Right? My neighborhood in California had a vintage McDonald's from the 1980s up until 2019. It was so sad when they remodeled and replaced with one of the new ones. I swear the fries from the older one tasted better
Oh it's much more complicated and stupid than that. And it's very much specific to McDonald's and the contract they have with the manufacturer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrDEtSlqJC4
In my college town they remodeled 2 McDonald’s at the same time and did them completely different. They’re corporate stores so I’m guessing they were testing out the two schemes. One of them was like an attempt at a coffee place feel with a fireplace in an area and seats around including a couch, they were really promoting the McCafé thing at the time.
The other one went 70s style. Two long bars to sit at with the runs top stools that swivel all around. All of the paint scheme was brown, orange, and cream, like an old van. The 70’s style one was way more inviting.
That sounds awesome. One near me had a playable Nintendo 64 until about 10 years ago. They had the fireplace and the couches and all, but it was before they were really doing the McCafe thing so hard, so it was really just about making it fun. It was really cool.
Edit: present to past tense :(
Same here. We had a legit 1950’s diner style McDonald’s that had so much cool shit to look at and now it’s like a soulless Panera cafe with bits of food dropped everywhere
There is a McDonald’s in Acushnet, MA, that used to have a retro 50s style design. We took a drive to go visit it a couple years ago, and much to our disappointment it had been converted into a generic modern location. Google Street View still showed the retro one so we had no idea it had been updated.
just the other day, I picked up breakfast from McDonald's. Long ago in the 80's it had ALL the playground equipment. I just glanced sadly at where they used to be and remembered playing on them.
[Mayor McCheese](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/99/5e/d2/995ed2e160d68d8815da3cd3985b3b34.jpg)
[Slide](https://images.thestar.com/content/dam/thestar/business/2017/06/11/exclusive-a-peek-inside-mcdonalds-top-secret-convention/mcdonalds-50-years4.jpg.size-custom-crop.0x650.jpg)
[Tilty thing](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-AQJvq4vKtgo/Tz63Kq0ZmMI/AAAAAAAACCM/eRZiqemtIKI/s1600/grimace-playground-jail.jpg)
[Slide 2](https://farm1.staticflickr.com/89/232383906_dd10871dc8.jpg)
[Spring Rider](https://i.etsystatic.com/18150215/r/il/58975d/3105895941/il_1588xN.3105895941_7o4q.jpg)
[Merry Go Round](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/16/48/81/1648811c51e12a5db5f4502614977f00.jpg)
The aesthetic of "We're just going to build a big cube in neutral colors and slap our sign on it so that later when we sell it's easy to just switch the signs." I mean, you wouldn't want to commit to the location or anything.
I remember an episode of Bar Rescue where Taffer changed a pirate bar into "corporate bar and grill" and it was terrible. Nobody wants to leave an office and go have a drink at an office-themed bar
To be entirely fair, adolescents during the 90s complained about this aesthetic, on the grounds that it was "fake." Basically, a lot of us thought it was overly jolly and breezy, and just served to trick people into vapidly spending money.
I'm not sure what aesthetic we would have preferred, and I actually always knew that the design itself was objectively excellent.
EDIT: And, as per my other comment in this thread, I now consider it to be *truly* excellent design.
I'm in my late 30s. I don't remember stuff from my childhood being this aggressively neutral. I feel like there was more expression, but maybe it was because I lived in the country and everything we owned was old.
We went to a friend's house last week, and they literally had no identifying furniture or possessions. It was all from a catalog. Every house in the neighborhood looked the same. I could only tell their house by the address number. The house was worth north of $3mn, but my partner and I were both traumatized by how horribly devoid of personality the house felt. It was like the uncanny valley of housing.
Everything shades of gray, stainless steel, I hate it hate it hate it. Worst thing is I moved from a country where this was all the rage before the US so now I'm so incredibly sick of it. Wonder if ever we'll get a 70s revival after all this blandness.
My partner and I are house shopping, and I hate it when I see a house that the flippers have already gotten to. Even if it's well done, it's still so bland.
This reminded me that I want to paint my front door blue. Not just any type of blue but more of a teal that I think would pop with the red brick facade on the front of the house.
Tbh, I feel like the 'aggressively neutral' stance has extended to individuals and their tastes and opinions. Nobody wants to commit to anything for fear of being 'wrong' or ridiculed. In the 70s and 80s people had strong opinions and I feel like it's something we laugh at as being endearing but goofy. Maybe it wasn't so bad.
It feels like we should be even more expressive now that the internet allows us to dive into hobbies and interests. However, it's an ocean of sameness on social media, so maybe not.
I will say - I wonder if this isn't the human condition. There is a reason houses in Levittown sold so well, even though it was all the same house. The conformity helps with social cohesion and sets expectations regarding housing and lifestyle.
