McDonald's closes its doors in Liverpool city centre
A Liverpool city centre McDonald's restaurant has closed its doors as it makes "some exciting changes". The Lord Street McDonald's is currently closed for a refurbishment, with signs directing customers to other McDonald's venues around the city centre.
A sign on fencing surrounding the site says: "Preparing... We're busy making some exciting changes. We reopen on March 20". The restaurant is also not currently available to order from on the McDonald's app and website, which says: "Closed for renovation from 01/20/2025 to 03/19/2025."
A McDonald's spokesperson told the ECHO: "Our Lord Street restaurant will be closing to undergo refurbishment work, to improve the experience of both customers and the restaurant team. We look forward to welcoming our customers back to the new restaurant in March."
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Lord Street was Liverpool's first McDonald's, first opening its doors in November 1985. Shortly after it first opened, the restaurant was the victim of a big burger hoax that saw hundreds of fake leaflets offering free food and drinks distributed around the city. The prank, which took place November 11, 1985, resulted in customers being turned away from claiming their free meals at the restaurant.
The fake pink leaflets offered a "£2.40 freebie" and led to a queue forming outside the site before 9am. A report in the ECHO on February 27, 1986 saw friends Francis Fishwick, 18, and Stephen Downey, 17, from West Derby, visit the Lord Street McDonald's along with other fast food chains in the city.
On the inside, they described the Lord Street branch as looking "like a space station", with "a thirties chrome and marbled Hollywood feel to it and a chandelier hanging over the staircase."
Stephen said: "But we were brought down to earth with a bump when we turned away from the sumptuous surroundings only to see a great dollop of chocolate milkshake arc from the dispenser six feet away straight into my purse. They gave us a milkshake, this time in a glass, free, by way of apology.
"We paid £1.30 for the Big Mac, double-decker burger on a bun with cheese, lettuce, onion, mayonnaise and pickle." Francis said: "Reasonable value. It's nice. Chips there are 35p small portion, 55p large."