After years of trying to get the attention of McDonald’s executives in hopes that the restaurant giant would keep the Golden Arches in Madawaska, Brian Thibeault decided to make a video.
With drone footage, music and heart-felt interviews with drive-thru customers, he communicated the town’s hope that even though the restaurant can’t stay in its current location, it might be able to move somewhere else in town.
“McDonald’s has been part of our community for 50 years,” Thibeault said this week. “Most people over 50 have childhood memories. Like any community you have cornerstones. That was a big part of your life.”
But on Saturday, the McDonald’s at 180 Main St. will close for good. The place to meet for morning coffee or pick up a burger and fries on the way home from work, is now standing in the way of progress.
On three sides, heavy construction equipment is doing the earthwork necessary to build a new port of entry at the base of a yet-to-be-built bridge to link Edmundston, New Brunswick with Madawaska.
The new international bridge is needed – at nearly 100 years old the current span can no longer handle anything heavier than a passenger car -- and figuring out where to put it has been going on for more than a decade. The McDonald’s is the only thing left between the construction site and Route 1.
A McDonald’s spokesperson told Spectrum News in a statement that they were proud to have been in Madawaska for 48 years. The statement confirmed that the current location would close Saturday, but did not address whether they considered rebuilding.
Town Manager Gary Picard said he and other town officials spent years trying to work with the fast-food giant to get them to relocate. Ultimately he found out by reading a newspaper story that the company would be leaving town for good.
“It’s an established business,” Picard said. “It’s been in town for 50 years. We know it was successful. A group of citizens got together to try to push and put a compelling story together to get them to rebuild.”
That compelling story was told in the high-quality video called “Save Madawaska McDonalds.” Posted to YouTube on Aug. 30, it had nearly 10,000 views as of this week.
In the video, customers talked about why they wanted the restaurant to stay.
“We need to save our McDonald’s,” said a woman driving a white sedan. “We need to do something to keep this town together.”
A woman in a red pick-up truck said, “It’s the only fast-food restaurant that us working people have in town.”
One man pointed out that although the Tim Horton’s in town has a drive-thru, they don’t serve hamburgers. A woman in a dark blue SUV said, “We need McDoanld’s. We have very few things in this town. It’s a place where people gather.”
Thibeault, a former selectman who also appears in the video, looked into the camera and said if a new McDonald’s opened in Madawaska, it would help the town as it pursues revitalization efforts.
“McDonald’s would be sending a message to Madawaska,” he said. “What would it be? It would be that you matter. Small town America, you matter.”
In some ways, the fight for the Madawaska McDonald’s is a way to fight for the town that has seen population drop from 5,282 in 1980 to 3,774 in 2019, according to census data. The downtown is a mixed bag of for sale signs, papered-over windows and some longtime shops, such as Roberts Jewelry and Pierrette Florist.
An undated sign in one shop window announced “Bread of Life Bookstore closing after 35 years.” It’s signed “Love & Hugs, Rita.” In another window is an Acadian Tree of Life with brown branches bearing the leaves of common local names, including Bouchard, Berube, Landry, Fournier, Soucy, Gendreau, Godbout, Chasse and Gagnon.
On Sunday, with steam flowing from paper mill stacks on both sides of the St. John River, cars lined up at the McDonald’s drive-thru.
They brought their dogs and had large trailers hitched to their pick-up trucks. An elderly couple tried the doors of the restaurant before they saw the sign that said “lobby not open for dine in.”
In the northeastern-most town in the U.S., where the trash cans at McDonald’s say “merci,” customers took their food to go for one of the last times.
Thibeault recalled another loss when K-Mart in town closed a few years back. He said in that instance, the company had filed for bankruptcy. Not so with McDonald’s, he said.
“It’s all about dollar signs,” he said. “McDonald’s is now choosing to leave the town of Madawaska, which is unfortunate. We’re just going to lick our wounds and move on.”