The photo above is:

A) A coffee shop in San Francisco during the first dot com boom

B) A scene from a movie based in Seattle that focuses on bloggers

C) A snazzy shot of a hell where you are forced to work all day in a room with bright orange walls

D) McDonalds

If you chose unlikely answer C, then you are correct. The artery clogging Morgan Spurlock fattening chain has debuted it’s first high concept “sleek, European-style makeover,” in Chelsea. Customer Kimberly Burgess, who does not leave her apartment much and it should be noted, may not be able to be trusted when it comes to taste because she is eating at a fucking McDonalds tells the AP, “It’s like a lounge. It’s beautiful.”

I have to disagree.

Outfitted with wireless outlets, French architect Philippe Avanzi’s magnified thumbprint as wall decor, fiberglass seating, and employees dressed in all black, this McDonald’s is no longer McDonalds. While eating a greasy, cholesterol raising burger has never felt so trendy, this just seems wrong. The chains red and yellow cartoonish setting, giant purple cookie eater, friendly underpaid employees with acne and visors and the rest of its visual; setting are so well known, so ingrained in the American psyche, that they have become symbols of America itself.

To erase all of the brands iconography to replace it with a European design, can’t help but seem to indicate a larger, broader message about the state of the country.  I wish I was being sarcastic as per usual with this whole thing, but for once, I’m not.*  And it’s just the beginning. Around 30,000 Mickey D’s will get the same look. Burger King, not to be left behind, is also planning a redesign.

*To not leave you totally hanging, I would like to say that I am looking forward to the countless dates I will no doubt be taken to at this new hot spot that provides all the elegance of the city’s chicest establishments without the cost. Yeah. No.