Shocker: McDonald’s to Close at The D, Here’s Why It’s a Big Deal

By Scott Roeben, on August 09 2024
6 min read 31 comments
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The infamous McDonald’s at The D in downtown Las Vegas is set to close Aug. 25, 2024.

The closure of a fast food restaurant wouldn’t typically warrant a story on a blog of this undeniable magnificence, but the shuttering of this particular McDonald’s is newsworthy for reasons you won’t get from those shitheads at the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Sorry, we’re still agog at their overt and shameless theft of our story about layoffs at Rio. And a million other scoops over the years.

Essentially, The D has bought out the McDonald’s lease. We haven’t heard an exact number, but understand it’s really, really big. Cue the sad clown.

Just some random clown named Ron, so our ass is totally covered legally.

For some backstory, McDonald’s has been around since The D was Fitzgerald’s. The restaurant, possibly in quotes, was inherited by Derek and Greg Stevens when they bought the place in 2011. Derek Stevens owns 78% of the casino, Greg Stevens owns 22%.

The Stevens also own Circa, Golden Gate and the Downtown Events Center.

From day one, the McDonald’s at The D (just inside the casino entrance from Fremont Street and directly behind the casino’s Longbar) has been a thorn in the side of The D’s owners and employees.

Here’s a look inside. In the video, we say McDonald’s closes in September. That’s the date they have to be gone: Sep. 2, 2024. The last day to get your McCoronary or whatever is Aug. 25, 2024.


This McDonald’s has been a magnet for vagrants and panhandlers and tweakers (and others with substance abuse or mental health challenges) and the domicile-challenged and an often seedy element. And us when we’re hangry, but mostly those other people.

The McDonald’s at The D is corporate owned, which means they pretty much grind out as much profit as possible with little attention to quality or service, and give exactly zero thought to augmenting the casino guest experience. It’s all take, zero give.

The McDonald’s lease was signed during a different era of downtown. A stickier and smellier time.

Vagrants and others use the McDonald’s as a way to enter the casino when they’d typically be kicked out.

We actually heard one particularly charming street person (with B.O. that could peel paint, apparently) told an executive at The D while standing just inside the entrance to McDonald’s, “I’m allowed to be here, I have money.” There was also an f-bomb between each of the words in that quote. The individual had three giant bags of personal possessions with him, contents unknown.

While one can certainly feel compassion for someone down on their luck, one can also sympathize with a casino trying to create a positive experience for their customers, which doesn’t typically include threatening behavior, obscenities, soiled clothing or a wide variety of bodily odors.

The desire to kick this McDonald’s to the curb has been talked about for years, but the lease seemed unbreakable, stretching into the future for decades.

Finally, a deal was reached, with many terms of the agreement confidential.

As mentioned, this McDonald’s is contractually obligated to get out by Sep. 2, 2024 at 8:00 p.m. The restaurant decided to pull the plug early, and has already absorbed some of the employees into other locations, we’re told.

The McDonald’s team member who told us about the closing date of Aug. 25, 2024 seemed resigned to his fate.

During our visit, we paused our dogged investigative journalism to have a final ice cream cone.

Yes, Lappert’s at The Cal is better, but it’s rarely closer.

If this whole scenario sounds familiar, it’s because Plaza recently booted its McDonald’s as well, for many of the same reasons The D wanted the store out.

While a McDonald’s can draw foot traffic to a venue, that traffic doesn’t translate into a desirable customer for the casino.

The McDonald’s at Plaza had a lot of patrons who just got off the bus at the now-closed Greyhound bus station a few feet away. We are not judging people who take busses, at all. Buses do, however, sometimes transport questionable characters. They would often make a beeline to the McDonald’s. It also attracted transients, along with those recently released from the Clark County Detention Center. It’s less than two blocks from Fremont Street. Good times, and awkward, so nobody really talks about it for fear of cancellation.

