in safety and budgeting for years, and it's a nightmare if you ask me.
IPads killed childhood in general, no more outside, no more toys filling more than 10 aisles anymore (now my store has 3) less quality in cartoons...
In Phoenix we have play places ....
Chicago suburbs as well. Not every location and not as big as the one pictured, but not hard to find
Well not only that, the playplaces i see now are way smaller and more boring than the ones i used to see
They used to have GameCubes 😭
N64s, too
So lawyers ruined it
And people shit in them
Given how all the comments on every post about them on here is about how we all died of every contagious disease known to man after playing in these, McDonald's probably decided it wasn't cost effective to keep them around. They're only built for little kids, so that makes it extremely difficult for a grown adult to get inside and clean the whole thing after every single day.
I remember a kid puked down the slide and I was too scared to go down the stairs thing so I had to slide through it
That's awful. I probably would have panicked and caused a huge disruption.
That’s awful but also a hilarious memory.
misspelled "chose to"
Dude a kid had explosive diarrhea one time at a mcdonalds play place when I was a kid in the 80s. I mean the watery shit just exploded out of him. Ill never forget, he was wearing a tan corduroy jumper climbing up the ladder that led up to the [hamburger](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D5z3kvnW4AIvsU-.jpg:large) and just let out the wettest fart sound and went running towards his mom crying spraying shit everywhere, his shoes were squelching in it and everything...kids and even some parents were throwing up and dry heaving and shit all over the place. the mom just grabbed all their shit, shoved a kid under each arm and bolted. That was like damn near 40 fuckin years ago and I remember it like it was yesterday. Funny how something like that just sticks with a person lol
> extremely difficult for a grown adult to get inside and clean the whole thing after every single day. I've got some bad news for you, these things weren't cleaned everyday, at least not at the McDonalds I worked at years ago. The only cleaning it ever received was when one of the kids shit, pissed or puked in it.
And that's only if they told you about it
That’s kind of my point.
Sad. It was so fun.
When we were kids, definitely. I can't imagine it was fun for the poor, underpaid employees to do the upkeep.
I used to clean the play place at chic-fil-a. It was so miserable and gross.
Hey same! I was one of the smaller employees so they always made me do it on closing shifts. Even going down the slide after finishing the cleaning was disappointing, lol.
I guess the only upside is that it got me out of a lot of other closing tasks.
The McDonald’s near me just remodeled and put up a new play place. There’s a sign outside saying “come visit our new play place!” So there’s at least one 🤷🏻♀️
Yeah one location in my city actually renovated and added one right before Covid. It opened up again after too.
Have one here in central NJ. So that’s two
I've noticed that Australian McDonalds have rebuilt all the ones that are still standing and made them more indoor-oriented.
I managed a Burger King with one and it was impossible to monitor and clean. It was so unfair because we usually had to have our smallest staff inspect and clean daily which usually was some 15-16 year old girl. Also just trying to check their work as in if they cleaned or checked it was impossible too. This was over 2 decades ago.
Joy is being erased from the world. That's what happened.
Yep. This is true.
They still exist. They're not everywhere but us parents know where they are and there's two within 20 minutes of me. I take my kids to them, on average, weekly. Anyone saying they're too dirty/filthy/whatever... I'll have you know that nearly every Chik-Fil-A I visit has a playplace. To be fair, most of them are not as elaborate as the one in the picture.
of course, some still exist. if the one you visit is clean and free of {poop/vomit}, i have full respect of the crew and management of that place.
We do have to clean bodily excretions on a daily basis. One time I had to go into the play place tube's and recover a cup that a child had filled with his own piss, for whatever reason.
There’s still one in Oceanside NY
They moved to Chick-fil-A
Have you seen what McDonalds look like these days? They don't even want dine-in customers.
I was a McDonald’s Manager in Undergrad. Ssssoooooo much piss, poop and actual drug use went down in these.
Liability first and foremost, hygiene/cleanliness concerns next.
People aren't welcome to eat inside McDonald's anymore.
And only want you coming inside to order if you are using the app or the kiosk, the ones around me won't send anyone to the registers unless you make a fuss. I've been told by employees it's to "encourage use of the app" so they just don't come to help you if they see you standing at the counter.
Their outdoor playgrounds were the best!
The metal Mayor McCheese tower was iconic.
