McDonalds or Not

A mere two blocks or so from the very quiet small street on which we live is the top eatery street in Jerusalem, the kind of place where bus loads of 20-something-tourists get dropped off for their "free evening on the town in Jerusalem". It has dozens of varied establishments. There's a venerable small workers humus-and-pita-with-olives place, a remnant of the days when this was the main street of a scruffy lower-middle class neighborhood. There's a high-brow place based on its unusually large collection of wines and its insistence on high-quality service, run by three young entrepreneurs. There's a kosher grill place, and a very non-kosher one a block down. Two ice cream parlors, two sushi bars, a clutch of veggie and diary salad places, cafes' of course, tho now that I think of it, there's only one pizzeria. Falafel stands, take-away places, Moroccan cuisine, South American, a glatt-kosher steak house, a sandwich place that calls itself New Deli. A bagel place. A place that specializes in expensive chocolate.

Lots of places to choose from.

The single largest establishment if you're measuring square meters is the McDonald's: an entire building of its own, two full floors and a patio. I've never been inside, but the thing is, apparently many people never have. It never looks crowded and often when I walk by it seems empty, irrespective of how crowded all the other places are.

Last week construction crews arrived and started banging walls and digging under the patio, and a couple days later someone put op a big banner announcing yet another cafe soon to open. The McDonald's seems still open, but perhaps they've leased part of the structure; or maybe they're moving out entirely, in stages.