Doing Business : McDonald’s Happy Meals in Rio: Champagne, Waiters and Music : Beer on tap, live samba help Brazil put its stamp on fast-food chain.

RIO DE JANEIRO —  It was Friday evening, the end of a long workweek. Niraldo Aburque and his friends at the state transportation department in downtown Rio were in the mood for a happening Happy Hour.

So they cleared their desks, locked the office and headed for the one place they knew where for two hours the beer would be flowing, a live band would be playing and there was plenty of food to be had.

They went to McDonald’s.

Welcome to the Golden Arches, Brazilian-style, where a Big Mac can be washed down with a cold beer, patrons can gobble their Quarter Pounder and fries to the sounds of live samba and, on certain nights, meals are served under candlelight by waiters bearing champagne.

“It’s Brazil,” explains Peter Rodenbeck, a top executive in McDonald’s eighth-largest market.

A burger and beer is not unique to Brazilian McDonald’s. The U.S. chain’s outlets in Germany, Britain and France also serve beer and wine.

But across this country, Brazilians are putting their own special stamp on the McDonald’s image, most noticeably with the creation of their Happy Hours, complete with suds and salsa bands, or disc jockeys and jukeboxes.

McDonald’s gave its Rio restaurants permission to pour after franchisees and managers of company-owned restaurants insisted.

“We started getting calls from restaurants who said they wanted to serve beer and have music,” Rodenbeck said. “We investigated and gave them permission to do it. It’s a cultural thing.”

The first McDonald’s to embark on the transformation was in a poor community called Cashia in the northeast part of the city. Since the Happy Hours started earlier this year, about 200 people have crowded into the restaurant every Friday and Saturday from 7 p.m. to midnight to listen to music, have a beer with friends and eat Brazilian delicacies not found on U.S. menus.

Other restaurants in Rio quickly followed suit. Happy Hour outlets now stretch from downtown to the upscale Barra da Tijuca, a relatively exclusive beachfront community south of the city.

The Happy Hour trend has spread to the capital, Brasilia, the resort community of Fortaleza and the cities of Goinaia, Sao Paulo and Vitoria.

Salim B. Maroun, a Lebanese businessman who owns a McDonald’s downtown, started his Happy Hours four months ago after watching his lunch patrons walk past his outlet on Friday nights en route to other restaurants that served beer.

“Cariocas (as Rio de Janeiro natives are called) like to have their beer on Friday,” said Maroun, who moved to Brazil from Canada four years ago. “They were asking for it, so I said, ‘Why not give them beer for two hours?’ I don’t want anybody not to come to McDonald’s because they can’t find what they want.”

Every Friday evening, Maroun reserves the top floor of his 250-seat McDonald’s for government workers, bank employees and others from the nearby high rises.

In one corner, two workers in McDonald’s outfits busily pump beer into plastic cups from huge kegs at a makeshift bar. The first beer is on the house. Others cost 70 cents.

“It’s been very good for business,” Maroun said. “We’ve probably increased it by 60%.”

Mostly, his patrons are workers who simply want to unwind before heading home, although there is some intermingling among the sexes.

Alex Apolinario, 23, and a fellow salesperson, Andrea Oliveira, 24, are enjoying the change.

“It’s nice because of the beer and the atmosphere,” said Apolinario, who also frequents the restaurant for lunch, “and the music is good too.”

“Yeah,” Oliveira said. “People go to the other bars to listen to pagode (a more raucous Brazilian music). This is better. The atmosphere here is more classy.”

“Being in this place is more sophisticated,” said Roberta do Carino, 23, a cashier at a local store. “People don’t abuse the place. They don’t drink too much. They don’t get too loud.”

Classy and sophisticated are not words usually associated with McDonald’s restaurants, but in Brazil, where a Big Mac Special is equivalent to half a day’s pay for many, the restaurants hold a different position in the dining hierarchy.

The owner of the McDonald’s in upscale Ipanema has been trying to capitalize on that perception. Every Tuesday night, from 8 to 10, the restaurant becomes the equivalent of Chez McDonald’s. The houselights are dimmed, soft jazz is piped through the restaurant, and 12 tables are set aside for candlelight dining.

Patrons order from menus and waiters bring the food on huge platters. Meals are accompanied by a complimentary bottle of champagne.

“It’s something we do for families and couples who live in the area,” said Maria Celina de Arruda Franco, marketing coordinator. “People really enjoy it because it’s different. Then, there are couples who can’t afford a real dinner, so they come here and have the atmosphere. They can say they had a candlelight dinner and champagne--at McDonald’s. “