LONDON - In a case of taking
fast food to the extreme, McDonald's has embraced the pop-up
restaurant trend for the 2012 Olympics by building a fast food
restaurant of world record breaking size in Stratford, east London,
that will last for six weeks.
About 300 metres from the Olympic
Stadium, it will displace Pushkin Square in Moscow as the world's
busiest and is expected to serve an estimated 50,000 Big Mac
burgers and 180,000 portions of fries - feeding 1,200 customers an
hour at its busiest - from the beginning of the Olympics to the
closing of the Paralympics.
Once the Games are concluded,
the two-storey chalet-style building in the Olympic Park will be
dismantled and 75 per cent of it re-used or recycled.
From tables and highchairs through kitchen equipment and electric
light bulbs, to timber and air-conditioning units, about 5,500
components have been earmarked for reuse in 1,200 existing and new
McDonald's restaurants in the United Kingdom.
Even the toilets in the 3,000 square metre restaurant are papered
with tile-effect vinyl wallpaper to avoid the wastage of about 30
tonnes of broken tiles after the restaurant closes.
The building went up in six weeks and will take four weeks to
dismantle.
McDonald's UK Chief Executive Officer Jill McDonald said the move
was "a world first" for the chain, meeting targets specified by the
London Organising Committee.