I’d like to start off this column with a quick eulogy. Rest in peace, plastic McDonald’s Happy Meal toy. You filled our hearts and our landfills.
On September 21, the largest fast food chain in the country announced that they will be cutting their use of fossil fuel plastics by 90% by 2025. This includes the action figures, walking toys, and Polly Pockets of our childhood. As an environmentalist, I cheer for this move towards a greener restaurant industry. As a nostalgist, I fondly remember the artificial days of yesteryear.
Consider the animatronic Chuck-E Cheese band. Dreamworks movie promotional toys. The Taco Bell aesthetic. The candy colored, rock-hard facade of early 2000s dining establishments has given way to sleek modern lines and neutral color palettes. The family eateries we knew and loved no longer exist outside of Disneyland.
While the tastemakers of the world are grateful for these moves toward stylish simplicity, is it wrong to occasionally miss the outrageous decor? What do you finish off your meal with instead of the Rainforest Cafe’s Chocolate Volcano lava cake, complete with sparklers? Even the names of individual dishes were fun and kid-friendly. I still remember how at the local diner, my favorite order was called the “Scooby-Doo.” Is nothing sacred (and lovably tacky) anymore?
One of my most fondly remembered kiddie restaurants is Mars 2112, a kitschy Tomorrowland knockoff whose spot in Time Square has long been replaced by an Equinox gym. Back in the mid-2000s, my family and I entered a spaceship-themed motion simulator ride that transported us to a plastic rock-covered wonderland. The buck didn’t stop there: the menu was laden with options such as the “Galileo Garden Burger,” the “Terrestrial Tilapia,” and the “Cosmic Chaos Cheesecake.” Costumed aliens visited you at your table for photo ops. For one meal, you could explore another planet, play arcade games, and, of course, exit through the gift shop.
I don’t remember a lot of the experience, but my parents do; they reported “good chicken fingers” and a cool “Mars scene.” It had everything you needed to entertain a second grader for a couple hours.
Near the gravesite of Mars 2112 lie some of the closest inklings of the way things were. The Hard Rock Cafe houses music memorabilia in glitter-covered cases. Bubba Gump Shrimp Company serves up a “Run Across America” appetizer platter alongside other Hollywood intellectual property placements. Recently, New York even got its own Margaritaville location, complete with a replica Statue of Liberty who’s traded her torch for a cocktail glass.
So, what happened? In a bittersweet turn of the tides, standards rose. In the tourist demographic, where theme restaurants once thrived, hole-in-the-wall spots and social media favorites have become the new trend. In many family-friendly hotspots, eaters are trading over-the-top ambience for higher quality meals, both in ingredients and flavor. However, I believe in a world where these two concepts—the chic and the tchotchkes—can coexist.
Replace destined-for-the-junkyard set pieces for plant-based and recycled plastics. Swap fake cheese-in-a-can on piled-high nachos with melted fontina blends, improving flavor while retaining culinary ridiculousness. With a little love and rehabilitation, the tacky restaurant becomes family-friendly once more! Adults can sample new flavors while kids feel a little more magic in the places they eat.
Maybe after four years at Stevens and being so close to graduation, the sight of a Times Square dinnertime tourist trap doesn’t turn my stomach the way it used to. All I remember are my own days in the McDonald’s play place. If you brush off the test kitchen and bring in a sustainability consultant, I think there could still be some potential to these old family-friendly restaurants. After all, isn’t food supposed to be fun?
The College Gourmet is an Opinion culture column written and created by Julia Dwight ‘22 to discuss cooking tips for students, explore local restaurants available to students, and more.
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