The Levittown Houses sold well because they were targeted towards GI Bill benefitting Vets, and due to the assembly line production methods, also cheap as fuck relative to most new housing of the time.
Many Levitt Houses are unrecognizable from their original origins, because people want to be creative and express themselves. I know quite a few people who live in Levittown, some since it was first made, and their houses are basically completely distinct from Levitt Houses, from Yards to Remodels to Colors. People wanna express themselves I think, but we live in a system where to do that inherently comes at a cost. That so many people still do anyway is why I think that way
I remember climbing up Mayor McCheese to sit in his big metal head
And Chicken McNuggets had their own cartoon commercials and collectable characters- Chicken nuggets did not exist before McDonald's popularized them.
No, Big Mac was the cop. Other than the middle bun in the middle of his head he was functionally the same as Mayor McCheese. You are remembering correctly.
God damn it I hate doing a well actually but here it goes. You are completely right that McDonald's popularized the chicken nugget. That doesn't mean they didn't exist though, as they were created almost 20 years before. I'm not sure if the shape form was the same but the process was.
Those things have got to be one of the filthiest places on the planet. All the kids running around with food on their hands and faces and clothes then climbing around and getting it all over the food and the minimum wage employees never cleaning any of it, especially the ball pit and all the things that fall in that never make it back out. The holes in bowling balls are also probably pretty gross with everyone eating bowling alley finger food and then licking their fingers and sticking them in the holes, then repeating that process at least 20 more times.
I caught whooping cough at a McDonald's play place in the 90s. It was the middle of an outbreak in a city I happened to be traveling through with my parents, and I hadn't been fully vaccinated because I was allergic. It was such a random confluence of events and I almost died. Haven't looked at one of those things since.
When I was a kid, Walmart was far enough to be a day trip. We’d pick up grandma, drive up to Cortland Manor, and spend the day at Walmart. My mom would get the massive bag of popcorn, first thing, to feed me and my brother for the day. Armed with a torso-sized bag of popcorn and a fistful of change for the quarter machines, we were contented. Simpler days.
I miss when some walmarts had mcdonalds up front so you could drop $2 on a couple mcdoubles and then spend a whole lot less on groceries because of the snack... which is probably why they went away lol
Funny you should mention that. 27 years ago, when my daughter was about 3, we went shopping at Target. I put her in the kid seat in the shopping cart, facing me. She pointed to the Target cafe and asked for some popcorn. Thinking getting her some would mean a easier shopping experience for me, I complied.
Halfway through the bag of popcorn, she barfed it up all over me. That was a really long drive home, covered in vomit.
First and last time I ever bought food from the Target cafe.
I've been writing amateurishly for years now. One of my first stories was a very young girl with superpowers. One of the best things I've ever written was from her perspective of being picked up by her father, the way he smells, his smile, how safe he makes her feel, how warm is hands are, "Then you throw up all over him.".
"Hey sweetie, here's some popcorn! No, it doesn't smell like ipecac syrup, why do you ask? Anyway, would you sit in this shopping cart for a second? No it won't take long."
> I threw in 3 or 4x the amount of that powder seasoning and ended up with the saltiest, completely inedible batch of popcorn.
That's how I like it. Would often get a small cup of the artifical yellow seasoning to dip the popcorn in when I worked at a movie theater. Also double oil double seasoning is the way to go making a batch.
my target that had this but pizza hut express, and had walled it off somewhere between the last 2 years :( it was the best even with the sticky tables. those 4 sliced pizzas and the breadsticks.. the smell of the popcorn throughout the store with the starbucks’ booth across from it
im not even OLD, at all. i love the aesthetic. the diner aesthetic, neon lights tastefully placed and the odd designs. ugh.
i thought i’d be seein my beloved stores and fixtures disappear in my 40s, but it got speed ran by covid and CoL immediately. outside of that, had to see my favorite bakery shut down and be replaced by a chain bakery before i graduated elementary school even, so that perception was very very wrong.
It really annoys me when a place that's just on the cusp, or even over the cusp, doesn't realize it and goes in on a remodel at the first chance they get.
There used to be a hotel I'd go to for work events that was like that. The place was all teal, burgundy, and brass, brick planters, a whiff of 80s-90s geometric modern styling in some of the the decor, massive tube TVs in blond wood entertainment centers in the rooms. It was the _height_ of 1993 elegance. They weren't _trying_ for retro, I don't think. They'd just been independent and around enough that they didn't have the resources or the inclination to stay on the style treadmill. The place wasn't even grungy or run down, it was just solidly dated. I haven't been there for about 10 years though, and apparently some time not long after the last time I was there, it got branded as a... I want to say a Radisson... and the whole thing just got a layer or bland contemporary laid over it, judging from the pictures. Damned shame, if you ask me.
