BUENA PARK : Planners Approve McDonald’s Ride

The McDonald’s restaurant on Beach Boulevard in the heart of the city’s tourist strip will soon be serving more than Big Macs and Happy Meals.

In order to enhance business and boost burger sales, the restaurant’s owners plan to install a 14-seat “action simulator,” similar to Disneyland’s “Star Tours,” by this summer.

“It’s something we’ve never seen before” at a fast-food restaurant, said Bill Brownstein, one of the restaurant’s owners and operators. “We hope it’ll revolutionize our business.”

The Buena Park Planning Commission on Wednesday night gave approval for the attraction along with plans to add a gift shop that will sell McDonald’s clothing items and Ronald McDonald memorabilia, collectibles and souvenirs.

“This makes me so excited I can hardly wait,” Commissioner Brenda Miller said. “I want to be the first in line.”

Plans call for a 1,400-square-foot addition to the 7,800-square-foot restaurant, which boasts electric trains chugging on tracks that go around the ceiling. The trains are also showcased in the center of the dining area.

“We’ve put a big business there and we need to enhance it,” said Peter Horner, a partner in the restaurant. “This already isn’t your typical McDonald’s.”

The addition of the attraction makes the McDonald’s restaurant even more unusual, the owners said.

The restaurant, which opened in 1989, is between Knott’s Berry Farm and Movieland Wax Museum and has a sign on a landmark 40-foot-high water tower on Beach Boulevard, half a block north of La Palma Avenue.

“The location of this particular store does cater to tourists,” Brownstein said. “But this is also a neighborhood, so it caters to both. If we didn’t, we’d be remiss in our approach in our business.”

City planning staff members said the area’s tourist attractions should benefit from the entertainment added to the restaurant.

“We feel it can bring additional patrons to the entertainment corridor, which is what the city needs,” said Rick Warsinski, assistant director of development services.

Bryan Carmack, also a partner in the restaurant, said the simulator ride, which has not been named, will feature theater-type seating with a wide-screen television. The capsule will feature up to 20 different thriller-ride programs, including simulated downhill skiing at 90 m.p.h. and motorcycle and car racing.

Carmack said the family-run enterprise, which operates a total of 13 McDonald’s restaurants in Orange and Los Angeles counties, began looking into adding the simulator last April.

“We wanted to create something special for people to come to,” he said, adding that the attraction is expected to bring in people from all over the county.

Carmack declined to reveal the cost of the attraction except to say that “it’s a substantial investment. And we hope to recover it.”

He said the ride is capable of accommodating up to 170 people an hour, with each ride lasting three to four minutes.

Carmack also said it has not been determined if restaurant patrons will have to pay for a ride.

If patrons are charged for rides, “we intend to make it something that’s reasonable and where (people) can afford it,” he said.