Where’s Ronald McDonald?

A few days ago, McDonald’s released the news that they will soon be undertaking a billion-dollar makeover process that will be the biggest store-by-store makeover in the fast food restaurant chain’s history.

According to the Forbes website, McDonald’s competes with Starbucks to be the leader in specialty coffee sales thanks to their “McCafe” products, so the corporate suits in the company have decided to take their “McCafe” idea and expand it to the décor, adding wooden tables, faux leather chairs and replacing the bright red, Ronald McDonald-ish colors with muted, earth tone colors.

They’re doing this in an attempt to attract a trendier clientele and to “change with the times.” Most McDonald’s restaurants already offer free wireless Internet, so they’re hoping to appeal to the business crowd who might be more tempted to stop in and check their e-mail and sip on their hazelnut iced coffee if they didn’t have a bright red clown staring at them while they did.

Personally, I like the idea of muted colors, wooden tables and a coffee shop atmosphere and David liked the idea, too. The Russellville McDonald’s updated its appearance a few years back and when I imagine the changes they’re talking about making, I imagine it will look something like our McDonald’s already looks.

Before those changes were made, I hardly ever went inside to eat, but now, if David and I decide to eat McDonald’s, we’ll eat inside as often as we grab our food to go because the atmosphere is better.

But we also don’t have children.

This makeover idea is great for those of us who like that type of a place, but what about the parents who depend on Ronald McDonald and a Happy Meal toy to get their screaming child to be quiet for just a minute? Or the working man who stops in for a double cheeseburger before rushing back to the job? Parents and people in the working class are the bread and butter when it comes to the customers who frequent McDonald’s on a daily basis. Changing the whole image of a store that has been around for 56 years is a big move when people have grown accustomed to a casual, laid-back, kid-friendly place that will now be full of hip and cool coffee drinkers surfing the net and updating their Facebook pages.

According to the news release, the corporates at McDonald’s hope to have all the changes in place by 2015, and I’m going to be interested to see if business improves or suffers because of it.

I have a feeling many people will start to like the changes, even if they didn’t like them at first, but I think it will take a while to get used to.

That is, unless five-year-olds start sipping on lattes while checking their stock portfolios sometime in the near future.