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McDonald's new flagship restaurant set to be unveiled April 15 in conjunction with the restaurant chain's 50th anniversary celebration - is designed to make an architectural statement that will outlast short-lived fads.
The new 50th Anniversary restaurant, comprising 1-1/2 acres and an entire city block, replaces the former "Rock 'N Roll McDonald's," which became a tourist attraction as well as a neighborhood restaurant after opening in 1983. Roughly twice as large and two stories high, the new futuristically designed flagship incorporates elements of the past 50 years but is more contemporary than nostalgic.
A few of the rockand-roll artifacts from the original restaurant, most of which are in storage, are to be displayed in the new pavilion. Patrons of the Rock 'N Roll restaurant fondly recall the nostalgic items including 1950s-model Corvettes, a wall-mounted jukebox that played hits from the '50s and several artifacts from the 1960s, highlighted by a life-sized, three-dimensional replica of the Beatles in their Abbey Road album cover pose, which has found a spot in the new restaurant pavilion.
"It has a reminiscent feeling of the original store, but it has much more of a contemporary feel, while bringing us back to our roots and our history," explains John Miologos, McDonald's corporate vice president, world architecture. The highly visible location, near the Hard Rock Café and Rainforest Café, is bounded by Ontario, Clark, Ohio and LaSaIIe streets and is close to the Kennedy...