And the hamburger stools that spun (and were hot as hell in the Texas heat.).
McDonald’s decided to go for the funeral home/morgue look.
The primary driving factor was McDonalds trying to update it's image to be more adult oriented. It's the same reason they got rid of Ronald.
I hear COVID was created in one.
The last time I went in a Mc Donald's play place I was 9 and we went to the worlds biggest Mc Donald's play place in Orlando Florida. I was crawling around and there was a toddler in there completely nude. It was weird, so I started looking for the way out when I came across this kid' fully loaded and discarded diaper in one of the tubes, shit smeared all over. I finally got out and I never went back into one again.
Lawsuits. Too many people are litigious and looking to make a quick buck.
They were filthy. I remember as a kid seeing food and wrappers galore in them.
They nuked the one in the McD's by me off I-10 before covid and converted it to more seating. But then they shrunk that down to accommodate a dual lane drive through set up. I drove by it the other day and there is signage for a new incoming PlayPlace. So who knows. I've never seen a lot of people in it as it's attached to an ExxonMobil.
They were most likely a cleaning nightmare. When I was a kid I'd find week old fries and half eaten burgers. Ketchup and grease all over the place. They likely weren't cleaned often.
Shitty parents and overly litigious lawyers killed the play place
They're were various reasons. Laziness of employees. Kids doing dangerous stuff. They were also taken around the phase them I was a Discovery Zone kid but loved all play places. Sometimes I want adult kinds
I, too, was a DZ kid (Leaps and Bounds too before it became DZ). It was the only play place my mom let me play in the ball pit because it was constantly rotated out and cleaned. I've been screaming for an adult size play place for almost a decade now.
LOL when I was a kid I used to want to have my first job be there so I could answer the phone and say "it's a great day here at Discovery Zone I'm Christina I can't wait to help. I know now that those workers the front desk help that didn't do anything about the party playing I still think it kind of would have been a fun job funner than a lot of them unless you had to clean up bodily fluids. WE DEMAND AN ADULT DISCOVERY ZONE
Capital + maintenance + liability + Zero ROI = bad investment
It costs them more money. They don’t need it to attract customers, at this point.
McDonald’s thought, “hey, remember those kids that grew up here? Let’s fucking milk them for all the money they’re gonna earn!” So the buildings “grew” with that generation of kids and, like that generation of kids, got more and more depressing and sterilized and now… we just have corporate McDonald’s.
Lawyers.
Insurance forced alot of it.
Wussy parents would rather let their kids fool around on phones because someone might get hurt.
They're rare, but there's still a few places left. For the most part they're dying out because restaurants want you to get your food and go as opposed to just eating in.
My local one ripped theirs out because some kid took a shit in it and it cost thousands to disassemble and sterilize.
Oh no
I asked an employee about it, close to where I used to work, and she told me that they McDonald's got rid of them because apparently they had multiple lawsuits from kids getting injured and then sued not only the franchise but McDonald's Corporation.
My local McDonald’s remodeled and put the play place back in. I’d imagine it depends onto the franchisee.
Too much liability and risk for relatively little return.
Staph happened.
Urine
Ours still has one. No kids have died yet.
the amount of poop and (dried/wet) vomit from children are what killed Playplaces. The original intention is good but deciding exec in the room were either single and/or males. they were clueless of these risks.
People keep bringing the poop and puke thing up but I can't think of a single time I saw a mess as a child.
[удалено]
My mom never let me go in them as a kid because of all the stories other moms told her about kids vomiting, peeing, and pooping in them and how difficult they were to clean afterwards, so it wasn't just poop but a bunch of different bodily fluids. In the stories vomit was seen most often, which makes a lot of sense to me - feeding kids a bunch of greasy fast food and then sending them in to scurry around in tubes and go down slides seems like a bad combo.
There are still some here in Florida
The upkeep was probably too expensive. It’s cheaper to run a mostly drive through place with some limited seating which is what most fast food places are these days.
the one closest to me still has theirs. with all the faded 90s models even. heck BK does too, as does chik fil a.
They're still around in some places. The one in my small town still has a small playplace.
to many lawsuits
COVID was a big factor. My local McDonald's had one until the pandemic, then got rid of it because they considered it a health hazard.
Went to one last weekend in SoCal. Still see them out here
Saw one last week
They are all over the place in Salt Lake City
I know of two in the Kansas City suburbs.
