McDonald's — Restaurant in Winnipeg

Spacious location with not one, not two, but three TVs, and a fireplace to keep you warm in the winter. Lots of seats to go around too. One of those TVs will be on TSN while one or two will be on Sportsnet. Fun fact, you might not know it judging from the outside, but this is where all their nationwide snail mail goes. Pretty cool, huh? You'll notice that this McDonald's in particular tends to attract a lot of seniors, so during most hours of the day it's reasonably quiet. You might also notice that Grant Park High is literally across the street. And let me tell you, whenever school is in session, lots of them will push that crosswalk button and come across in flocks, particularly as the clock nears 12:30 PM, even in the worst of weather when you might think they'll just stay across the street. I don't know how it is this McDonald's manages to keep up, but they sure seem to get it done. If you're not too fond of a whole bunch of loud teenagers around that time then you'll want to take that into consideration. They don't seem to kick up too much trouble as the only sign by the drink machine is the usually unannounced norm of not being able to bring your cup back at a later visit and attempt to sneakily freeload or paying a refill rate - no caps here. As far as the food goes, it's exactly like any other McDonald's and about par versus most other locations.

End of August 2023 edit: this location was closed for most of the summer as it was being remodeled. You'll be in for quite the shock as the interior has been totally transformed quite literally from front to back. Though if you're looking to dine in, that shock and awe will fade quickly and you'll quickly be wondering "what's this about?" I was getting ready to put in my usual order and grab a dollar drink to go along with it when I was looking around and I couldn't help but notice that suddenly there is no drink fountain to be seen anywhere. Not even with a "no refills" sign like some other franchisees. It's just...yeah, exactly. Gone. So I bailed out on getting a drink. Then that got me thinking about the other ways that this new remodel has become awfully sterile. Booth seating was previously nice, comfortable, & cushioned, but now it's been replaced with hard plastic. TVs? Also all but gone, the only one you'll see now is right above the bathroom doors showing the security camera feed. The disappearance of TVs isn't unique to this location in fairness, for they've also suddenly disappeared from a few of the east side locations that also had one before (namely, Regent and Devonshire). There's also a new circular table with dividers that honestly just looks and probably feels weird and out of place.

Though it's not all bad news, as one of the larger tables now has a set of plugs plus a couple of USB-A ports (5V 3.1A, so about 15.5W). A couple additional ordering kiosks have also been added which ought to help with the lunch rushes. And for the workers it appears their area is a bit more spacious and breathable now.

People like to rag on McDonald's as a whole for taking the personality & soul away that their franchisees had in the 1990s or earlier with their standardization that resulted in nearly every location looking more or less the same inside and out from the early 2010s onwards, with the odd exceptions here and there (like 680 Nairn). I didn't and still don't mind the look of that 2010s layout despite those criticisms which had a little bit of merit, but this new one is a bit of an insult for those who want to stay a while to the point where that sort of criticism would have a LOT of merit here. If there's one word that comes to mind, it's that this layout is awfully hostile to dine-in customers.

I can't in good conscience dock two stars off my overall rating as much as it's tempting to given that the same roster of staff are still doing great, but thankfully now that there's sub-ratings I can heavily dock the atmosphere section accordingly. I just hope that this isn't what every McDonald's will soon look like, because that would be one sad...

Every time we go to this McDonald's our fries are cold, hard and stale! Every single time and not just once in awhile! We constantly ask while ordering "can the fries please be fresh and warm not under a heat lamp". Still, Every time we drive away from this McDonald's with our fries and our meals we open the bags to find the fries old and stale despite promises that they were indeed fresh. This costs us about $8 to 10 dollars every time this happens and it has happened many times over the last few months. A complete waste of money! In fact, I think McDonald's owe us at least $50 bucks worth of free fries. This is simply ridiculous for a McDonald's anywhere as the time waste to drive back and return them is inconvenient, expensive and just a time waste. Once or twice is bad enough but every time over weeks is not acceptable! If you cannot give customers fresh french fries as opposed to old, stale heat-lamped ones that have been on a shelf for 20 minutes or half an hour then don't offer them for sale. In fact stop selling french fries McDonald's at Grand park! At this point, I simply feel this place owes us about $50 bucks in refunds which I'd like back! So buyer beware! Do not go near this McDonald's until it fixes this problem as it's simply just stealing your money. Very sad to have to say this as we are long-term customers at the Grand Park McDonald's. In fact we have been eating there for 30 years and this only just recently happened over the last 6 months. Very very...

Bunch of liars.

I called ahead to ask if they had Pokémon cards in their happy meals, they told me they did. Less than 2 hours later, I arrive at the store and at the counter, ask them again if they still have them, and I am told yes. I order and upon receiving it, I wanted to triple check and I asked if they put the Pokémon cards in the meal instead of the SpongeBob ones that were on display. They then proceeded to tell me they didn't have Pokémon cards. I told them that I had been told less than 5 minutes ago that they did, and they asked the manager, who said they didn't have any. I was only given an apology after catching them in their lie. They knew they didn't have any and yet tried to pass off the happy meals with books and hoped I didn't notice. They were only sorry that they got caught, not that they ran out. I would have understood if they had run out and let me know, or even if they had made a mistake and then owned up to me and apologized before I caught them, but they didn't. No excuses for some of the worst customer service ever.

P.S. The lady who answered the phone immediately hung up on me after quickly answering my initial question, didn't even bother to see if I had anything else to ask. It's clear that more than a few employees simply...