London Road McDonald’s to tear down, start over
July 6, 2010 at 5:00 pm in Duluth News Tribune
Upholstered chairs, plasma TVs and free WiFi will all be part of a new McDonald’s restaurant to be built at London Road and 21st Avenue East in Duluth.
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I hope they re-do the parking lot in a more effective flow, because I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been in the drive thru and attempt to cross from the pay booth to the food window, and as I’m midway between the two, someone always comes flying down 21st east and whips a left into the parking lot obviously going faster than necissary, causing me to slam on my brakes.
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I think one of the main reasons they are starting from scratch (besides the fact that this is a goldmine location frequented by many) is that they need to redo the parking lot situation.
Many facets of flow including the drive-thru are antiquated and need an update.
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Why not get rid of this purveyor of fat food & bring back the Mini Golf Course?
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It’s amazing the crybabies out there still don’t realize that the choice to eat or not eat fast food is still a CHOICE human beings make. It’s especially laughable since many of the people who are pro-choice about the death of fetii are the same ones who are anti-choice about culinary matters.
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You are really comparing a Big Mac to meth?
/facepalm
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Since abortion and illicit drugs have been introduced to the discussion, I hope the moderators won’t have a fit over my comment, but here goes:
If you didn’t learn anything about crybabies in the smoking ban debate, you won’t learn a thing when the anti-fat witchhunt gets into full swing. The same hypocrites who weep and wail about smoking will demand their “right” to gorge themselves on crap food. I guarantee it.
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Dan would you get over the smoking thing–your side lost–move on and wake up–smoking is bad for you–next. There is no possible way to control people and what they eat in their own homes–there are ways to regulate percentages of fat/salt/etc in processed foods, and I say why not? You don’t have to eat there –if you don’t like it. All of this is off topic anyway–this is a story about a functionally obsolete restaurant –rebuilding. Once McDonald’s quits offering their happy meal toys who knows they might be on the downswing at that point anyway–because that is the only reason many people take their kids there in the first place (so that we can collect all 5 or something). I have only eaten at McDonald’s maybe three times in the last 5 years or so–and I can’t say I miss it at all.
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This is completely on-topic. The intelligent citizens of Portland, and many other cities nationwide, have actually rallied together to get some of these corrupt corporations to move OUT of their city. Yet, here in Duluth, we’re parading with joy because now the McDonald’s drive-thru is faster. It’s like this town wouldn’t even care if Walmart decided to build another store right on Park Point.
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People like you are why I don’t “get over it.” You think a smoking ban solves everything and ends everything right there just because it fits your own personal preferences and biases. You think the issue is Happy Meals?
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It’s already started!
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The plan is to change the landscaping of the entire corner. They are going to tear away much of the hill, and move the restaurant further back into the hill, leaving the parking around the restaurant closer to London Road and 21st Avenue East, making for easier access in/out of the restaurant. It will take about 3 months to complete. The manager had hoped to get a double-decker building, but got shot down on that idea. Should be a boon for BK, across the street.
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Comparing Meth to McDonalds is inappropriate. McDonalds causes far more disease (diabetes, heart disease, stroke, obesity) and death than Meth.
And most any Mom & Pop in town has a better burger.
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So, Sam, are you advocating increased government regulation, increased taxation and/or outright banning of fast food?
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Do you think that every single government regulation, increased tax, or ban is a bad thing without exception? It’s not that black and white, sir. I do think there needs to be some control over the fast food industry. These are companies that spend millions and millions of dollars marketing to children who are WAY too young to understand how unhealthy and immoral fast food actually is… and apparently all that marketing worked if grown adults are still totally willing to ignore that
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OMG..fast food is immoral?
I seriously need to hear the definition of that.
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No, Merv, I don’t. Just wondering where Sam is going with this. I’m waiting for the march to the state legislature and the demands to ban fast food. You know, for consistency’s sake.
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@Katydid and @DanH. The issue isn’t that some honest restaurant is expanding business. The issue is that you’re willing to defend this corporation but you don’t know anything about it.
– You don’t know about the illegal Mexicans employed within our borders to handle and process our meat – getting infections under their fingernails because it’s so contaminated.
– You don’t know that the cattle and chicken are completely covered in their own feces right before the slaughter.
– You don’t know about the bleach and chemicals that the food is doused in so we don’t get violently ill from it.
– You don’t know about the pain these animals have to go through because we pump them with growth hormones where they grow twice as fast as they’re supposed to.
– You don’t know anything about how GMOs affect your body or your reproductive health.
– You don’t know that McDonald’s deliberately uses, and depends on, psychological marketing to children so they will nag their parents to go there until they lose their patience and finally do.
– You don’t know how the American economy is affected when we start depending on these minimum wage, dead end jobs.
– You don’t know that human breast milk is the #1 most toxic food on the planet because eating this crap has become socially acceptable.
– You don’t know that our Federal government subsidizes massive amounts of corn, not to be used as food for humans, but to raise an overabundance of livestock thus driving down the cost of beef and chicken – ruining any chance of honest competition.
– You don’t know that feeding cows a steady diet of corn makes them extremely vulnerable to the E. Coli virus.
– You don’t know how information like this is deliberately withheld from you, because you probably wouldn’t buy this “food” if you actually knew what happened behind the scenes.
– You don’t understand why a guy like me would take so much personal time out of my day just to tell you this.
You haven’t even begun to think just how exactly a cheeseburger can be sold profitably for just one dollar – which is equivalent to a mere 7 minutes of minimum wage human labor. This is much more than a simple restaurant. This is just a small part of a much much bigger issue. If I were a religious person, I would say that McDonald’s is darn close to being as evil as you could get.
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Not to single out McDonalds in the fast food issue – this company is just the representative, the paradigm of the fast food industry. This industry is an illustration of the way we all eat, in general. Look around you, and what do you see? Fat unhealthy Americans and the kids most especially. I’m 62. When I was in grade school, there were maybe three or four kids in the whole school of 400 kids, who could be called fat. In the schools today, more than half the kids are overweight, and maybe half the overweight kids are obese. Fast food is cheap and easy, and those who most seriously need good nutrition are the least likely to get it. The problem is not a simple one, and the solution is not simple, either. To ban one thing or another will not solve the problem. Each facet of the problem has to be addressed. People need to be able to support a family without working several jobs, kids need to be much more physically active in school and out, fast food restaurants and many other restaurants need to reconfigure their menus to get away from excessive salt, sugar, and fat that admittedly we have come to love, and the rest of us have to re-learn how to eat, and we all need to learn how to recognize the true cost of the food we eat – not just the dollars and cents we shell out for it. It is in fact a paradoxical truth that much of the “food” we consume at the lowest cash register price, in fact bears the highest real cost.
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Wrong. We can still allow the sale of fast food, but we need to ban its consumption in public places. You know…for the children. Make every fast food outlet a drive-thru only. Make it illegal to eat it within 15 feet of a bus stop. Weigh everybody who enters an establishment that serves food. Over a certain weight and they’re either denied service or they have to eat in a separate room away from public view. Because who wants to look at these fat, disgusting pigs while you’re enjoying a meal and a drink? Or better yet, put a table outside and make them sit there so they aren’t setting a bad example. You know…for the children.
I’ll wager $20 that nobody gets it.
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Where do I go to collect? The smoking area?
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“The intelligent” citizens of Portland. Driving out businesses, thats a good one! Just what we need here!
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Why is it bad if Duluth doesn’t have any McDonald’s restaurants?
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