People Are Losing It Over This Strange McDonald's Location
No one blinks when they find a McDonald's attached to a convenience store, in a shopping mall food court, at the airport, or even in a Walmart. After all, people can work up a mean appetite during a day spent traveling or shopping. Going to a hardware store, on the other hand, doesn't usually call for a fast food break. How long does it take to stock up on paint rollers or get a key copied? Besides, wouldn't a lot of parents rather leave their kids at home than bring them into a store full of nails and saws? The clamor for Happy Meals is sure to be a lot quieter in a hardware store than at Walmart.
On the other hand, consider this: America has nearly 14,000 McDonald's locations (via QSR), from Garrison, Minnesota (population 206) to Times Square (via Eater New York). So, is anyone really surprised that a McDonald's in the nation's capital shares space with Ace Hardware?
The Twitter account nonstandard mcdonald's posted photos of the unusual hardware-hamburger mashup, found in the Woodley Park neighborhood of Washington, D.C. The fast food place and the hardware store clearly share a rear entrance. The awning over the back door displays the "Ace" logo right above the bold "McDonald's" font. The tweet has gone a little bit viral, getting more than 20,000 likes — 10 times more than nonstandard mcdonald's other recent tweets. But the McDonald's-Ace concept really went viral when TikTok picked it up.
The Ace Hardware-McDonald's combination became a meme
A TikTok user called Ellie got more than 60,000 likes and more than 400,000 views with her brief green-screen video showing the photos from nonstandard mcdonald's with her head superimposed. "I'm at the Ace Hardware," Ellie deadpans. "I'm at McDonald's. I'm at the combination Ace Hardware-McDonald's."
Ellie repurposed a meme about combined Pizza Hut and Taco Bell restaurants that blew up recently on TikTok. Search for the sound titled "Combination Taco Bell and Pizza Hut," a song by jokey rap group Das Racist, and you'll find thousands of videos — many of them featuring young people describing how they are a combination of their mom and dad's traits.
Ellie's version of the "combination" meme works as the setup to a punchline, with all of her commenters providing the gag. "Wait does that mean the ice cream machine will actually work?" @andy.is.a.meme said. But @frugaloffgrid took it the other way around: "Great, the paint machine will never work."
Real-world reality isn't as fun as social-media reality in this case. The McDonald's and Ace Hardware look like a collaboration from the back, but the front of the building clearly shows them to be two separate establishments. So it turns out you can't order a McHammer with medium nails, as one Twitter commenter suggested. Twitter user @subylime might also be disappointed. They hoped the combination Ace Hardware-McDonald's would be a good place to "get a Quarter Pounder and something to pound quarters."