McDonald’s replacement restaurants are unveiled in Russia

CNN
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The golden arches and Big Mac may have gone, but Russians saw McDonald’s restaurants reopen on Sunday under new branding and ownership.

The American fast-food giant has been renamed “Vkusno & Tochka,” which translates to “Tasty and that’s it.”

Vkusno & Tochka is owned by Alexander Nikolaevich Govor, with Oleg Paroev serving as director general.

The first 15 restaurants of the chain were scheduled to open in Moscow and the surrounding region on Sunday, a spokeswoman for the new manager Sistema PBO told CNN.

She said that “in the near future, openings of other points throughout Russia will follow.”

The rebranding coincided with Russia Day, a holiday marking the country’s independence. It took place at the same location in Moscow’s Pushkinskaya Square, where McDonald’s opened its first Russian restaurant on January 31, 1990.

On the first day, 30,000 people were served – a McDonald’s record for an opening day, the CBC reported at the time. The location even had to stay open for hours later than planned because of the crowds.

About 630 employees were chosen out of 27,000 applicants, according to a 1990 Washington Post article.

“Approximately 32 years ago…there were a lot of people on Pushkinskaya Square, when the first McDonald’s franchise opened here in Russia. It caused quite the craze. I think the craze will be just as big with this new chain of restaurants, with a new owner, a real entrepreneur,” Alexei Alexeevich, the Head of the Department of Commerce of Moscow, said during a press conference on Sunday.

McDonald’s subsequently expanded its reach within the country and as of early March, there were about 850 locations operating in Russia.

However, the chain decided to leave the country and sell its Russia business, in line with many other Western businesses following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which began in February.

“If the opening of McDonald’s in 1990 symbolized the beginning of a new era in Soviet life, one with greater freedoms, then the company’s current exit represents not just a closing down of business, but of society as a whole,” Darra Goldstein, Willcox B. and Harriet M. Adsit professor of Russian, emerita, at Williams College, noted at the time.

The company’s new logo shared with CNN has “the main symbols of the restaurant” depicted on it — what is supposed to be two sticks of yellow fries and an orange burger. The green background, the press office told CNN, symbolizes “the quality of products and service that guests are accustomed to.”