The World’s Smallest McDonald’s Has Opened

The world’s smallest McDonald’s is here, but don’t expect it to be in some hidden corner of New York or a stall along a busy highway. Instead, the “restaurant” in question is a fully-functional beehive in the shape and design of a McDonald’s restaurant, which sits on the roof of an actual McDonald’s (I believe the official term for this is McInception) in Sweden. Nicknamed “McHive” (of course), the tiny McDonald’s is the subject of the video above, and has generated a litany of funny replies on YouTube.

Here’s the official write-up from Nord DDB, who posted the video you can see above: “Some of McDonald’s restaurants in Sweden have beehives on their rooftops. The initiative started out locally but is now growing. More franchisees around the country are joining the cause and have also started replacing the grass around their restaurants with flowers and plants that are important for the wellbeing of wild bees. To celebrate the initiative which is part of McDonald’s Swedens sustainability work, we created what could be the world’s smallest McDonald’s – a fully functioning beehive.”

As for why the builders feel obliged to include signage, including food prices, on the side of the McHive? Well, that’s anybody’s guess. The project as a whole is part of a worldwide effort to curb the mass dying off of bees, and the resultant environmental impact when their place in the food chain begins to erode.

McDonald’s was founded in 1940 as a restaurant operated by Richard and Maurice McDonald, in San Bernardino, California. They rechristened their business as a hamburger stand, and later turned the company into a franchise, with the Golden Arches logo being introduced in 1953. In 1955, entrepreneur Ray Kroc joined the company as a franchise agent and proceeded to purchase the chain from the McDonald brothers. You can see that story — complete with quite a bit about how sketchy the whole situation was when it went down — in the movie The Founder, starring Batman and Spider-Man actor Michael Keaton.

McDonald’s is one of the largest employers in North America and the largest fast-food chain in the world by revenue. With almost 40,000 locations, they serve 69 million customers a day in 100 countries all over the world.

Also, apparently, quite a few bees.