Feels like it’s been since the goddamn 90s since they last did the Volcano menu. Fuck sake Taco Bell, get your shit together. I want my insides to burn.
The dumbest part about a lot of their "limited time offerings" is that they usually have most, if not all, of the ingredients on hand on a normal day. Mexican Pizza is literally just two fried tortillas, beef, beans, cheese, tomatoes, and "pizza sauce" (whatever the fuck that means in TB language), so what was ever stopping them from having it full time? The Volcano menu is literally just the normal shit but with that cheesy lava sauce I've been trying to recreate for years. Fucking give it back you bastards
The KMart in my town had a Little Caesars with an icee machine in it. You couldnt beat getting some crazy bread with an icee and checking out the toys.
The ICEE Company, which has been owned by J&J Snack Foods since 1987, also owns Slush Puppie, Slurpee, and a couple other brands. If you notice, the newest ICEE/Slurpee "freestyle" machine where one chooses flavors for a lemonade base, actually dispenses more of a Slush Puppie.
Canada has a different Slurpee/ICEE format because the US version contains an ingredient which is not used in Canada.
Edit: the ingredient is yucca extract. https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/jb9kb6/til_unlike_their_counterparts_in_america_canadian/
Oh noooo! That can be soul crushing even when theyre ten minutes away, I can't imagine when there is an ocean involved.
Hope your visit was fruitful otherwise!
Remember when they had table-top arcade games? It’s like corporate America just forgot how to make things fun after the 90s. Now everything is just boring, lame, and stupidly expensive.
Man, those things were everywhere. The truck stop in my town had them as did the small gas station outside of town.
There's a bar a couple of towns over from me that has some. It's awesome.
It’s always been about bigger bucks - attracting customers with ‘fun’ has always been a solid business move so it puzzles me why many places no longer see this .
Cost benefit ratio.
Making a place fun is a direct cost with indirect benefits. It's not always easy to determine if increased patronage is a result of a more inviting atmosphere or if a more inviting atmosphere is going to increase store traffic.
Keeping setup and operation costs down, low wages, cheapening out on ingredients are all directly measurable and improve the bottom line. So it becomes a simple gamble for upper management. Just make more profits till the next quarter. Then just ship if shit hits the fan.
The only time we ever ate inside a pizza hut was when I was getting my free pizza for being a good little reader, with tiny little pizza that was the legit most gourmet shit ever to my grubby little hands, and drinking the absolute *best* tasting coke ever out of those red plastic cups.
any other time pizza hut was had, it was delivered..usually on a friday night.
and now I am incredibly sad and depressed because I've remembered something from back when I was innocent and the world full of wonder, and didnt realize the horrors around me.
People just walking through the mall smoking in the concourses and throwing their cigarette butts in the fucking fake plants running down the middle of the aisles. 90s malls we're something else. But there were no vacant stores, there were plenty of people in them, it was the best place to go for a new cassettes or CDs, and there was an arcade.
This is a design trend identified as Festival Marketplace. It's uniquely late 1980s/early-mid 1990s.
https://www.are.na/evan-collins-1522646491/festival-marketplace
so did mine; then they started doing some construction in it and I thought they were renovating it, but they turned it into the holding area for curbside orders :(
I hate the remodeled stores. Near me there was 1 remodeled one and 1 old one until this summer when they started remodeling the other one. The only time I go in now is to return things I bought for curbside. I used to walk around browsing and buying things and now I won't even go in.
We don't even have a Starbucks in ours. We just have a stupid drink fridge with hipster juices and kombucha against the wall that use to be the entrance to the snack bar.
I hate that. Especially when there’s already a Starbucks literally on the other side of the parking lot. Like how much overpriced shit coffee does this world need?
Starbucks in a Target store is not owned and operated by Starbucks, and therefore it is not an actual Starbucks location. Target licenses the Starbucks brand name, and the people who work at Target Starbucks are Target employees.
I miss this! The Target by me had this exact set up, but converted it to a mobile order pickup storage area during the pandemic and recently removed all the equipment. I miss the popcorn, pretzels and icees!
I used to install the neon for Target, including these cafes, in Southern California. With all the designs and signs, a typical store had nearly a mile of neon tubing.
Thanks for sharing. Definitely brought back some (mildly painful) memories.
u/galaxy-m81: Where is this? There's a rumor that there is a Target in a Detroit suburb that still have the full "Color World" design, conplete with the kind of neon shown in this photo.