Anyway, we’re saying all this in as diplomatic a way as possible, but downtown has a lot of challenges. We are a longtime bleeding heart, and homeless advocate. We used to take portraits of the homeless to raise awareness of their plight on and around Fremont Street. We clench when people sometimes call these folks “bums.” The fact is we aren’t doing enough to help, on the city, county or federal level. That doesn’t change the fact the homeless don’t make places like Fremont Street better. They sometimes make a visit more memorable, but not in a good way. We have the luxury of compassion because we don’t have any skin in the game. We don’t have millions of dollars invested in a casino or payroll to make.

These portraits of the homeless on Fremont Street were taken in 2009, back when “virtue signaling” was just, you know, virtue.

Law enforcement and our elected officials (such as our City of Las Vegas Councilpersons) often don’t do a great job of helping businesses deal with their various headaches. Whenever ordinances are proposed to help alleviate some of the problems, the ACLU jumps in and reminds everyone Fremont Street is a public street and panhandling is a First Amendment right of some sort. You won’t find the homeless or tweakers or convicts roaming The Park or Linq promenade on The Strip, they’re private property. Security and law enforcement can show people the figurative door as they see fit, and the operators can do quality control on any buskers. Downtown, casinos only control who’s on the stages. The buskers enter a lottery for performance circles on the street, and there’s zero quality control.

An important aside: Please don’t let your kids take photos with costumed characters. That’s all we’re going to say about that. Also beware of the showgirl photo ops. They can’t legally charge you for a photo, but they certainly make the completely voluntary tips sound required. Tip $5 and keep moving.

The discussion about what we’re collectively doing (or not) for the poor and mentally ill is complicated and nuanced, so we definitely aren’t interested in stepping into that minefield. We are a humor-based blog, in case that were not evident based upon, you know, the lack of things you find humorous.

We tend to lean toward the position of downtown casinos (we worked in digital marketing at Fremont Street Experience, the marketing arm of the casinos along Fremont Street): They pay the lion’s share of what makes Fremont Street unique and popular (including maintenance, security and live entertainment, etc.), they should be able to operate their businesses without being hamstrung. That includes flexibility and leeway in dealing with the homeless, people with substance abuse and mental health issues, and buskers banging on pickle drums or weaving palm fronds outside their doors.

There are plenty of other places to take care of your drunchies on Fremont Street. The D will now, at long last, be free of McDonald’s.

We asked Derek Stevens to comment on this story, but he declined. That has non-disparagement clause written all over it, but we will accommodate his “no comment.”

Nobody really has to make a statement. You just have to watch how many times a night the bartenders at Longbar have to tell drunk people they can’t eat their McDonald’s meal at the bar.

We’ll keep digging to try and find out how much this lease buy-out cost, but we’re pretty sure it was about as much as The D cost. It means that much to have it gone.

We’ll also keep poking to try and find out what The D will do with the McDonald’s space once it’s vacant. It’s oddly positioned, and has weird glass windows that don’t really fit with a casino’s mojo. (Casinos often don’t have windows so patrons presumably will lose track of time. It’s probably a myth now, but that was always a fun yarn.)

Weird space, but we trust Derek Stevens already has 415 ideas for what’s next.

We’re pretty sure the area will be reclaimed and be an expansion of the casino, just as La Bayou was acquired and became a part of Golden Gate.

Or Longbar could just wrap around the wall and be rebranded Longerbar. We should probably put a “TM” after that, but we give our genius freely when it comes to making our favorite places better.

The more video poker the better, we say.

Here’s some history about The D (formerly Sundance) and the McDonald’s that became part of Fitzgerald’s in the 1990s. They were probably annoyed by it as well.

We will miss our occasional McDonald’s cones, but the closure of the McDonald’s at The D is far more important than our own personal indulgences. Especially because Derek and Greg Stevens can now revel in their longtime dream of being free of the yoke of the once-revered McDonald’s brand, despite the fact we’re pretty sure Greg Stevens is in physical pain at seeing how much this is going to cost. (He mostly works in Detroit, so he doesn’t see all the colorful characters/asshats every day as Derek Stevens and his team do.)

If the Stevens go with another restaurant in the McDonald’s space at The D, we’re up for that, too. Just not sushi, please. Sushi is weird and also attracts an undesirable crowd. All due respect.

Update (8/26/24): The McDonald’s at The D has permanently closed.