McDonald’s PlayPlaces Were So Popular They Sparked A Whole Sister Chain

As a kid, nothing beats time spent at a playground, climbing, swinging, and sliding. Now, combine that joy with your favorite greasy fast food, and it’s game over. McDonald’s absolutely knew what it was setting in motion when it built its first PlayPlace in the early ’70s.

The very first PlayPlace designs (known early on as McDonald’s PlayLand) were outdoor. They were built around climbing structures and guest appearances from the Hamburgler and Officer Big Mac. However, the most familiar kind of PlayPlaces are the indoor models with caterpillar-like tubes reaching up to the rafters. Squeaking down those plastic slides and building up static shock (as well as a few germs, no doubt) was a canon event, and one that we simply couldn’t get enough of. At their peak, PlayPlaces had taken over 3,000 McDonald’s restaurants, quickly earning the chain the title of America’s largest playground operator by 1991.

Coincidentally, 1991 was also the year that The Golden Arches launched another golden idea: Leaps & Bounds. It was to be a standalone facility and essentially a PlayPlace on a much grander scale. The large, cube-shaped buildings featured colorful ball pits, multi-level tube networks, and arcade games, all set up so kids could “play with purpose”. Food was also served, but Happy Meals and hamburgers weren’t on the menu. Instead, Leaps & Bounds locations relied on concession-style grub like pizza, popcorn, and turkey dogs to keep kids energized and more likely to return.

This kind of indoor play center wasn’t exactly a new idea at the time. Leaps & Bounds followed names like Chuck E. Cheese and Discovery Zone. Chuck E. Cheese was one of the first out of the gates in 1977, becoming the first restaurant of its kind to combine pizza dinners with entertainment in the form of arcade games and life-size animatronic characters (the kind that give ’80s and ’90s kids nightmares to this day). Discovery Zone, on the other hand, opened in 1989 and shared more similarities with the Leaps & Bounds layout. It was best known for its foam pits, obstacle course-like mazes, rope climbs, and roller slides. Discovery Zone became something of an overnight success and competed directly with McDonald’s play concept. That is, until 1994, when 45 Leaps & Bounds locations were acquired by Discovery Zone.

Discovery Zone took this momentum and ran with it, growing to around 250 locations in the mid-’90s. But by 1996, the trend had begun to fizzle out, and the company was forced to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. By 2001, all facilities were gone, and the Leaps & Bounds name with them.

Many McDonald’s PlayPlaces met this same fate. Liability and sanitary concerns reared their ugly head, and then the COVID-19 pandemic was the knockout blow. These days, they’re few and far between, but a handful of PlayPlaces still survive – like one in Long Island – where you can still experience the smell of sweat and taste of nostalgia.