McDonald’s Gold Coast: Restaurants in every part of the city

The southern Gold Coast alone has more McDonald’s outlets than the whole of the Sunshine Coast. The north is just as bad. So the last thing we need is the site of a much-lamented institution to be turned into yet another drive-through, writes Keith Woods.

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Dear Jesus, Allah, Buddha and Krishna, say it ain’t so.

Donald Trump, COVID-19, closed borders ... 2020 was depressing enough.

We desperately need 2021 to be a little cheerier. But on Monday, Gold Coast Bulletin business editor Kathleen Skene reported news that stole another slice of our souls. The site of the former Nightquarter, for an all too short but wonderful period the beating cultural heart of the northern Gold Coast, was being eyed up by McDonald’s.

In the name of all that’s holy, has there ever been anything more depressing?

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The Bulletin has, on many occasions, reached out to readers, asking what they think the Gold Coast needs. All sorts of things get suggested. New cinemas, concert venues, cable cars – even things that do not yet already exist anywhere else, like hyperloop trains. No one has ever written to say what we really need is another Macca’s.

It’s not like the fast food chain is all bad. It gives thousands of kids a great start to their working lives, and even better, does fantastic work for less fortunate children via the Ronald McDonald House charities.

It’s more that - burger after countless burger - we are already incredibly well served.

It is near on impossible to drive two minutes down a main road on the Gold Coast without passing the golden arches.

Map showing location of McDonald's restaurants on the Gold Coast.

Consider the north of the city, in the area around the former Nightquarter site now touted for yet another Big Mac bonanza. In the 19km from the McDonald’s at Gainsborough Green in Pimpama to the Macca’s at Pitcairn Way in Pac Pines, there are already seven of the outlets.

There are also a dizzying array of Hungry Jack’s and KFCs and Subways and every other fast food restaurant you can think of. Our suburbs have been super-sized.

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Some southern Gold Coast sophisticates may quip that northern tastes don’t extend far beyond a Happy Meal, but that is very far from reality. Just look at how the locals mourned the loss of Nightquarter, a foodie paradise that was constantly packed by eager locals.

And it’s not like the fast food giants have not colonised the southern Gold Coast too. There are, in fact, a remarkable 14 McDonald’s restaurants between Broadbeach and Coolangatta - more than serve the 350,000 residents of the Sunshine Coast.

The former Nightquarter site at Helensvale. Photograph: Jason O’Brien.

We need to turn the tide a little. Push back against the relentless march of the drive-throughs (or drive-thrus as they maddeningly insist on calling them). Remember, the Gold Coast is ultimately a tourist town. The former Nightquarter site is at the heart of the northern Gold Coast’s transport network and a hop and a skip from Movie World, Wet n’ Wild, Paradise Country, the Australian Outback Spectacular and the oft overlooked splendour of the Coombabah Lakelands. It would be a desperate shame if it became just yet another stopping off point for dollar burgers and frozen cokes.

Harbour Town Eats. Picture: Supplied.

Perhaps the owners of the land - which include the state government - could show a little imagination and get behind something that would give the area a genuine lift. Nightquarter is not coming back, but instead of a concentration of fast food restaurants (distressingly, it’s suggested a KFC might join McDonalds’s on the site), something akin to the Harbour Town Eats precinct would do more for the area. Dare one say it, such a development might even include a performance space to help create a little of the NightQuarter vibe.

Without question, the much lamented market needs replacing with something more joyous than the sullen scrabble of stone chippings that are now the only feature of its former site.

If not a foodie haven, locals would love to see a cinema. Or a bowling alley. Or a skating rink.

Hell, anything but another Macca’s. After the year we’ve just been through, we need something better to cling to.

WHAT WE’VE LEARNED IN YEAR SINCE WE FIRST HEARD OF PANDEMIC

JUST over a year ago, on January 10 2020, a word that was little known outside medical and scientific circles made its first appearance in the paper edition of the Gold Coast Bulletin.

Hidden away on page 16, in a three-line brief, the word “coronavirus” made it to print.

“A preliminary investigation into viral pneumonia illnesses making dozens of people in and around China sick has identified the possible cause as a new type of coronavirus, state media said yesterday,” the report read.

“Chinese authorities did not immediately confirm the report from broadcaster CCTV.

“As of Sunday, the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission said 59 people in the central Chinese city were being treated for the respiratory illness. Seven were in critical condition, while the rest were stable.”

A year later, we are still living with the effects of the mysterious “pneumonia” first reported in Wuhan.

We have learned a lot in that year — more than just a single word.

But there have also been some things that have left your columnist genuinely baffled.

The first mention of what we now know as COVID-19 in the Gold Coast Bulletin on January 10, 2020.

Chief among them is the belief by some that the request to wear a face mask somehow represents an unacceptable assault upon their freedom.

Granted, tyranny can take many forms, but what a strange tool of oppression is eight square inches of cloth. True autocrats usually make other fashion choices. Jackboots, for example.

While we are beyond lucky that masking up has not been necessary on the Gold Coast, it’s a different story in Sydney and most recently Brisbane.

And how it’s drawing out the crazies.

Shackled and chained by a small piece of cloth.

At a recent raucous protest in Bondi Westfield, one anti-masker was heard chanting “I would rather be a human than a slave”. He also roared “you can stick your sanitiser up your arse” at bemused shoppers, suggesting he hadn’t properly read the label.

That particular protester reminded your columnist of Iranian cleric Ayatollah Tabrizian, who is of the view that Western medicine is “un-Islamic” and last year came to prominence by advising followers that coronavirus could be avoided by drenching a cotton ball in violet leaf oil and “applying onto your anus”.

#Iran: from Qom, Ayatollah Tabrizian, who has denounced Western medicine as "un-Islamic", told his 120,000 followers on Telegram that to stave off #coronavirus, "Before bedtime, drench some cotton in violet oil and apply onto your anus". https://t.co/sfZjnb8AIc

— Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) February 26, 2020

Less colourful members of the Bondi protest group commented that they were marching for their “personal freedom”.

Their personal selfishness, more like. Wearing a mask is not the most comfortable thing ever, but I’m willing to bet it’s a lot less pleasant to be hooked up to a ventilator.

At the other extreme, this column remains befuddled by the actions of some state leaders.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has moved away from closing borders to whole states, now sensibly limiting restrictions to declared hot spots. The snap three-day lockdown of greater Brisbane over the weekend also looked like a proportionate response to a real threat.

The same cannot be said of Western Australia’s Mark McGowan, who, at time of writing, still has his border closed to the whole of Queensland because of two cases in Brisbane. So someone from dusty Birdsville faces the same rules as someone who lives 1400km away in Bowen Hills, distant Cairns is treated no different to Chermside.

When questioned Mr McGowan, who faces a state election in March, says he is merely following “health advice”. But so are the Chief Ministers of the NT and the ACT, and the Premiers of NSW, Victoria, SA and Tasmania — and they aren’t going the same road.

Health advice regarding masks, social distancing and so on is something we should all be getting on board with though.

Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #China🇨🇳. pic.twitter.com/Fnl5P877VG

— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) January 14, 2020

It’s far better than the advice issued to the unfortunate residents of Wuhan in the early days of the pandemic.

Three days after the Bulletin’s first report about the virus, the World Health Organisation, relying on the advice of a genuinely autocratic government, tweeted that there was “no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission”.

How much we’ve learned.

Follow @keithjwoods

Originally published as McDonald’s Gold Coast: Restaurants in every part of the city