The golden arches of McDonald’s have always reminded us of good times: sitting down with our Happy Meals, with our family, enjoying a tasty meal. However, in the Forest Hills and Queens neighborhood of New York City, this corporate image has been shattered to reveal a far bleaker social reality. The fast food restaurant located at 98-01 Metropolitan Avenue is no longer a restaurant where you can go at any time. It is now a makeshift fortress that prohibits entry to any unaccompanied minors between 2:00 and 4:00 p.m.
This is not a marketing strategy or a promotion, but a survival mechanism following daily harassment by teenage vandals. It is a problem that has been brewing for decades in the suburbs of New York: uncontrolled youth vandalism and the inability of institutions (as well as parents and the rest of society, of course) to contain it.
The McBouncer
Although it sounds like a joke, the restaurant has not hired a private security company. Instead, the responsibility of keeping teenagers fresh out of school in line falls on the shoulders of Claudia Zanabria, a 45-year-old employee. She is a survivor of stage three rectal cancer, a personal battle that has toughened her up in the face of life’s adversities. She was chosen from among the other workers because she is the toughest member of the team. However, this woman of medium height never ceases to be surprised by the lack of respect and empathy shown by the younger generations.
“This generation is very different… they push me around, they disrespect me,” Zanabria confessed, describing her daily routine. Her job now consists of physically blocking the main entrance and acting as if she were a nightclub bouncer. “They do everything, boys and girls, they try to get in. I don’t hit them back, but I call the police,” she says firmly.
For a generation that has grown up mostly without ever seeing physical punishment for bad behavior, we can’t help but think that at the end of the day, the old saying “spare the rod, spoil the child” was right, as much as it horrified us to hear our grandparents say it with conviction.
How did the McDonald’s situation escalate like that?
If you’re wondering how a burger joint could end up needing a security guard, here’s the evidence: in 2025 alone, the New York Police Department was called to this particular location 15 different times. Police reports list charges of assault, disorderly conduct, and crimes against the property of people working in the restaurant.
The last straw was a pitched battle captured on security cameras, in which two rival groups of teenagers got into a knife fight while the rest of the customers—adults, seniors, and families—cowered in fear at their tables, caught in the crossfire. McDonald’s employees describe how two dozen teenagers took control of the space and left a trail of destruction before fleeing when they heard police sirens.
McDonald’s only fault is that it is located a short distance from an educational complex that houses no less than three public schools, one of which is Queens Metropolitan High School. At dismissal time, nearly 2,000 students pour out onto Metropolitan Avenue. The lack of parental supervision and other “socioeconomic factors” that everyone is aware of have fueled this wave of violence, which is becoming increasingly rampant and unpunished.
This is not harmless vandalism, but leaves real victims in its wake. On Valentine’s Day, February 14, 2025, a 14-year-old boy was stabbed to death in a similar fight at another McDonald’s in the Sunnyside neighborhood of Queens.
McDonald’s seems to have become an unsupervised daycare center for young people who appear to have lost respect for private property—or even basic human empathy. But when those joints and local commerce close their doors, and leave to open up in wealthier, more prosperous neighbourhoods(where they can conduct their business without fearing for their employees’ wellbeing), these communities will be the first one to cry about discrimination.