McDonald’s opens in hungry Moscow, but costs half-a-day’s wages for lunch, 1990

In 1990, Moscow got a McDonald’s restaurant. Inside, customers lined up again for Big Macs, fries and shakes. The reviews were mixed. One man felt the food itself was wanting, while some wanted more. One woman, speaking in Russian, confessed to not knowing what it was she ate. But she did pronounce it “unusual and delicious,“ adding that “we need more of these places, there’s nothing in our stores or restaurants.“ But the revelation of the cost of a meal under the arches was not a happy one for some. At the price of half a day’s average wages, the cost of trying out this new style of food was steep. Outside the city, some of the $50 million spent by McDonald’s went to build a processing plant dedicated to turning out 14,000 buns per hour, and where 3,000 tons of potatoes per day became fries and 10,000 patties per hour were made and frozen. ➤ Read more on CBC Digital Archives: