Seems like the leading food outlet- McDonald’s too couldn’t escape the clutches of ‘ill-fate’. What came as a huge setback to most food-lovers in and around Connaught Place was the news of 43 out of 55 McDonald’s restaurant shutting down due to expiration of its health licenses and a grim tussle between the global food giant and north Indian food franchisee.
The legal tension might be strong enough to take up a decision so grave, but what couldn’t be kept away is the gloominess that dawns the mind of those who grew up binging and craving burgers and crispy French fries dipped in delicious ketchup. The famous ‘happy-meal’ has not only satiated tiny tummies but has given us some of the best childhood memories. But now with most of the leading outlets shutting down, food-enthusiasts and Burger lovers in the respected place are somehow preparing to bid farewell to their favorite hangout zone as well.
The battle is reported to have begun upon the expiration of the ‘eating house licenses’ of several McDonald’s restaurants. Following to this the Connaught Plaza Restaurants Private Limited, which is the respected McDonald’s licensee in the East and North regions of India, is believed to have been fetching the needed licenses from the global food outlet, until which the CRRL have decided to temporarily suspend the operation of the outlets. The story doesn’t end there, the decision of shutting down the restaurants would only add up to the woes as a whooping 1700 people involved as employee of the restaurant chain would suffer a job loss as expected.
It isn’t unlikely if you sit back recalling meeting up with your long-lost school friend over a warm heart to heart at one of those ‘to-be-closed McDonald’s restaurants’, or treating your bunch of office colleagues to a giant double-decker Burger, on your first hike. Who knows you might not find that favorite table anymore, or soon lose that part of childhood and innocence in this raging legal battle between the owners and revenue crisis. It is few of these old known eateries that lock most of our ripping memories: be it the first ever date with our high-school crush, or plotting the much needed escapade into the beaches of Goa while sipping on our mush-adored chilled Pepsi or simply gobbling on fries and wrappers to get past our first heartbreak.
Not that McD alone qualifies being the most preferred food-zone for the food aficionados, but it’s that cheery ambience, loads of chattering, the laughter, the girly gang gossips at every corners, the bickering between teenage couples, the happiness on finding the toy you always dreamt for, the cost-friendly Chicken burgers, the vibrant balloons, the Joker which waited to get clicked and pampered outside, and so much more which adds up to its charm.
With nothing really in our hands, and nothing more to do than to hope for all things good, we just pray hard and wish things to get back to normalcy, for not in the worst of our dreams we wish to lose our childhood to distressing decision and orders. Most of what held our innocence starting from kid’s channels, to comics and parks have already gone through the tremor and disappeared only to get replaced with a bunch of half-witted dailies, tall lanky corporate office buildings and posh pubs. We desperately pray, and wish the same bad-break never reaches and runs down whatever little we possess as our ‘old-favorite”.
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