Three Highlights From McAtlas Revised Edition
An ever-evolving book for a constantly changing brand
NEW YORK, New York—The cat is out of the bag: a revised edition of McAtlas is coming, with lots of new content. McDonald’s is a constantly evolving company, with novel localized menu items being launched and locations opening all over the world year-round. As the stock of the original book dwindled (thank you to everyone for supporting the project!) I had the good fortune to decide whether to simply reprint, or to evolve the work. The choice was obvious, and the result is a revised edition that’s 20% thicker than the original, for a total of 500 pages.
Here are some of my favorite additions in the revised McAtlas:
1. Flemish Architecture in Belgium
When I originally rolled up to the UNESCO World Heritage McDonald’s restaurant in Bruges back in 2022, the building had a large amount of construction out front. There was no satisfactory angle from which to photograph the building on the narrow street, so I told myself that I would eventually loop back and get it, since localized architecture was just as important as the menu items, but rarer to find. That never happened—fifty countries turned out to be quite a lot for one person to tackle, so Belgium, a smaller market especially next to its Western European counterparts like France and the United Kingdom, was left out of the first edition. A tragedy! Thankfully, I was able to return to Bruges on a more leisurely jaunt through Europe last summer, and even picked up a bonus example of a McDonald’s in an old Flemish building in the center of Ghent.
2. Tray Spreads
The first time around the globe, I purchased localized menu items and brought them back to my makeshift hotel room photo studio, isolating them in photographs knowing full well that I would write up individual blurbs about the cultural significance of each of the items. But a full McDonald’s order on the tray in-store can tell a story that doesn’t reveal itself with individual items: the use of reusable containers in France in response to a circular economy law, the sheer amount of pastries available in Austrian McCafes, and the the tray liners in Turkey practically screaming to customers that everything on the menu uses local ingredients.
3. Beefeaters in a London McDonald’s
So many of the locations in the book were found during hours long Google Maps sessions, searching for McDonald’s restaurants in an area and clicking around—in a major city like London, this is close to 200 locations. If the building looked cool or was next to a landmark, I would dig deeper, often using street view or the tagged photos to see if there was an angle or detail worth investigating. It was in the middle of one of these Google Maps sessions that I clicked on a location across from Windsor Castle and found these beefeater statues buried deep in the tagged album. Cool? Only kinda. Personally satisfying? 1000%. Plus, a more British localization does not exist (okay, except for porridge being on the menu.)
There is so much more, and I’ll share additional snippets in the coming days. If you already have a copy of McAtlas, hang tight and rest assured that you are still in possession of a good book (at least, this is what the beautiful people are saying!) But if you’ve been waiting for the right moment to check out the project, get yourself a copy of the revised edition—pre-orders are open now for delivery in early July.
