Old Fashioned Mcdonalds Memphis Tn Quince

Today'south mail highlights Shelby County, TN, retail.

"McNames grow in the McDonald'due south vernacular," begins a 1995 Chicago Tribune commodity. "There aren't too many McMonikers that consumers can't identify."

By the 1990s, McDonald'south, of course, was already a household name. Their iconic double-mansard roof restaurants were instantly recognizable, and dotted the nation'south – nay, the globe's – mural. But iconic though they were, McDonald's still wasn't quite everywhere. Sure, maybe geographically they were – or close to information technology, anyhow. But what nearly that McDonald'due south down the street, attached to the gas station? Or the one that used to be in your local Wal-Mart? Those McDonald'due south didn't exist yet; until the 1990s, McDonald's largely relied on standalone locations only.

Today'due south post is the story of how that changed.

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Before we go going, I owe a big "McThanks" to my flickr comrade Coolcat4333 (who is as well proprietor of the blog East Declension Retail) for the inspiration for this post. Coolcat recently posted several images of a strange-looking McDonald's bearing the name "McDonald's Limited," along with some information on how that location is and then tiny information technology doesn't fifty-fifty serve certain mainstay menu items such every bit Quarter Pounders and iced coffees. Naturally, I was intrigued, and decided to research a little further to see what I could find well-nigh this mysterious operating concept. Lo and behold, one of the first hits Google brought me was an Oct 1991 Los Angeles Times commodity entitled "Here'southward Your Hamburger, What's Your Hurry?":

The McDonald's restaurant taking shape virtually the Navy Exchange building at the 32nd Street Naval Station in San Diego will feature the fast-food concatenation'southward fabulous gilt arches, Craven McNuggets, assorted burgers and french chips.

But, unlike other McDonald's, this small, prefabricated metal building will have no indoor seating.

Instead, patrons will be served at a drive-through and two walk-up windows--and they'll select their meals from a decidedly slimmed-downward menu that won't include milkshakes, Quarter Pounders or a handful of other items sold at the thousands of McDonald's elsewhere in the country.

The 630-square-foot McDonald'southward Express, which was trucked in from Los Angeles on Monday, is a prototype of others that might be built elsewhere ... The prefabricated buildings are designed for locations where most customers are buying food for off-site consumption.

All of this was already aureate – I knew I'd stumbled upon a subject for a new Lost History mail – but the next paragraph was what excited me the nigh:

The building, which measures 14 feet past 45 feet, will go the seventh McDonald's Express in the country when it opens in early November. The others are in Akron, Ohio; Baton Rouge, La.; Atlanta and Memphis.

Yes, you read that correctly – Memphis was home to one of the very first McDonald's Express restaurants! So non simply did McDonald's Express present me with a curt-lived concept worth shining light on, it also had a local connection to the Mid-South, too. Could things get any better?! Well... what if I told you the Memphis McDonald's Express was even so operating? :)

Obviously, nosotros'll explore that after on in this post, only beginning, I want to proceed spending some time on the history of this concept and how information technology, and the thinking it fostered within McDonald's corporate, resulted in a slew of other, longer-lasting/wider-reaching concepts that had ramifications not just for the aureate arches but for the industry as a whole.

McDonald'south Express logo sign. Courtesy eBay

My research next took me to the Commercial Appeal athenaeum, to endeavour and dig upward data on Memphis's McDonald'south Express specifically. Readers don't have free access to any full articles from the archives, but the search option does give you the commencement several paragraphs of whatsoever given commodity's text. Sure enough, I institute this story from July 31, 1991:

Fast Food - McDonald's Planning Limited Site

McDonald's is erecting a modular drive-through, walk-up restaurant chosen McDonald'due south Express at Perkins and Quince to try to win back customers.

It is McDonald's first double drive-through in Tennessee. It is to open past September. The unit, which will exist less than 900 foursquare anxiety, volition feature a limited carte.

It volition accept a few picnic tables in front end of the shop for folks who walk up to identify orders and ii bulldoze-through bays for machine-leap customers.

