The first McDonald's in China

I would say I am writing this blog on a historical site – yes, it’s the first McDonald's opened in mainland China in 1990. I wouldn’t be surprised since then the Chinese have to face new health problems like cardiovascular diseases and overweight. Let me describe for you a little bit about this McDonald's in downtown Shenzhen.

It’s basically a three-story RESTAURANT. The first floor is the desert window. The main ordering and dining place is on the second floor with a dedicated coffee area (McCafe) and a kid’s birthday party corner. The third floor houses another 380 seats (a huge terminal-like place in the center) with an open-air lounge as the smoking area. Of course you can sit there if you just want to get a bird-eye view of the busy crowd on the street. Besides conventional fast food, the menu also offers some Chinese desert. Not bad.

You may ask me why McDonald's chose the city you’ve never heard of as their first base in China. Well, the only reason I could’ve thought of is Shenzhen being the closest inland city to Hong Kong which was still under the British government back in 1990.