McDonald’s Turns Historic Homes and Planes Into Gourmet Lairs of Regret
KEY POINTS
- •A McDonald’s in Taupo, New Zealand, operates inside a decommissioned plane where customers eat with cockpit views.
- •The Hangzhou, China location, opened in 2015 inside a historic villa once inhabited by a Taiwanese politician, sparking controversy over Western influence.
- •Downey, California hosts the oldest surviving McDonald’s with walk-up windows and the original 'Speedee' mascot promoting 15-cent burgers.
Move over boring burger joints, McDonald's is serving fast food flair from the skies and history books. In Taupo, New Zealand, you can chow down inside a decommissioned plane complete with airplane seats and a cockpit view—a premium spot for any pilot craving fries. Meanwhile, in Hangzhou, China, McDonald's caused a cultural kerfuffle by converting a former 1940s Taiwanese politician's villa into a burger haven dubbed 'the most controversial McDonald’s outlet.' Down in Downey, California, the world's oldest surviving McDonald's still rocks a walk-up window and Speedee—the hamburger-headed mascot paying homage to 15-cent burgers. And don’t miss McDonald's on Shenzhen’s Dongmen Street sporting traditional pagoda roofs, packing in 40,000 customers on opening day—with just 460 seats. Fast food meets architectural identity crisis? You bet.
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McDonald’s knows no bounds: from planes to political villas, their real estate game is peak ’What Could Go Wrong?’. Forget Golden Arches, it’s cultural terraforming with fries on the side.
If you ever wanted to experience colonial invasion, 1940s Chinese politics, and airplane snacks simultaneously, McDonald’s got you covered.
Packing 40,000 fast-food fans into a 460-seat McDonald’s feels like a Black Friday sale redesigned by a sadistic architect.
Source: Businessinsider | Published: 12/12/2025 | Author: Erin McDowell
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