A November follow-upward article farther explained McDonald'south reasoning for introducing McDonald's Express to the Memphis market:

McDonald'due south Joins Faster Fast-Nutrient Race

You could call it a Little Mac, but McDonald's Corp. calls information technology McDonald's Express.

And the new bulldoze-through-merely restaurant is part of the fast-food giant's strategy for recapturing market share lost to others in the fast-growing niche.

The McDonald's Limited at Perkins and Quince, the outset in Tennessee for the company, opened in September, joining Back 1000 Burger, Central Park, Rally's Hamburgers and soon-to-open Checkers in the double-bulldoze-through business organisation locally.

In other words, in Memphis the master purpose of McDonald's Express was to try and compete with a horde of double-drive-thru newcomers whose new operating way was stealing concern from existing McDonald's locations. Originating in the 1980s, the double-drive-thru concept allowed these chains to find success from lower start-upwards costs and lower operational costs due to the smaller size of the buildings and their prefabricated nature, savings which were and then passed on to consumers with prices so depression – "about 30 percentage below that of the major chains" – that they began to make the "traditional" fast food joints look expensive.

This model was evidently very popular in the Mid-South; every bit noted in the above extract, Checkers (similar McDonald's Express) joined the already-crowded area scene in 1991, and by 1994 ceded its 7 local locations to competitor Rally's – who had ten locations locally – as office of a larger bandy between the two bondage involving 7 full cities that was poised to "eliminate competition between the firms in various markets." (The two would wind up merging together into a singular entity just a few years later, in 1999.) McDonald'south, it seems, opted to take the "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" approach in making their conclusion to enter the fray.

Information technology would seem later double-drive-thru/walk-up McDonald's locations were branded every bit "Mini Mac" instead of McDonald's Express. Epitome source unknown

Just while in Memphis the McDonald's Express concept may merely accept been to upward their game against the other double-drive-thru burger chains, elsewhere in the state the goal of McDonald'south Express was to interject McDonald'due south into every facet of consumers' lives: per the book Food Justice, "an overall 'convenience strategy' designed, as McDonald'southward put it, to 'accept a site wherever people live, piece of work, shop, play, and assemble' in order to 'intercept them at every turn.'"

So, you know, just regular former casual globe domination... but information technology worked.

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McDonald'south chop-chop expanded its Express concept to Manhattan, introducing in 1994 "plans to blitz New York with its smaller Express restaurants to increase its presence." Entering these and then-called secondary markets (secondary, that is, to areas where its full-size restaurants already operated), McDonald'due south claimed, would permit it to "fill in the seams of our operations" and gain better exposure in society to place the product closer to the consumer – a philosophy that, experts said, would result in increased sales. Non all McDonald's Express outlets were double-drive-thrus – clearly, this would be next to impossible in Manhattan! – merely instead varied in format depending on the location, with some indeed featuring indoor seating, admitting express in number compared to full-size restaurants. The main takeaway, the Manhattan McDonald's Limited franchisee said, was that McDonald's Express allowed McDonald's "smaller foursquare footage and more than lease flexibility," which in plough generated higher returns for both the operator and the corporation.

The one constant of all McDonald's Express locations was the limited menu, mainly due to the space limitations. "Milkshakes won't be served, for example, because at that place'due south no room for the shake machines. And Quarter Pounders will have to go because there isn't enough room for the storage and grooming of the McDonald'southward mainstay," reads the 1991 LA Times article I referenced before. "Neither is there room for the machines that generate frozen yogurt and ice cream products. Instead, the Express volition offering 'novelty water ice cream products like Pigeon or Snickers confined.'" But initial concerns about customers' reactions to these carte du jour exclusions, franchisees relayed, were surprisingly waved away. "People don't seem to mind. I've heard of no complaints about the bill of fare. The customers already know that at that place is something different because of the different signage."

Stock photo of a McDonald's Express in Harlem. Courtesy Alamy

Mayhap the infamous 1990s "lightning script" logo originated from the McDonald'south Express concept? Compare the "Express" swoosh in this image to the one featured on the awning in the above image. Courtesy Yelp

Buoyed by seeming success, McDonald's Express connected expanding nationwide, "setting up shop anywhere and everywhere in that location is sufficient traffic." This policy allowed the chain to "squeeze into locations not ordinarily associated with fast food restaurants," including mall food courts, military bases, airports, hospitals, schools, office buildings, sports arenas – yous proper name it. In 1998, there was even an endeavour to turn an abased bathroom in a Bronx park into a McDonald's Limited. (That bargain fell through, just the space did eventually go abode to a Wendy's.)

From at that place, McDonald's sights only broadened. In the decade prior, McDonald'south had experimented with both larger- and smaller-scale concepts, including the McStop ("a 30-acre site that will firm not merely one of its restaurants, but too a motel, gas station and convenience store") and the McSnack (an extremely tiny format designed for high-foot-traffic areas that was and then small information technology didn't fifty-fifty serve hamburgers or fries). But with McDonald'southward Express, the company seemed to have found its sweet spot in size, and as such felt increasingly emboldened to introduce McDonald's Express outlets into even more nontraditional sites. Notably, in 1993 it was announced that "Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is test-marketing scaled-downwardly versions of McDonald's restaurants in its stores in Fresno and Visalia, Calif." – a partnership that soon grew into McDonald's becoming, for a time, "the exclusive in-shop restaurateur for Wal-Mart," with over 1,000 in-store units in the The states and locations in every Wal-Mart store in Canada. McDonald's also opened multiple in-store units in several Habitation Depots, Meijers, and other retail chains.

Case of an older McDonald's within Wal-Mart. Image source unknown

"McDonald'south in Wal-Mart" logo pin, dated 1994. McDonald's was in over 100 Wal-Marts past Baronial 1995, and over 800 past November 1996. Courtesy eBay

Likewise, McDonald'due south quickly jumped onto the gas station bandwagon, seeing dollar signs in the idea of pairing a McDonald'south Express with a fueling center in lodge to create a one-terminate shop. By late 1995, McDonald's had struck deals with an A-list of gas station/C-store operators – Chevron, Mobil, BP, Texaco, Shell, and finally Amoco – for regional alliances that would result in co-branded retail operations that, ideally, would increase profits for both parties. Projections estimated that McDonald's and its two largest partners, Amoco and Chevron, would develop about 300 fuel center/McDonald's Limited combos a year.

Images of 2 "McDonald's Oil Brotherhood" locations, the Chevron in Dalhart, Texas, and the Amoco in Chicago, Illinois. Notation how the architecture for both is nigh identical. Courtesy Kendrick Evolution

Pins featuring the "McDonald'southward Express & Amoco" branding and the "McDonald's & Chevron" branding, respectively. I may or may non ain these now :) Courtesy eBay

To be sure, McDonald's wasn't necessarily the starting time to experiment with opening scaled-down restaurants in all of these nontraditional venues. In fact, McDonald's was reportedly driven by Taco Bong, owned in the 1990s by PepsiCo and which "led the way by selling its Mexican food from kiosks in shopping malls, tiny outlets in convenience stores and in school lunch programs." Years before McDonald's partnership with Amoco, Burger Rex teamed upwards with the gas station brand in 1991 to open up what was hailed equally "the kickoff operation where motorists tin can pump gas while ordering food," and Wendy'southward led the pack before everyone by opening one of its restaurants inside a Kmart in 1985.

Merely, arguably, McDonald's was the one to take all of these experiments farther than the rest, and make the partnerships experience mainstream. After all, these days it's not unusual in the slightest to meet a travel eye featuring a gas station paired with well-known national fast nutrient brands, or an in-store restaurant such as Subway within Walmart or Starbucks within, well, everything. But in the 90s, these concepts were entirely new to consumers – and McDonald's paved the way in making them commonplace, all evolving from its McDonald's Express concept. I guess you could say that McDonald'due south Limited led to a new way of McLife.

