Burger King's Restaurant Of Tomorrow

Alpha8472
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Re: Burger King's Restaurant Of Tomorrow

Post by Alpha8472 »

The Burger King near me in Concord, California had a totally 80s style indoor playground until a couple of years ago when it remodeled. They got rid of the playground.

Another totally 80s glass Solarium Burger King had an outdoor playground until the restaurant closed a few months ago. That Burger King was the nicest solarium style restaurant that I had ever seen. It had beautiful views of the Virginia Hills neighborhood in Martinez, California. It was like dining high in the forested hills. You felt like you were outdoors with all the glass and sunlight. The other Burger King in the city still has the outdoor playground.

There are 2 80s style Burger Kings in Concord, California with indoor playgrounds, but the playgrounds have been closed for months. Apparently, the employees said that kids would vomit in the playgrounds on a daily basis.

Two remodeled McDonald's nearby have indoor playgrounds with computer screen games and a newish Chick Fil A has an indoor playground.
Last edited by Alpha8472 on September 13th, 2020, 1:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Burger King's Restaurant Of Tomorrow

Post by storewanderer »

Alpha8472 wrote: September 12th, 2020, 6:29 pm The Burger King near me in Concord, California had a totally 80s style indoor playground until a couple of years ago when it remodeled. They got rid of the playground.

Another totally 80s glass Solarium Burger King had an outdoor playground until the restaurant closed a few months ago. That Burger King was the nicest solarium style restaurant that I had ever seen. It had beautiful views of the Virginia Hills neighborhood in Martinez, California. It was like dining high in the forested hills. You felt like you were outdoors with all the glass and sunlight. The other Burger King in the city still has the outdoor playground.

There are 2 80s style Burger Kings in Concord, California with indoor playgrounds, but the playground have been closed for months. Apparently, the employees said that kids would vomit in the playgrounds on a daily basis.

Two remodeled McDonald's nearby have indoor playgrounds with computer screen games and a newish Chick Fil A has an indoor playground.
I think the Reno Chickfila which is only a few years old has an indoor playground. I forgot about that. Not sure if the Sparks one which is slightly newer has one. I don't think the ones down around Sacramento have a playground (most of those are a few years older).
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Re: Burger King's Restaurant Of Tomorrow

Post by Super S »

I think it's safe to say that the "restaurant of tomorrow" is unlikely to include a playground of any sort, especially with Covid guidelines in place.

We might, however, see dining areas become reconfigured to allow for social distancing, in some cases possibly by expanding the building. There are many fast food chains in my area which do not have an open lobby right now. We might also see a walk-up window installed in some locations. I have seen a few instances recently of people walking through a drive-thru to order, which is dangerous. However, those locations (usually near freeways) had the lobby doors locked. The locations near the freeways need to accommodate walk-up customers better as there are many people with trailers, not to mention truck drivers, and those driving moving trucks etc. that often stop along the way for something quick to eat and, for obvious reasons, can't use the drive-thru.
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Re: Burger King's Restaurant Of Tomorrow

Post by Brian Lutz »

I know of at least one recent Chick-Fil-A location near here (Lynnwood) with an indoor playground, although I also know of others that don't have one (although that may be more a matter of space constraints than anything.) The one in Marysville (which opened during the Covid lockdown and which has not yet opened its dining room) appears to have one as well.

As for Burger Kings, taking a look at locations in the area shows that a lot of them do have playgrounds. The same holds true for McDonald's locations. In fact, a McDonald's in Snohomish that was torn down and rebuilt recently (with construction happening during Covid lockdown) added an indoor playplace where there wasn't one before. The old location had space for an outdoor playground that appears to have been removed at some point.
Alpha8472
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Re: Burger King's Restaurant Of Tomorrow

Post by Alpha8472 »

I know of several remodeled McDonald's in recent years and probably 50 percent have indoor playgrounds. The newly built McDonald's all have 3 drive thru windows and 2 drive thru speakers. The first window is to pay. The second and third are for pick up. The ones without indoor playgrounds have light up tables with touch sensing lights. It is like a light game for the kids.
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Re: Burger King's Restaurant Of Tomorrow

Post by mbz321 »

Sort of off-topic here, but does anyone have a BK with strange hours? One (probably a very low volume location) near me closes at 5PM on Mondays, and 8 PM during the week, even on the weekends! I don't know why they haven't just pulled the plug already.
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Re: Burger King's Restaurant Of Tomorrow

