The familiar Golden Arches of McDonalds are now ушедший (gone) from Russia since they began their wholesale slaughter of Ukrainians. The 850 franchise properties have been sold to a Hamburgler named Alexander Govor, a former franchisee who owned 25 stores in Siberia, who is busy rebranding the burger joints, re-christening them “Tasty Period” (pretty sure he didn’t run that past his marketing guys) and replacing their famous logo with a burger patty and two lonely fries forming a stylized “M” (see above).
“Govor is moving fast to reopen the shuttered outlets. It wasn’t until a couple of hours before the Pushkin Square restaurant opened that the Russian chain’s new name was announced: Vkusno-i Tochka (Tasty-period)…”
The grand opening was held at the location of the original Mackey-D’s in Moscow, which opened in 1990, after Gorbachev agreed to let the running dogs of American fast food blitzkrieg Mother Russia.
The re-opening crowd, though impressive, reportedly did not match the hungry throngs of the glasnost era, but it’s a start…
“This is a historic place — the flagship of McDonald’s,” Govor told reporters. “I’m sure it will be the flagship for us.”
Inside, the restaurant resembled a fraternal twin of its former self. There were touchscreens for placing orders and counter workers wearing familiar polo-shirt uniforms.
“We’re sure that our customers won’t notice a difference between us,” Paroev said. However, he said, the company will seek a new soft drinks supplier as it has limited stocks of Coca-Cola.“
No Coke? Sorry Govor, they are going to notice that.
No news of menu changes that I can find, and no Yelp reviews as of yet, though Twitter users weighed in on the development, mostly offering opinions on the name, and most of those as juvenile as one might guess, but these are exceptions:
Wow. Russia’s former McDonalds franchises will reopen this week under the brand Vkusno i Tochka, which translates as “Tasty, Period” or “Tasty And That’s That” and sounds exactly as idiotic in Russian as it does in English https://t.co/uuBvAvTqa5
— Michael Idov ? (@michaelidov) June 12, 2022
“Tasty-period”
A name that wouldn’t work well in the US…
— John Dough (@chair_this) June 12, 2022
As a Brit I’d say full stop but as it’s a rip off of US company period seems more appropriate.
“Tasty. Full stop” is better. But not much
Also smack of weak attempt to come up with a “just do it” type of slogan.
A rus mkting exercise relying heavily on US ideas. The irony
— BenAris (@bneeditor) June 12, 2022
As one might expect, even the Colonel took note:
We are the masters of Tasty Chicken Wings, Period!!!!! ? ? #KFCGhana pic.twitter.com/9baWr1UQY7
— KFC Ghana (@KFC_Ghana) June 6, 2022
I’m lovin’ it!
“Tasty Period?” Seriously? It reminds me of the early days of the conservative movement that now calls itself the Tea Party. Remember how at first they were spouting off (pun intended) about being “Tea BAGGERS?” It was a shame someone clued them in on what the term actually meant! Tasty Period. Maybe someone from the U.S. who is a former biker gang member will suggest to them a term he clued me in on from his biker days and that they add chicken wings to their menu and brand the offering “Red Wings.”
I didn’t want to go there, that’s why I was rather oblique….
I didn’t either but I’m in a particularly dark mood so far today and it compelled me to be pretty blunt in expressing how unforgiving I am of rich Russian assholes who have propped up their murderous regime. If they want to act in a nekulturny ( https://www.lexico.com/definition/nekulturny )manner then I will do the same (and with the harsher, original sense of the term) when speaking of them.
True – if they add chicken wings they can replace coke with illicit vodka for ‘the moonshine’s bright on little Red Wing’
Had to google that as I’d never heard of ‘red wings’ before and that’s disgusting. I assumed the name was a sort of riff on Sean Spicer’s attempt to have the last word about the crowd size, Period!
It was meant to be disgusting because that’s what the leadership of Russia is. (I couldn’t help noticing the very last word in your comment – tossing in a pun of your own?)
They could have gone with the other meaning of “period” so it would be “Tasty Time”.
Do the russians even have a clue how to make burgers? Don’t franchises have to purchase the food from the company they obtained the franchise from? Maybe the borscht instead of a big mac is not quite snark.