Gut punch: Amazing vintage McDonald's (as old as I am!) scrapped for renovation

This store opened the same weekend as I was born, and was teeming with nostalgic goodies. Join me for a look.

You knew you were in for some old-fashioned McDonald’s fun the moment you walked in! (Photos: Rolando Pujol)

On Saturday, Jan. 20, 1973, the grand opening of the McDonald’s at the Dalewood Shopping Plaza in Hartsdale, New York, was heralded in a full-page ad in the local newspaper.

They’d stopped building walls and were now busy building hamburgers, the ad proudly proclaimed. The whole family was encouraged to come on down. If you clipped the coupon in the festive ad — featuring balloons and a mansard McDonald’s building, though this location was actually built into a strip mall — you could snag a free hot coffee with your next purchase of an Egg McMuffin.

The very next day, Jan. 21, 1973, I was born a few towns over, and sometime in the next year, it was here, at the McDonald’s at 407 N. Central Ave., that I had my first taste of McDonald’s, according to my parents. This was my family’s go-to Golden Arches until the mansard (now McBox) opened in Tarrytown, New York, a few years later.

So I’ve always held a soft spot for the Hartsdale store, which remained a nostalgic oasis, one of the nicest unrenovated locations.

This just screams 1970s McDonald’s and I’m lovin’ it!

I most recently checked in on the place on Jan. 21, 2023, fully realizing, of course, that it was my 50th birthday but entirely unaware the McDonald’s was my birthday twin. I had a celebratory meal at a Chinese restaurant nearby — we should have celebrated right at this McDonald’s!

So the inevitable news that the place has been gutted ahead of a renovation — broken on Friday by Retailpocalypse on Instagram — was a bit of a, well, gut punch.

The restaurant had evolved since 1973, with two big updates: In March 1981, they opened a McDonaldland play area, traces of which still survived as a PlayPlace, which had been closed, presumably during the pandemic, and never reopened.

According to an ad in the local Gannett paper, kids could enjoy playing on the Mayor McCheese Whirl, the Big Mac Climber (aka Jail), the Apple Pie Tree and the Professor Slide.

Now, I’m not sure whether all of these features were stuffed into the building, or whether there was an outdoor component somewhere on the property. Quite likely, this was a generic ad that did not precisely reflect what was available at Dalewood. If anybody has memories of the original McDonaldland here, please let me know.

Traces of fun times past!

The ad heralded McDonaldland Park as “an even more exciting place for good food and fun for our customers … your family.”

Such fun captured on this table! (And admire the floor!)

At some point, perhaps the 1990s, the restaurant was renovated to create the feeling of a 1950s diner, with neon lighting, Americana and a Ronald McDonald statue greeting you at the front door. (The one below is a second statue closer to the counter.)

There the Dalewood McDonald’s remained, frozen in time, until the restaurant’s 50th year.

And so it goes.