McDonald’s relocates to Windy City
Fast-food giant opens new HQ in Chicago.
CHICAGO – Global fast-food giant McDonald’s on Monday officially opened its gleaming new headquarters in the Windy City, a step company officials touted as needed to attract top talent and stay relevant to changing tastes.
After spending more than 40 years in the Chicago suburb of Oak Brook, the company has officially returned to the nation’s third-largest city. McDonald’s was previously headquartered in Chicago from 1955, soon after the company was founded by Ray Kroc, until 1971 before turning to a sprawling suburban campus.
At a time when the company is seeking to build loyalty among Millennials, CEO Steve Easterbrook predicted that the move will help the chain become “more attractive” in its pursuit of top talent.
“We firmly believe that part of the importance of the move downtown is that it gets us closer to our customers, it gets us closer to competition, it gets us closer to the trends in ... society,” CEO Steve Easterbrook said at a ceremony to mark the move.
The new headquarters in the city’s West Loop was built on the former grounds of Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Studios. The nine-floor, 490,000-square-foot offices are nestled in an area that’s known for its nightlife and is arguably at the center of the city’s well-regarded restaurant scene — renowned chefs Grant Achatz, Graham Elliot and Stephanie Izard all have restaurants within blocks of McDonald’s new HQ.
The building that houses more than 2,000 employees sits in what was once Chicago’s meatpacking district, but most of the old packing and industrial buildings have been converted into airy residential lofts or retrofitted to meet the needs of the city’s growing tech and start-up industry. In 2016, Google moved its Chicago employees into space in a former 10-story coldstorage building.
The design of the new McDonald’s global headquarters does away with cubicles and instead features cafe-style work spaces and open space floors with communal tables, huddle rooms and personal lockers. A high-ceiling work cafe on the sixth floor in- cludes stadium seating to accommodate large meetings and pays homage to McDonald’s restaurants’ PlayPlace area for children.
The company also has placed its “IT Tech Bar” on the sixth floor, a space that resembles the aesthetic of an Apple store “genius bar.”
The design also includes plenty of reflection on McDonald’s past. There’s a giant portrait of Kroc, a museum-like display case of Happy Meal toys the restaurant chain has given away through the years, and a wall of fame that pays tribute to Golden Arches celebrities. (Lou Groen, the owner/operator who created the Filet-O-Fish, and Henry Garcia, the chain’s first Hispanic owner/operator, are among those honored.)
The company decided to build its seventh Hamburger University, a training grounds for managers to sharpen their business and leadership skills, at the headquarters.
The new headquarters also features a restaurant on its ground floor that is open to the public.
The menu at the headquarters restaurant will include a rotating selection of menu items from McDonald’s outlets around the globe. The inaugural global menu includes the McSpicy chicken sandwich from Hong Kong, cheese-and-bacon-loaded fries from Australia and a Mozza salad from France.
McDonald’s is now looking for a buyer for its old headquarters campus in Oak Brook.