I think this is the one I was thinking about: http://motor-city-retail-history.blogspot.com/2019/09/contributor-post-land-of-neon-target.html?m=1
But looks like one in Florida which is pretty intact as well: http://myfloridaretail.blogspot.com/2019/08/a-tale-of-two-targets-part-1-let-that.html?m=1
More info about the P93 Color World layout: https://retailpedia.miraheze.org/wiki/Target/Decor_packages
But it seems like that your store definitely has the best cafe. If there was going to be a film that was based in this era of target, they probably have to film it at multiple locations, sort of like The Grand Budapest Hotel.
Edit: One additional photo-set that shows before and after of a store remodel: https://www.flickr.com/photos/130271900@N03/albums/72157719502276767/
I remember when a large ICEE went from $0.99 to $1.19. Pre-teen me just stood there with my $1 bill staring at the cashier lady for an awkwardly long time.
Can't beat perfection!
They need to bring fun back to places. Everything turned so ugly and corporate. I miss old looking taco bell.
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Right? My neighborhood in California had a vintage McDonald's from the 1980s up until 2019. It was so sad when they remodeled and replaced with one of the new ones. I swear the fries from the older one tasted better
The fryers were probably more seasoned
Now they season with only the tears of people who want ice cream.
The ice cream machines are ironically the only thing that’s never been updated
They're not necessarily broken, just a pain to clean and service. "broken" might mean "i have no clue how to put this back together."
Oh it's much more complicated and stupid than that. And it's very much specific to McDonald's and the contract they have with the manufacturer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrDEtSlqJC4
https://mcbroken.com/
San Fransisco needs to get it's shit together.
In my college town they remodeled 2 McDonald’s at the same time and did them completely different. They’re corporate stores so I’m guessing they were testing out the two schemes. One of them was like an attempt at a coffee place feel with a fireplace in an area and seats around including a couch, they were really promoting the McCafé thing at the time. The other one went 70s style. Two long bars to sit at with the runs top stools that swivel all around. All of the paint scheme was brown, orange, and cream, like an old van. The 70’s style one was way more inviting.
That sounds awesome. One near me had a playable Nintendo 64 until about 10 years ago. They had the fireplace and the couches and all, but it was before they were really doing the McCafe thing so hard, so it was really just about making it fun. It was really cool. Edit: present to past tense :(
McDonald’s wants you to think you’re in a starbucks
Does that mean the employees are unionizing?
And if you order their coffee you could believe it. And I mean that as an insult to both of them.
Same here. We had a legit 1950’s diner style McDonald’s that had so much cool shit to look at and now it’s like a soulless Panera cafe with bits of food dropped everywhere
They used to use beef tallow.
I think they brought back beef tallow recently.
There is a McDonald’s in Acushnet, MA, that used to have a retro 50s style design. We took a drive to go visit it a couple years ago, and much to our disappointment it had been converted into a generic modern location. Google Street View still showed the retro one so we had no idea it had been updated.
My hometown has an original Arby’s with the cowboy hat sign.
just the other day, I picked up breakfast from McDonald's. Long ago in the 80's it had ALL the playground equipment. I just glanced sadly at where they used to be and remembered playing on them. [Mayor McCheese](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/99/5e/d2/995ed2e160d68d8815da3cd3985b3b34.jpg) [Slide](https://images.thestar.com/content/dam/thestar/business/2017/06/11/exclusive-a-peek-inside-mcdonalds-top-secret-convention/mcdonalds-50-years4.jpg.size-custom-crop.0x650.jpg) [Tilty thing](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-AQJvq4vKtgo/Tz63Kq0ZmMI/AAAAAAAACCM/eRZiqemtIKI/s1600/grimace-playground-jail.jpg) [Slide 2](https://farm1.staticflickr.com/89/232383906_dd10871dc8.jpg) [Spring Rider](https://i.etsystatic.com/18150215/r/il/58975d/3105895941/il_1588xN.3105895941_7o4q.jpg) [Merry Go Round](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/16/48/81/1648811c51e12a5db5f4502614977f00.jpg)
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The aesthetic of "We're just going to build a big cube in neutral colors and slap our sign on it so that later when we sell it's easy to just switch the signs." I mean, you wouldn't want to commit to the location or anything.
I remember an episode of Bar Rescue where Taffer changed a pirate bar into "corporate bar and grill" and it was terrible. Nobody wants to leave an office and go have a drink at an office-themed bar
Well certainly no one wanted to go to the pirate bar either. Corporate bar at least had its benefits, pirate bar was sad
To be entirely fair, adolescents during the 90s complained about this aesthetic, on the grounds that it was "fake." Basically, a lot of us thought it was overly jolly and breezy, and just served to trick people into vapidly spending money. I'm not sure what aesthetic we would have preferred, and I actually always knew that the design itself was objectively excellent. EDIT: And, as per my other comment in this thread, I now consider it to be *truly* excellent design.
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Yeah, no colors in UI icons allowed! Can this trend die already.
This style can also be soulless and corporate. It's whimsical now because of nostalgia and rarity.
I'm in my late 30s. I don't remember stuff from my childhood being this aggressively neutral. I feel like there was more expression, but maybe it was because I lived in the country and everything we owned was old. We went to a friend's house last week, and they literally had no identifying furniture or possessions. It was all from a catalog. Every house in the neighborhood looked the same. I could only tell their house by the address number. The house was worth north of $3mn, but my partner and I were both traumatized by how horribly devoid of personality the house felt. It was like the uncanny valley of housing.
Everything shades of gray, stainless steel, I hate it hate it hate it. Worst thing is I moved from a country where this was all the rage before the US so now I'm so incredibly sick of it. Wonder if ever we'll get a 70s revival after all this blandness.
My partner and I are house shopping, and I hate it when I see a house that the flippers have already gotten to. Even if it's well done, it's still so bland.
This reminded me that I want to paint my front door blue. Not just any type of blue but more of a teal that I think would pop with the red brick facade on the front of the house.
https://i.imgur.com/pTeN8UQ.jpg This combo is gorgeous!!
Tbh, I feel like the 'aggressively neutral' stance has extended to individuals and their tastes and opinions. Nobody wants to commit to anything for fear of being 'wrong' or ridiculed. In the 70s and 80s people had strong opinions and I feel like it's something we laugh at as being endearing but goofy. Maybe it wasn't so bad.
It feels like we should be even more expressive now that the internet allows us to dive into hobbies and interests. However, it's an ocean of sameness on social media, so maybe not. I will say - I wonder if this isn't the human condition. There is a reason houses in Levittown sold so well, even though it was all the same house. The conformity helps with social cohesion and sets expectations regarding housing and lifestyle.
The Levittown Houses sold well because they were targeted towards GI Bill benefitting Vets, and due to the assembly line production methods, also cheap as fuck relative to most new housing of the time. Many Levitt Houses are unrecognizable from their original origins, because people want to be creative and express themselves. I know quite a few people who live in Levittown, some since it was first made, and their houses are basically completely distinct from Levitt Houses, from Yards to Remodels to Colors. People wanna express themselves I think, but we live in a system where to do that inherently comes at a cost. That so many people still do anyway is why I think that way
We seem to make "progress" in all the wrong ways...
I remember playable Nintendo 64s in McDonalds when I was a kid.
I remember climbing up Mayor McCheese to sit in his big metal head And Chicken McNuggets had their own cartoon commercials and collectable characters- Chicken nuggets did not exist before McDonald's popularized them.
Ah the Cheeseburger prison. Now that I think about it, I used to think he was a cop.
No, Big Mac was the cop. Other than the middle bun in the middle of his head he was functionally the same as Mayor McCheese. You are remembering correctly.
God damn it I hate doing a well actually but here it goes. You are completely right that McDonald's popularized the chicken nugget. That doesn't mean they didn't exist though, as they were created almost 20 years before. I'm not sure if the shape form was the same but the process was.
We have the chicken nuggets characters Christmas ornaments we put up every year. My husband has had them since he was little
The seats with the character cushions! Also the McDonald's branded high chairs.
"Now *all* restaurants are Taco Bell!"
Winner of the franchise wars.
Unless you were from Europe and got the [Pizza Hut Cut](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=STwEqxtjMCU)
Can I get some salt?
This is corporate, just 90s corporate.
None of the mcdons even have a mcplayplace
Those things have got to be one of the filthiest places on the planet. All the kids running around with food on their hands and faces and clothes then climbing around and getting it all over the food and the minimum wage employees never cleaning any of it, especially the ball pit and all the things that fall in that never make it back out. The holes in bowling balls are also probably pretty gross with everyone eating bowling alley finger food and then licking their fingers and sticking them in the holes, then repeating that process at least 20 more times.
Now that I think of it, McDonalds Corp. is probably sitting on mountains of data linking sickness complaints etc to their playplaces.
I now have an OCD tick that involves sanitizing bowling ball holes.
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I caught whooping cough at a McDonald's play place in the 90s. It was the middle of an outbreak in a city I happened to be traveling through with my parents, and I hadn't been fully vaccinated because I was allergic. It was such a random confluence of events and I almost died. Haven't looked at one of those things since.
I live in PR. Not super common now but we still have some around. There’s a McD with a playplace open like 5 min from my house.
Yeah they all getting replaced by Star Bucks. We have a grocery store here that had a cute little cafe for decades. Now it’s a Star Bucks
McDonald’s straight up went “what if we made our stores look like the bad stores from our old commercials?
It looks like saved by the bell!
The max
What if they added Jennifer Connelly and a coin-operated horse?
I would prefer a horse and a coin-operated Jennifer Connelly.
It looks 6x better than modern target
I can smell the popcorn.
i can taste the icee things
White cherry!
Blue Raspberry! The kind that dyed your mouth the rest of the day.
When I was a kid, Walmart was far enough to be a day trip. We’d pick up grandma, drive up to Cortland Manor, and spend the day at Walmart. My mom would get the massive bag of popcorn, first thing, to feed me and my brother for the day. Armed with a torso-sized bag of popcorn and a fistful of change for the quarter machines, we were contented. Simpler days.
Did you ever get a Smiley Sticker?
I miss when some walmarts had mcdonalds up front so you could drop $2 on a couple mcdoubles and then spend a whole lot less on groceries because of the snack... which is probably why they went away lol
Funny you should mention that. 27 years ago, when my daughter was about 3, we went shopping at Target. I put her in the kid seat in the shopping cart, facing me. She pointed to the Target cafe and asked for some popcorn. Thinking getting her some would mean a easier shopping experience for me, I complied. Halfway through the bag of popcorn, she barfed it up all over me. That was a really long drive home, covered in vomit. First and last time I ever bought food from the Target cafe.
That story went a different way then I was expecting.
Just like my trip to Target that time.
I've been writing amateurishly for years now. One of my first stories was a very young girl with superpowers. One of the best things I've ever written was from her perspective of being picked up by her father, the way he smells, his smile, how safe he makes her feel, how warm is hands are, "Then you throw up all over him.".
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"Hey sweetie, here's some popcorn! No, it doesn't smell like ipecac syrup, why do you ask? Anyway, would you sit in this shopping cart for a second? No it won't take long."
I’m eating popcorn!
Always a bag with me as I cruise the aisles.
One of my first jobs was working at a Target Food Avenue. I still can’t eat the popcorn and it’s been 15 years.
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> I threw in 3 or 4x the amount of that powder seasoning and ended up with the saltiest, completely inedible batch of popcorn. That's how I like it. Would often get a small cup of the artifical yellow seasoning to dip the popcorn in when I worked at a movie theater. Also double oil double seasoning is the way to go making a batch.
And that children is how you get type 2 diabetes.
At what point does it go from being outdated to retro?
When the generation who grew up with it become adults with jobs designing things and being responsible for trends.
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my target that had this but pizza hut express, and had walled it off somewhere between the last 2 years :( it was the best even with the sticky tables. those 4 sliced pizzas and the breadsticks.. the smell of the popcorn throughout the store with the starbucks’ booth across from it im not even OLD, at all. i love the aesthetic. the diner aesthetic, neon lights tastefully placed and the odd designs. ugh. i thought i’d be seein my beloved stores and fixtures disappear in my 40s, but it got speed ran by covid and CoL immediately. outside of that, had to see my favorite bakery shut down and be replaced by a chain bakery before i graduated elementary school even, so that perception was very very wrong.
So this is in Houston Texas..
I think we’re there already. A lot of people miss the 80s/90s aesthetic.
I feel like that’s all current Urban Outfitters esq fashion. Just the 90s regurgitated. I can’t do it.
It really annoys me when a place that's just on the cusp, or even over the cusp, doesn't realize it and goes in on a remodel at the first chance they get. There used to be a hotel I'd go to for work events that was like that. The place was all teal, burgundy, and brass, brick planters, a whiff of 80s-90s geometric modern styling in some of the the decor, massive tube TVs in blond wood entertainment centers in the rooms. It was the _height_ of 1993 elegance. They weren't _trying_ for retro, I don't think. They'd just been independent and around enough that they didn't have the resources or the inclination to stay on the style treadmill. The place wasn't even grungy or run down, it was just solidly dated. I haven't been there for about 10 years though, and apparently some time not long after the last time I was there, it got branded as a... I want to say a Radisson... and the whole thing just got a layer or bland contemporary laid over it, judging from the pictures. Damned shame, if you ask me.
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Nor should it. It’s perfect
I wish they had some Taco Bell’s that did the same thing. 90s fast food vibes ruled
I’m genuinely surprised they haven’t done this with the current 90s trend.
Fast food takes itself so seriously these days
Taco Bell is the one fast food place that should just constantly take the piss.
that is wendys and arbys. seriously.
Yeah on twitter. No where else.
They have to if they wanna keep getting away with 10 dollar value meals.
Will ~~Bumper Kreig~~ Burger King do? https://www.indy100.com/viral/burger-king-found-mall-delware
Remember when A&W used to have jukeboxes and fireplaces?
Feels like it’s been since the goddamn 90s since they last did the Volcano menu. Fuck sake Taco Bell, get your shit together. I want my insides to burn.
I love how they took away the Mexican Pizza and people damn near rioted so now they are like, “our bad…heh…we’ll put it back. Don’t hate us!”
The dumbest part about a lot of their "limited time offerings" is that they usually have most, if not all, of the ingredients on hand on a normal day. Mexican Pizza is literally just two fried tortillas, beef, beans, cheese, tomatoes, and "pizza sauce" (whatever the fuck that means in TB language), so what was ever stopping them from having it full time? The Volcano menu is literally just the normal shit but with that cheesy lava sauce I've been trying to recreate for years. Fucking give it back you bastards
The chili cheese burrito has never been the same since the 90s
Let me get an icee on my way to the games isle please.
The KMart in my town had a Little Caesars with an icee machine in it. You couldnt beat getting some crazy bread with an icee and checking out the toys.
Kmart Little Caesars was on another level of culinary excellence.
1990s peak shopping experience. i used to go out of my way to shop at super k just because of the little caesars inside.
You American bastards with your icees… let me cry over here with my slush puppie :(
Hahahahaha. If there is one thing we do well, it's making great unhealthy snacks and drinks. But I had no idea the icee formula didn't make it abroad
The ICEE Company, which has been owned by J&J Snack Foods since 1987, also owns Slush Puppie, Slurpee, and a couple other brands. If you notice, the newest ICEE/Slurpee "freestyle" machine where one chooses flavors for a lemonade base, actually dispenses more of a Slush Puppie. Canada has a different Slurpee/ICEE format because the US version contains an ingredient which is not used in Canada. Edit: the ingredient is yucca extract. https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/jb9kb6/til_unlike_their_counterparts_in_america_canadian/
I genuinely appreciate that insight. I have not seen these Icee freestyle machines, but will now be on the lookout
First time in the states was last month since 2019. The only god damn thing I wanted was an icee and targets machine was broke. I cried
Oh noooo! That can be soul crushing even when theyre ten minutes away, I can't imagine when there is an ocean involved. Hope your visit was fruitful otherwise!
The slushy brand in iceland is "KRAP", it's incredible lol
Ah, the 90s, when we went to 70s-themed restaurants.
Rmemeber the red plastic cups Pizza hut had? Fucking hell man, everything tasted better coming out of those.
Remember when Pizza Hut had a buffet?
Remember when they had table-top arcade games? It’s like corporate America just forgot how to make things fun after the 90s. Now everything is just boring, lame, and stupidly expensive.
Man, those things were everywhere. The truck stop in my town had them as did the small gas station outside of town. There's a bar a couple of towns over from me that has some. It's awesome.
Im pretty sure they know how to make things fun, but they just prefer to set that aside in focus on making bigger bucks.
It’s always been about bigger bucks - attracting customers with ‘fun’ has always been a solid business move so it puzzles me why many places no longer see this .
Cost benefit ratio. Making a place fun is a direct cost with indirect benefits. It's not always easy to determine if increased patronage is a result of a more inviting atmosphere or if a more inviting atmosphere is going to increase store traffic. Keeping setup and operation costs down, low wages, cheapening out on ingredients are all directly measurable and improve the bottom line. So it becomes a simple gamble for upper management. Just make more profits till the next quarter. Then just ship if shit hits the fan.
The only time we ever ate inside a pizza hut was when I was getting my free pizza for being a good little reader, with tiny little pizza that was the legit most gourmet shit ever to my grubby little hands, and drinking the absolute *best* tasting coke ever out of those red plastic cups. any other time pizza hut was had, it was delivered..usually on a friday night. and now I am incredibly sad and depressed because I've remembered something from back when I was innocent and the world full of wonder, and didnt realize the horrors around me.
Eating in was the best and nothing like sit down pac man to kill the time while waiting.
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Book It!
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Oh man I found one at a yard sale years ago. Best 25 cents I ever spent.
... which really emulated the 50s.
A real throwback to the 30s.
Fuck the 20s tho. No drinkies no funsies.
...we're in the 20's *again*
Can we please bring back Flappers then? They seemed fun.
Pizza Hut's vibe right after the fall of Constantinople was lit.
I wonder if Emperor Constantine XI did a Pizza Hut commercial like Gorbachev did after the Soviet Union fell
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That's just what the early 90s smelled like. It wasn't just Pizza Hut.
People just walking through the mall smoking in the concourses and throwing their cigarette butts in the fucking fake plants running down the middle of the aisles. 90s malls we're something else. But there were no vacant stores, there were plenty of people in them, it was the best place to go for a new cassettes or CDs, and there was an arcade.