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Despite the optimism and high expectations apropos the growth and expansion of McDonald'southward Limited, soon the glow began to wear off. Initially, McDonald'due south Express units were offered simply "to franchisees of successful traditional units." In plow, "each Express restaurant becomes a satellite of an existing McDonald's under the same franchisee. Storage space, defective in the smaller outlets, is provided at the full-size restaurant."

But as corporate pushed the concept further, they became more involved in its implementation, finer pushing the franchisees bated – and worse, eating into their business. "Consider franchisee Wayne Kilburn," reads a Nov 1996 Forbes profile:

In 1980 he and his wife, Mary Jane, took over the sole McDonald's in Ridgecrest, Calif., a high-desert town of 26,000 about an hour west of Expiry Valley. Kilburn turned the eatery into a huge profit machine. So McDonald'due south came up with a market share plan for Ridgecrest. In September 1995 it put a company-endemic eatery inside the new Wal-Mart in town. Late final yr McDonald'southward congenital another outlet inside the Communist china Lake Naval Weapons Center. A third new company-endemic shop went upwards right outside the naval base.

"Basically, they killed me," says Kilburn. He claims his volume has dropped past xxx%. Kilburn, who doubts that...his volume [will be restored] to its prior peaks, wants out and is now negotiating to sell his franchise back to the corporation. The 2 parties will probably cease upwardly reaching a deal.

A February 1997 commodity from Crain'due south Chicago Business – titled "McD-Amoco Venture is Low on Gas" – echoes the above sentiment, writing, "The loudest gripes are coming from McDonald's franchisees and Amoco and Chevron station operators who are in business organization near combination sites. They complain about sales cannibalization, saying the higher traffic at the combo stores eats sales from stand-alone restaurants or gas stations that are sometimes only blocks away."

Accordingly, McDonald's and its oil alliance partners began "putting the brakes on [their] ambitious plans to fuse fast nutrient with fast gas." Originally projected to have "2,000 such restaurant/gas station combinations past 2000," at the time of publication in 1997 "only 117 combination stores are open up (67 of them Amoco/McDonald's sites) and a scattering accept been or will be closed." In addition to the franchisee cannibalization complications and manufacture observer claims that "the satellite restaurants in combination C-store/gas stations are posting mixed results and gamble diluting the powerful McDonald's brand," according to Crain's, "Corporate identities were at stake, too":

At the fourth dimension the deals were inked, McDonald'south Chairman and CEO Michael Quinlan lauded the concept as a "key driver of growth." What he didn't count on, still, are logistics and egos ... Much time and effort was spent debating whose sign should go along pinnacle.

"We're both very protective of our brands," explains Amoco'south Edward Hoffman. "They accept very strong opinions on how they want to nowadays their make, and so exercise we... It hasn't been an easy process."

Most signs at the sites now sit side-by-side. Maintenance costs are shared, but McDonald'southward -- with more stringent rules on cleanliness because it handles uncooked nutrient -- usually takes control.

Coffee and dispensed-soda sales at the linked gas stations -- a traffic generator for Amoco and Chevron -- are non immune when the McDonald's side is open up. Cigarettes and beer are not sold nigh the McDonald'south side of the complex, nor are they prominently displayed.

Another case of a co-branded Amoco/McDonald'due south location. Looks like the McDonald's sign won out in the boxing for whose sign should go on top at this ane! Prototype source unknown

Eventually, the McDonald'south Express branding faded away, making information technology a perfect Lost History subject for today'southward world. While McDonald'due south located in gas stations are still common present, I'grand non certain they have exclusive partnerships like they did with Chevron or Amoco whatsoever longer (and Amoco, of course, merged with BP in 1998, then proceeded to disappear every bit a make for over a decade beginning in 2004). Bold whatever Wal-Mart in-store McDonald's locations bore the "Express" designation in the beginning place, that tagline was likely simply dropped at some bespeak forth the fashion (regardless of whether or not the bill of fare was full-sized or limited), similar to how the Walmart of today makes no distinction betwixt its normal stores and its Supercenters. In fact, many Wal-Mart McDonald's take since closed, as have a very big number of individual McDonald's Express locations around the land. Crain's suggests this trend abroad from McDonald's Express began equally early as 1997, a mere 6 years after the concept was first introduced:

A "mini-McDonald's" offering limited menu items did not work. Many of those sites take been shuttered, including i in south suburban New Lenox (part of a broader shutdown of more than 100 kiosks and other smaller venues announced concluding month).

