McDonald’s plan for 24-hour Marrickville drive-thru restaurant: Sydney locals angry over development

Horrified trendsetters have rejected plans to bring a 24-hour McDonald’s to their hip inner-city suburb, labeling its world-famous burgers as “boring.”

The fast food giant recently submitted pre-development application plans for a new restaurant in Sydney’s inner west Marrickville, just down the road from one of the suburb’s coolest spots – the Bob Hawke Beer and Leisure Centre.

Located 7km southwest of Sydney’s CBD, the suburb has been transformed from its industrial roots into a plethora of coffee roasters, local cafes and small breweries.

But residents say McDonald’s plan to build a two-story 24-hour burger palace with drive-through facilities and a large parking lot on busy Marrickville Road will ruin the hip vibe.

Numerous locals told Daily Mail Australia that the area was more about “boutique cafes” and Vietnamese pork rolls than McCafes and burgers.

Thea Martin, 18, who is still in high school and works part-time in Coles, is against a McDonald’s.

“Honestly, I prefer to eat at the local Vietnamese sandwich shops,” she said.

McDonald’s is McDonald’s – you can get it anywhere. But pork rolls are just there and they’re so great.’

Marrickville was voted Australia’s second coolest neighborhood by Time Out magazine last year, coming in a close second to Melbourne’s ultra-hip suburb of Fitzroy.

Brett Adrien, 34, who lived in Marrickville for seven years and still works in the area, said it would be an “eyesore.”

“The consensus is that it doesn’t really belong here,” he said.

‘Marrickville has a character of its own and McDonald’s has not been successful in these parts. There was one in Newtown that closed in 1998. A McDonald’s will not help the gentrification that has already taken place in the area.”

Mr Adrien said Marrickville’s drive to be more aware of its carbon footprint would not be helped by a 24-hour restaurant.

“I appreciate the argument that it’s a place for young people to hang out, but standing alone isn’t enough to be an eyesore like McDonald’s,” he said.

“Especially on top of the amount of litter that accumulates around a place like that if it’s open 24 hours.”

Mr Adrien, who works at the Nimbus Vapor vape shop on Marrickville’s high street, said the arrival of McDonald’s would also mean the area would lose its identity.

“Preserving or at least respecting the character of what makes Marrickville Marrickville is pretty important,” he said.

“Personally, I don’t like seeing fast food chains go for this land grab, which detracts from the overall character of a place.”

Leyton Sloggett, 21, a published poet and a bar manager at The Imperial in nearby Erskinville, added: ‘I don’t really think we need more [fast food restaurants].’

The Inner West Council’s planning alert portal revealed that the application had also been hit by furious feedback about the submission.

One labeled McDonald’s “crassy, ​​nasty, sickening and, worst of all, boring” and said it would be “demeaning to lower the culinary tone with gross, weird, spongy crap.”

Another local told Nine’s Today on Wednesday: ‘Marrickville’s more about boutique cafes, support locals and quality coffee’.

Others said Macca’s was welcome to build the new outlet, but warned it was likely to close.

“I’m not one for nimby-ism, so whatever they want,” someone told Today.

“But that doesn’t mean he’ll survive here. The Golden Arches are not necessary.’

But some in the suburb support the return of the Big Mac, after a previous Macca in the area closed 15 years ago.

Lifelong local Michael Guirgis, 47, runs the Facebook group We Love Marrickville and says the suburb needs to keep in touch with its working-class origins.

“People are trying to turn Marrickville into a really hip neighborhood,” he told the The Sydney Morning Herald.

“I personally feel that they don’t want to come and adapt to the area, they want to come and change the area.

“I think we can have it as a hip neighborhood, but also as a multicultural neighborhood as it used to be… We can have a little bit of everything.”

McDonald’s – which has 300 outlets in NSW – said it was in the early stages of planned development on the corner of Marrickville Road and Meeks Street.

“Each McDonald’s restaurant is committed to supporting the communities in which it operates through job creation, economic investment, and ongoing training and development opportunities,” the statement said.

“We look forward to meeting with the municipality to discuss this further.”