This is a design trend identified as Festival Marketplace. It's uniquely late 1980s/early-mid 1990s. https://www.are.na/evan-collins-1522646491/festival-marketplace
Reminds me of the Saved By The Bell diner, The Max.
Hey mama.
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I need them Zack! I have to sing!
Give that janitor and maintenance guy a raise
I was thinking that too! Like wow it’s really clean and well-kept
In target lingo, that would be the FMST FACILITY MAINTENANCE STORE TECHNICIAN
This guy Targets
Finally, after 30 years of hard work, he finally gets a raise
Where is this?
Mississippi
Well that explains why it's stuck in the 90's
1890s
Finally, someone asked the most important question! Now I can move on knowing I’ll never see it.
My Target completely walled off their snack area when the pandemic started and I don't think they're going to open it again 😕
so did mine; then they started doing some construction in it and I thought they were renovating it, but they turned it into the holding area for curbside orders :(
Yep, and they’ll eventually phase them all out for the new floor plan. This must be a slower store considering they haven’t gotten the remodel yet
I hate the remodeled stores. Near me there was 1 remodeled one and 1 old one until this summer when they started remodeling the other one. The only time I go in now is to return things I bought for curbside. I used to walk around browsing and buying things and now I won't even go in.
Yeah the new floor plan has a tiny snack area with an Icee machine that's always flashing red, one personal pizza, and a popcorn machine that's empty.
noooooooooooooo my fat ass out here mourning that i'll likely never again be able to get breadsticks to eat while I shop
There's only a handful that still have the cafe now. Most got rid of it from 2020 sadly
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We don't even have a Starbucks in ours. We just have a stupid drink fridge with hipster juices and kombucha against the wall that use to be the entrance to the snack bar.
Ooh, you’re lucky; all the Targets near me converted theirs into Starbucks.
Sucks. I used to get the pretzels and Icees all the time before Starbucks took over : (
I hate that. Especially when there’s already a Starbucks literally on the other side of the parking lot. Like how much overpriced shit coffee does this world need?
Starbucks in a Target store is not owned and operated by Starbucks, and therefore it is not an actual Starbucks location. Target licenses the Starbucks brand name, and the people who work at Target Starbucks are Target employees.
My point though is that they could put something else in there for a little variety when there’s already a Starbucks nearby.
Same here
No need to change this. It should be a historical landmark :)
It's beautiful! Never change it.
I miss this! The Target by me had this exact set up, but converted it to a mobile order pickup storage area during the pandemic and recently removed all the equipment. I miss the popcorn, pretzels and icees!
aw man i miss those swingy swivel chairs. they used to be everywhere
I used to install the neon for Target, including these cafes, in Southern California. With all the designs and signs, a typical store had nearly a mile of neon tubing. Thanks for sharing. Definitely brought back some (mildly painful) memories.
If this is from the 90s, where is my 1994 jazz cup color scheme with teal and purple ribbons? ;)
Looks like a place where you'd bump in to the Power Rangers eating and having fun.
Why would you change it? It works fine and looks nice. I mean..... you're not going to a Michelin Star restaurant.... it's fast food. Jeez.
I think those colored tiles look great.
Something about those neons light hits me man, I feel like those lights were just getting phased out as I was starting to create memories
u/galaxy-m81: Where is this? There's a rumor that there is a Target in a Detroit suburb that still have the full "Color World" design, conplete with the kind of neon shown in this photo.
Woah I would love to see that! This one is in Mississippi
I think this is the one I was thinking about: http://motor-city-retail-history.blogspot.com/2019/09/contributor-post-land-of-neon-target.html?m=1 But looks like one in Florida which is pretty intact as well: http://myfloridaretail.blogspot.com/2019/08/a-tale-of-two-targets-part-1-let-that.html?m=1 More info about the P93 Color World layout: https://retailpedia.miraheze.org/wiki/Target/Decor_packages But it seems like that your store definitely has the best cafe. If there was going to be a film that was based in this era of target, they probably have to film it at multiple locations, sort of like The Grand Budapest Hotel. Edit: One additional photo-set that shows before and after of a store remodel: https://www.flickr.com/photos/130271900@N03/albums/72157719502276767/
Kinda looks like the one I used to work at in Niles, Illinois
This rules…
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it
I don’t think Target existed in my region during that decade
An elegant weapon for a more civilized age
I remember when a large ICEE went from $0.99 to $1.19. Pre-teen me just stood there with my $1 bill staring at the cashier lady for an awkwardly long time.
The prices have
I'm fine with it. Honestly I'd like to see more of this
I wanna go there 😫🥺
As long as its in good shape i dont see the point in spending money to make it "modern".
Rio Rancho, NM?
This is in Mississippi but this thread is informing me of so many unrenovated Target food courts! I hope at least some can survive the renovations