"Customers want the full McDonald's experience," says a McDonald's spokeswoman.

Long-term survival of the brand or non, McDonald'due south Express is emblematic of the corporation's mental attitude of experimentation in the last decades of the twentieth century. Even more than obscure than these "small fry" McDonald'due south concepts I've been discussing are short-lived total-blown diner-style restaurants that were tested in diverse cities, including Hearth Express, Aureate Curvation Café, and the McDiner. On the other end of the spectrum, consumers probable remember enough of new carte du jour items McDonald'south toyed with in the 80s and 90s, including the Curvation Deluxe, the McDLT, the McLean Deluxe, burritos and fajitas, and of class, the McPizza. That early on McDonald's Express at the naval base in San Diego was even poised to serve hot dogs and chili, in some other departure from the norm for the already-radical new concept.

The McPizza. Enough said. Courtesy MentalFloss

For what information technology's worth, this era was too when McDonald's began to increasingly convert and occupy "unusual existing buildings," such every bit a one-time savings and loan building in Minnesota and a railroad caboose in New York. A lot of those locations – every bit well as other locations with otherwise normal exteriors, but uniquely-themed interiors – are endangered these days, as McDonald'south pushes its franchisees to remodel all locations to a much blander design. Perhaps at least part of the reasoning backside this is that McDonald'due south doesn't feel it needs to experiment or be unique anymore; they've finally achieved that status discussed before where they are, in fact, intercepting consumers at every turn. Likewise, the persistent menu additions seem to take largely disappeared; past at present, everyone knows what McDonald's is, what it serves, where to find information technology, and what to expect – is this self-approbation? I'll leave that up to you all to determine. For now, though, I'll link you to two flickr photostreams: those of RetailRyan and The Caldor Rainbow, who have been traveling to and documenting various unique McDonald's locations earlier they are inevitably remodeled across recognition.

As a concluding note before we move on to the next portion of this post, I wanted to briefly reference an article I came across in my research, published just last calendar month in the UK:

McDonald'southward is launching new mini outlets with a reduced bill of fare so it tin can serve meals faster.

The first has opened on Fleet Street in London, and the focus on takeaways means at that place is no in-store seating.

All customers in the so-called "McDonald's to Become" stores must order via a touchscreen.

A more express menu of favourites such as Large Macs, McNuggets and Large Flavor Wraps will hateful staff can have more of them prepare at tiptop times.

McDonald's is trialling the new format ahead of rolling it out to other town and city centres where there is likely to be demand.

Sound familiar? The more things modify... :)

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And then finally, after that lengthy written Lost History component, nosotros go far at the titular focus of this post: the still-operating, original McDonald'due south Express in Memphis. Located at 4657 Quince Road, it would stand to reason that this restaurant has been operational since 1991, the year information technology opened equally part of the starting time grouping of 7 McDonald's Limited stores. I visited the restaurant merely shy of a month agone, on August 30, 2019. My photos follow.

Nosotros brainstorm with a handful of shots taken while driving past on the roadway, equally we approached the restaurant. Given the size and layout of the lot, I had already anticipated that getting on-property photos of the front of the edifice would be a challenge. Unfortunately for us, the front of the building is, as ever, a majorly-of import part, then I hope you'll forgive any objects that impede its visibility in my images.

Some closer shots of the forepart of the restaurant reveal that, aside from it existence miniaturized and having a walk-upwards window instead of a front door, the facade looks amazingly like to your regular mansard roof McDonald's of that era. This in turn sadly ways that in that location is no actual "Limited" branding on the building itself, but in all honesty even the mansard lonely is becoming rare these days, so I won't complain about seeing it still intact here.

