McDonald's first outlet in Gurgaon's Palam Vihar to open by September

19 May, 2012

2012The golden arcades of the world's leading food retailer McDonald's will come alive in their neon glory in a few months when it opens its outlet in Gurgaon's Palam Vihar after construction is completed in another three-four months.

THE OUTLET in Palam Vihar's A Block, on two floors, will be located in Ansal Triangle, which is a business address for private companies and government banks, and is near Ansal Plaza and Columbia Asia hospital. The new McDonald's restaurant's ground floor will serve ice cream and cold drinks - very much like its South Extension -II outlet in New Delhi.

The ground floor will lead to the first floor where there will be sitting arrangement, the construction manager employed by the McDonald's franchise, told this Citizen Journalist, confirming that construction will be completed within two and a half months following which McDonald's will initiate trial runs before fully opening the outlet. With confirmation of McDonald's setting up shop, it has laid to rest the speculation amongst locals that Pizza Hut was opening an outlet in Palam Vihar. With both serving tasty junk food, nobody's bound to be disappointed.

Going by the general standard of the size of a McDonald's outlet, the one at Palam Vihar, the construction of which this Citizen Journalist witnessed, is relatively modest. At the most, it is likely to be a 30-cover outlet, with smallish space for kitchen and staff.

Palam Vihar really needs a happening food joint. Now that McDonald's is opening here, we won't have to go all the way to Gurgaon's malls to have burgers and fries. I can't wait for the outlet to open its doors," said Avinash Sethi, a resident of Palam Vihar, who works in Gurgaon's Udyog Vihar.

World-wide, McDonald's has more than 33,000 restaurants located in 118 countries, and reportedly serves 67.8 million customers every day. In India, the food giant, which is celebrating more than 15 years of food service retailing in India, has more than 250 outlets across the nation - daily sering 6.5 lakh customers.

Recently, McDonald's has tried to Indianize its menu by making its burgers and other items more spicy, and intends to aggressively follow-up on its market research on menu and customer feeback, and double the number of restaurants by 2014.

In India, McDonald's operates through two partnerships - one with the Amit Jatia-led Hardcastle Restaurants Pvt. Ltd., in West and South India; and the second via Vikram Bakshi’s Connaught Plaza Restaurants Private Limited, which caters to McDonald's North and East India markets.