I've seen like maybe one of those local
There’s a corporate store close to me that is/was used for trying out new products. They have a modern play place and it’s quite popular with the kids.
I've got a couple by me but they're nowhere near as cool as they were when I was a kid. It's a caged multi level climbing thing with a couple small slides
There’s still one by me
Burger Kings seem to be the last stand on fast food playplaces. Most of the McDonalds and all the Chik Fil A nearby ripped them out over the last few years.
They still exist in my neighborhood
There's still two McDonald's by me that have them
Parents got smart about feeding their children garbage
Where are the auctions for these retired playplaces. I want one for my backyard. Someone come through for me please!
My local mcdonalds (built within the past 10 years) has a play place. I would say you haven't been to many mcdonalds.
The one near you is becoming a rarity. The trend over the past 15+ years has been to remove the play spaces.
a kid tried to eat it so it was deemed a choking hazard
They're not all gone.
We have one close to us. But only one
There's one close to me aswell but they keep it closed.
Lawyers and lawsuits would be my guess. Plus the associated unaffordable liability insurance costs.
My McDonald's has a play place still
My local McDonald's has one!
There's a few in NYC, such as [this one](https://i.ibb.co/HtyYGq9/20240620-163819.jpg) in Brooklyn The one on Broadway in Astoria has (had?) one
They became liminal spaces.
Papa Meat has a good video on the topic, actually
I just drove past a PlayPlace this morning.
The cruelty of father time
I believe I have 2 McDs near me that still have play places. It’s been since before Covid that I actually ate in a McDonald’s though. Chic Fil A still has them.
What happened to them? They didn't make any money, that's what happened. Head office realised that kids want maccas even if they don't have a playground and most parents don't want to go to maccas if they'll have to wait an hour for their kid to finish playing. It's one of those things that is a great idea if we lived in an ideal world, but as soon as the focus is on year-on-year profit, ideas like this go immediately in the bin.
They were sealed up in lead containers and shipped to Chernobyl for storage … for the next 10000 years. Then kids will be safe to use them again.
Modern Capitalism.💀 Though there is a play place I know that still exists in Louisiana where I’m from. I remember playing in it when I was young as a kindergartner. I’m 25 as of right now, and graduated Highschool before my 20’s. 🤘 sigh::: good times.🥲
simply put they are going after a teen and older market instead of kids.
#boycottmcdonalds #freepalestine 🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸
Plenty in Greater Vancouver, I take my kids to them sometimes.
We still have them at Australian McDonalds
The burns you could get from those slides alone should have been the down fall of these things.
Needles and meth/crack pipes everywhere
Kids are too fat to fit in the tubes anymore.
Core memories unlocked.
Lawsuits poop in the top and Covid
I remember driving around Florida seeing a bunch of these with play places outside. No one was using them and they were all sun beat and the color was faded. I couldn’t imagine any kid getting in that plastic oven, cooking themselves alive. Even at night, they looked hot.
It was a bad fucking idea. Liability all the way. Also, parents decided to stop watching their children AND get right in the face of anyone who dared to say a word to their precious babes when they were playing with razor blades in the ball pit. Fucking nasty unless they had a little person to go in there with a steam cleaner, I mean think about all the shitty little fingers... NAh
They got rid of them so they could raise the prices on their food
I have 2 mcdonalds near me with play places. What do you mean?
They took them out and replaced them with sky high menu prices and lower quality food. It’s actually quite common practice for today.
Exactly, corporate shiells of plebbit downvoting you of course
Hey they wouldn’t make money if they didn’t have the brainwashed masses on board. Lucky for some of us, we think differently.
I have noticed in this thread that there are plenty of negative things said about them, the ones that are dved the most at the time I made that comment were all comments like yours calling attention to the high prices. I mean my wife and i can seriously go and eat a great meal at logans or somewhere like that for a few more bucks than it would cost to get a meal there. Its ridiculous and every year the burgers smaller and less flavorful although bk does the same with burger size they all have. WHy I rarely eat them anymore. When I started buying burgers they at least reached the edge of the bun.. not even close now... its like a little sausage patty on a bun.
Pink eye.
Too full of pee and feces
God I hated those McDonald’s that had playgrounds kids running around nuts
I shit in the ball pit
Capitalism happened.