At the corner of the property – located at the intersection of Quince and South Perkins – stands the tall roadside sign, bearing the golden arches. Only look closely – that's really McDonald'southward Limited branding on there! It was very exciting to be able to see this in person, with the cognition that this is actually a remnant of a widespread past concept as opposed to just a strange ane-off sign.

Because I wanted to get those drive-by pics of the property, we had to circle back around a bit before entering the lot, which resulted in me getting these 2 pics of nearby retail sights also. On top is a shot of the shopping heart located directly behind the McDonald'south Express, featuring a Superlo Foods and a now-shuttered Fred's (the last Fred's in Memphis to retain vintage signage similar to what nosotros saw at the Munford franchise location). Beneath that is a picture of the as well now-shuttered Rite Aid located straight beyond the street from the McDonald'southward Express. It crossed my listen that, if the franchisee were interested, he or she could probably purchase the Rite Help holding, tear down the building, and construct a make-new, full-size McDonald's on the lot, replacing the existing Limited location. Hopefully, of course, that doesn't happen, but with the possibility out there I'm even more glad I visited when I did!

(And yes, speaking of Fred'south... I'm sure you're all expecting a post from me on their recently-announced bankruptcy and decision to wind down operations. Your wish volition be granted next calendar month...)

Entering the belongings, since my main goal was to explore the identify and take some pictures for y'all, naturally nosotros parked instead of going through one of the drive-thru lanes. The parking lot is fairly small – although it does take a larger footprint than the edifice itself! – and is located off to the right side of the eating house. This can be improve seen in the aerial view of the holding. Google Maps also provides some pretty good Street View coverage of this place, including historical imagery showing that the building retained the classic white and cherry paint scheme until circa 2017.

Present, the building is beige in color, as seen behind this vintage McDonald's logo affixed to the building's right side wall (facing the parking lot). Just that seems to have been the only change on the belongings in recent years, with everything upwardly to and including the Limited road sign and the mini-mansard roof left alone, so allow'south promise things stay that style!

To emulate the view every bit one travels down the bulldoze-thru lane along this side of the edifice, I took these shots of the menu board and the patio forming the edge betwixt the building/bulldoze-thrus and the parking lot. I didn't walk over to the other side for a similar view of the second bulldoze-thru lane, and then I've pulled an prototype of that from Google and included it below.

Courtesy Google Maps

Per that Google user epitome of the other drive-thru lane, it would appear but this parking lot-facing side of the building has one of these vintage construction-affixed McDonald'south logos. These always wait a lot older than they really are (at least, in my stance). Still, though, information technology's great to see this 1 even so here. I just wish those shrubs in front of it weren't blocking it then much!

We ordered from the walk-up window, and while in that location I snapped this shot of the carte available for customers to scan and select from. For one thing, y'all can compare the presentation of this menu to the one shown on the considerably larger drive-thru board earlier in this post; but for some other, you can run across from either menu flick that, reverse to what I told you of McDonald'south Express's origins, this eating place does not announced to be serving a express menu – note the presence of Quarter Pounders and shakes, among other things. Obviously, the restaurant's capabilities over the years have been increased, which of form is benign.

A fun fact I uncovered in my research is the discovery by a scattering of folks that remaining McDonald's Express units, for several years past the "official" replacement of fried pies with baked pies on the menu, continued to serve fried pies, considering the Express outlets did not have ovens in which to bake the pies in accordance with the new recipe. The menu at the Memphis McDonald'due south Express did indeed have pies on it, merely alas, I wasn't hungry enough when we visited to society ane (all I got was some fries). But several of those reports had been updated more recently to say the Express stores, too, finally switched over to the baked recipe, so I don't remember I was missing annihilation.

Courtesy Google Maps

Courtesy Google Maps

These next two images again come to u.s. courtesy of Google user contributions. I chose to include them considering they show things I wasn't able to capture on my visit. Up peak is a shot of the McDonald'southward storefront sign lit upwards at dark, which I thought looked neat. And below that is a quick peek within the restaurant from 1 of the service windows. I got a quick peek in through the walk-up window, of course, but I didn't feel comfortable taking a photo through it. In whatsoever case, whether or non it's clearly visible in the photo, you can imagine that the interior of a McDonald's Express unit is considerably more than compact in layout than a regular McDonald's Kitchen.