Post by storewanderer »

mbz321 wrote: September 15th, 2020, 8:54 am Sort of off-topic here, but does anyone have a BK with strange hours? One (probably a very low volume location) near me closes at 5PM on Mondays, and 8 PM during the week, even on the weekends! I don't know why they haven't just pulled the plug already.
Yes, there was a BK in Reno in a Wal Mart that closed at 8 PM. It closed early on in COVID and around June it appeared to reopen for about one week and then it closed again and they cleared everything out of the space a few weeks later. This is run by a Burger King franchisee who has the whole Reno territory (and some scattered locations in CA as far as the bay area as well) so this isn't a small franchisee running like this.

Also another BK of this franchisee is on Greg St. in Sparks, NV in the back of a very large gas station complex with a dining room 2 times the size of a typical BK but looks nothing like a BK (it opened as a Taco Maker/Jakes, then unbranded burger/mexican concept for a while, then became a BK). This BK operates until 8 PM 6 days a week, then on Sunday is closed entirely. This is an industrial neighborhood and the location does pretty decent business at lunch, not sure about breakfast. There is also a Subway in this gas station complex which has much longer hours. The gas station was previously run by Baldini's Casino with Tesoro fuel routinely the lowest price in the area at its 40+ pumps and used to be a lot busier before the current operator (Golden Gate) took it over and ran it into the ground, removed half of the pumps, instituted cash price/credit price, eliminated the fresh donut making operation, and more. Oh and a much nicer Maverik opened down the block.

Another BK on the 8 PM schedule is in Emigrant Gap, CA inside a gas station. This BK routinely runs with only one employee on duty and closes for breaks.

So I think we can assume here that BK allows locations to have minimum hours until just 8 PM for lower volume locations and maybe no hours requirement at all for Sunday for such locations. I wonder how many BKs like this exist to help prop up BK's unit count.
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Re: Burger King's Restaurant Of Tomorrow

Post by Alpha8472 »

A Burger King near me was an old 80s style Burger King. However, it was beautiful with 80s architecture and pastel colors. There was a nice outdoor patio area with many tables and a very large dining room. It was unchanged for 20 years from when it opened until this year. The owner decided to remodel and it was a turn for the worst.

The new decor is ugly and drab. There is fake wood and fake stone on the exterior of the restaurant. It now looks like any other Burger King. The interior 80s decor of pastel paintings was destroyed in favor of Burger King's new cookie cutter decor which features a bland fake wood and tile interior.

Going to this Burger King was always a treasure because it felt like you were transported back in time to the 80s with all of the retro 80s decor and pop culture memorabilia.

Why can't Burger King ever come up with good ideas? I admit that the 80s Burger King was not doing that well. It was always empty and looked like it was abandoned at night. I wondered how it ever stayed in business. The restaurant hours were always 6 AM to Midnight. There was obviously only one employee on duty at night who was cashier, cook, and manager. The wait times were quite long, but the food was made fresh when you ordered it and there was no line.

After the remodel, business at the drive thru increased. However, I miss the old Burger King even though it was old. Burger King does much less business than competitors. There is a Wendy's and a Chick-fil-A across the street and the drive thru lines stretch out onto the road. Burger King is lucky if there are 3 cars waiting at busy times. The Burger King did not change the drive thru when the restaurant was remodeled. There is still a single drive thru lane and 2 drive thru windows. The first window is a payment window, but it is not used.
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Re: Burger King's Restaurant Of Tomorrow

Post by SamSpade »

Apparently most Burger Kings can look forward to a dual drive through with large "TV style" menu screens... hmm, sounds familiar. Where have I seen that before? :lol: :lol: :lol:
https://www.eastidahonews.com/2020/10/t ... look-like/

No rendering of what a "modernized" Popeyes drive through will look like.
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Re: Burger King's Restaurant Of Tomorrow

Post by retailfanmitchell019 »

SamSpade wrote: October 28th, 2020, 11:35 am Apparently most Burger Kings can look forward to a dual drive through with large "TV style" menu screens... hmm, sounds familiar. Where have I seen that before? :lol: :lol: :lol:
https://www.eastidahonews.com/2020/10/t ... look-like/
Yeah, McDonald's started this trend a few years back. Another example of how BK lags behind McD's when it comes to innovation. BK is basically like Chevy trying to compete with Ford.
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