‘Let’s McDo Lunch’ : It’s New, It’s Upscale, It’s Not What You Might Guess

One of the newest restaurants in Los Angeles’ downtown business district offers telephones in its dining booths, fresh flowers on its tables and a harpist who entertains on Thursdays and Fridays.

Its clientele of lawyers and stockbrokers conduct their affairs amid polished brass and stately marble, muted green and salmon-colored walls, gray brick inlaid floor and polished wood-top tables.

OK, three guesses on the name.

You lose.

Welcome to McDonald’s.

In an effort to snare upscale diners, the fast-food chain has opened a tony outlet on the plaza level of the twin 54-floor towers of the Crocker Center on 3rd Street between Grand Avenue and Hope Street, home of some of the largest corporate and law offices in the city.

Were it not for the familiar texture of a Big Mac, it would be difficult to identify the place.

Here you can telephone ahead for lunch or dinner reservations. If you need to make a call once you get there, you can order a push-button phone plugged in at your table.

If you were too rushed to read the paper at home this morning, there’s a rack near the main entrance that offers free copies.

If you’re still too rushed at noontime and happen to work in the Crocker Center, the restaurant will send your lunch upstairs to your desk.

If you have a business meeting, there’s an area where enough tables can be set aside to seat 25.

And if you’re bored with just fries and a McDLT, the management has plans to begin entertaining you soon with lunchtime tarot card readings and adult birthday parties.

The gimmicks were developed by the franchise owners, Donald Bailey, 42, and his wife, Andrea, 39, who decided that the endless phalanx of lawyers, stockbrokers and executive secretaries who move with chic purposefulness through the downtown business district would be more attracted to Ronald McDonald if he became Ronald McYuppie.

Wayne Little, a 32-year-old IBM salesman based in Norwalk who wandered into the restaurant for the first time recently, personifies the kind of customer the Baileys are after.

Little wears designer suits, lives in Huntington Beach and drives a 1986 Corvette. But he sees nothing inconsistent about his choice of restaurants.

“I like McDonald’s,” he said, pulling back the sleeves of his gray Jean Pierre suit as he prepared to bite into his hamburger.

“The decor is great. It’s a nice place to sit down,” said Cathy James, an account administrator for IBM, which has its western region headquarters in Crocker Center.

Susan Farrell, 27, an account officer with Bankers Trust Co. in a neighboring building, said she eats at the restaurant about twice a week for its “convenience and cheapness.”

Primly dressed in the coat and skirt uniform of a businesswoman, Farrell said she takes clients on “power lunches” to more upscale restaurants such as Columbia Bar and Grill and the Los Angeles Athletic Club, but prefers eating at McDonald’s and other fast-food places on other days.

The restaurant, nestled between the new, trendy Stepps restaurant and a newspaper stand, is the only McDonald’s west of the Mississippi inside an office building, according to Bailey.

A Los Angeles policeman for 17 years, Bailey studied business administration at both Pepperdine and USC in his off hours and trained for 2 1/2 years in the company’s corporate management program.

So far, the restaurant is serving more than 10,000 diners a week, said Fareed Ahmed, 28, Bailey’s India-born manager.

Not Your Average Worker

The franchise has 73 employees, which Bailey said is about average for a McDonald’s, but the workers don’t look average.

They wear subdued gray slacks and ties knotted in businesslike four-in-hand fashion, if male, or gray skirts and bow ties, if female, unlike most other McDonald’s, where employees dress riotously in a carnival of colors.

Bailey said that starting today the restaurant will open at 5:30 a.m., rather than 6, to accommodate stockbrokers who start work when the stock exchanges open in New York.

“This morning we had 35 people at the door waiting for us to open at 6 o’clock,” he said.