Probably my favorite ii shots of the whole post, right here :) Up first is as good of a wide view as I could get of the entire restaurant, and below that is a close-up of the iconic mansard roof with its yellow french fry lights and the McDonald'south logotype. Once more, information technology may not say "Express" directly on the building, merely this is still absurd in its own right, specially equally more and more of these like rooflines disappear!

The forepart of the property featured the traditional arrow-pointing "enter" and "exit" signs, as well as this more than unique "Thank You lot" sign posted at the end of the left-side drive-thru lane. In hindsight, I should've gotten a closer shot of at least ane of the enter/get out signs as well, merely it is what information technology is. Who knows, maybe I'll exist dorsum again someday to remedy that :)

Hither's the view from the "front porch" of the eating place, every bit it were, over toward the roadside McDonald's Express sign at the corner of the property, followed by a closer shot of said sign. Note that the "Express" logo used here is unlike from the one seen in other applications earlier in this post, with judgement case letters and dashes running through the messages themselves (as opposed to running forth the left side of the messages). Personally, I call back I similar this one ameliorate.

Some more close-ups of the McDonald'south Express sign (actually merely crops of previous images, but don't tell my readers that!). Unfortunately one side of the sign'southward face has been slightly damaged – but thankfully non so badly equally to necessitate replacement (knock on wood!)...

Returning to our car, I snapped some total-edifice views along the way, which I call up capture the layout of the property pretty nicely. I also discovered that I inadvertently captured an employee delivering a meal to a customer waiting in a parking infinite (yous tin even come across them driving away, in the last pic!) – so obviously even this McDonald's Express features curbside delivery, just like all the full-size locations! Pretty neat...

These three successive pics show the scene as nosotros collection abroad. They're kinda repetitive in nature, but I included all three of them anyway. Something I was curious about was the umbrellas over the patio tables... to me, those look similar they could be adequately contempo (for some reason the xanthous/teal color scheme gives me this impression), but Street View shows them here as far dorsum as the imagery goes (2007), and it's quite possible they had been here for years before that, too, perhaps even dorsum to this restaurant's 1991 opening. Wish at that place was a fashion to detect out for sure...

I tried to get a good shot of the forepart of the building as we drove by, simply that's kinda hard to practice from a car window with sun glare besides interfering! Oh well, at least it turned out much improve than it would have with my erstwhile phone (oh yeah – forgot to mention, I take a new phone at present! I call back these are the first photos from information technology that you lot're seeing on the blog; more will come in the future, of grade).

I final interesting thing I wanted to annotation is the setup of the parking lot-facing drive-thru lane hither. As you can come across, the pick-up window is located at the front of the edifice, but the bill of fare board where you place your guild is located at the rear (as we saw earlier). That ways that when customers use the drive-thru on this side, they accept to attain all the mode over from their driver's seat, across the passenger seat, in club to reach the window. Who on earth thought that was a good idea?!

Finally, I'll wrap this post upward with these two parting shots, i of the front of the building and another of the (undamaged) sign face proudly bearing the McDonald's Express logo. I hope you lot all enjoyed this post, both the Lost History component shining some calorie-free on this forgotten McDonald's concept and also the pictorial component exploring the however-operating Memphis location that was born from the idea. If you accept any memories of your own concerning McDonald's Express or any of the restaurant chain's other experiments in the 1990s, please share them with me in the comments! Until next time, then... thank you for reading, and as always, have fun exploring the retail world wherever you lot are :)

Retail Retell

UPDATE, April 2021: As suspected, McDonald'due south has indeed purchased the one-time Rite Aid building across the street from the Quince Road McDonald's Limited, and has synthetic a brand-new full-size location that volition replace the existing eatery once it opens. See the photo below for a look at the new building. You can also see more details on the site programme and architecture in this PDF.