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When Your Third Place Does Not Want You: Elderly Entitlement and Fighting the New Old Korean Queens Gang

I’ve been following an ongoing saga in the New York Times concerning a local McDonald’s restaurant in Queens and how elderly Koreans in the neighborhood have taken over the place as their community hub.

This new, “old,” gang doesn’t really buy anything and they stay all day long taking up space and not making any money for the business.  There’s a Senior Citizen Community Center nearby, with van service for those who cannot walk that far, but the retired don’t want to go there because it’s in a Church basement.

The one thing you take away from reading about this ongoing conflict between elder entitlement and the business needs of McDonald’s is that the old people — like the Millennials behind them — believe they have the freedom and the right to sit wherever they want, and linger as long as they wish, with no repercussion whatsoever. Asking them to leave to make room for others is a cultural slap in the face that will not be tolerated.

Continue reading → When Your Third Place Does Not Want You: Elderly Entitlement and Fighting the New Old Korean Queens Gang

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Will We Ever Eat Healthy at McDonald’s?

As a healthy eater, and as a Vegan, I have been a longtime supporter of McDonald’s long-suffering effort to offer a better, and healthier menu, at an affordable price, for their millions of daily customers.

Here’s my review of their new “McVeggie” sandwich — published on January 2, 1999:

The McDonalds McVeggie burger can be found in limited availability. In New York City, there are three or four McDonalds in Manhattan that offer the McVeggie. In locations that offer the McVeggie, you’ll find signs outside and large banners inside touting the McVeggie. There’s even a “McVeggie Extra Value Meal” that offers a large drink and large fries with the sandwich! The full-color McVeggie Extra Value Meal sign was professionally made and looked like all the other food images hanging behind the cashiers. The McVeggie is certainly not a scribbled-on after-thought and it appears to be a full member of the McDonalds family in these limited locations.

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The Thousand Dollar Sausage Biscuit with Egg: McDonald’s and the Urban Warfare Economy

If you ever want to know the impending weather, or the political forecast, or how a community is feeling at a precise instant in time — spend a few minutes in your local McDonald’s, and you’ll instantly know if it’s going to rain that day, or if there’s rage on the street, and you’ll learn how neighbors feel about each other.

During one recent stint in the McDonald’s coffee queue, I witnessed a Jersey City municipal worker, a restaurant regular, who walked in and pointed to the current special on the menu board — two Sausage Biscuit with Egg sandwiches for $3.00 USD — and he said he wanted four of them, but only the sausage and the egg part, for a grand total of $6.00 USD out the door.

Not so fast!

Continue reading → The Thousand Dollar Sausage Biscuit with Egg: McDonald’s and the Urban Warfare Economy

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You Are Part of the House

I love discovering new interoperative cultural memes, and I happened upon one over the weekend at the local McDonald’s.  I’m not a big fan of McDonald’s, but they do try to offer some healthy food, and I appreciate they set a major agenda when it comes to creating an entire landscape of community dietary choices.  There is grand power in creating caloric counts.  Oftentimes, the only affordable meal in an urban neighborhood is found under the Golden Arches — and that creates a static economy and a trapped customer base. We’ll discuss more about that dangerous, if unassailable, economic power tomorrow.

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Why is Eating Healthy so Expensive?

Why is it so expensive to eat a healthy diet anywhere you go?  Sure, you can find some deals on healthy food in some niche places, or you can take time to cook bulk purchases at home and tote the remains around with you, but for fast, healthy, food, on the road, you’re going to pay a heavy price for that healthy eating.  We live in the days of the one dollar McDonald’s hamburger and the miniscule, $7, “tomato and avocado” sandwich at Pax.

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How to Make Unhealthy Oatmeal

There’s nothing quite as filling as a hot bowlful of steel cut or rolled oats in the morning.  You are filled up, sustained, and comforted by all that fibrous goodness.  Oatmeal starts your day off right.  When I read McDonald’s planned to offer oatmeal with fresh fruit, I was giddy that the mega-fast food giant was finally turning a health corner and doing the right thing.

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Crybabyism

Gordon Davidescu wrote this article.

I was in a Duane Reade store recently, waiting in line, when a man who was ahead of me made it clear that he could not be any less happy with the store. He said that he had accidentally left his wallet in the store one day while waiting for a prescription at the pharmacy counter and when he called about it, the manager assured him that the wallet was there and that he could come and pick it up.

Continue reading → Crybabyism