On Monday morning, a man driving a silver Hyundai carrying a cargo of baseball bats and balls signed by San Francisco Giants legend Willie McCovey left the keys in the ignition while he ran in to a Walnut Creek McDonald's restaurant to satisfy his Egg McMuffin fix. The man was only in the California Boulevard franchise location for three minutes (which: good turnaround, Walnut Creek Mickey D's) before he came back outside to see his Hyundai speeding off on to Cypress Street. Luckily, surveillance cameras caught a good look at the suspect (pictured) and police have a pretty solid description: more ›

The nascent taste bud's loss is now the juvenile waistline's gain. So to speak. See, the noted fast food chain announced today that the McDonald's Happy Meal will receive a healthy makeover. Accused of aiding childhood obesity, the new Happy Meals will boast apple slices, reduced portion of french fries (boo!) and a wider selection of small drinks, including... more ›

"$5.89" by Troy Holden. more ›

Still stinging from those Happy Meal bans in San Francisco and Santa Clara Counties, McDonald's has been hit with a fresh lawsuit protesting the fast-food chain's use of toys to market floppy hamburgers to children. The class-action lawsuit comes from The Center for Science in the Public Interest and a Sacramento mother of two who says her daughter only asks to go to McDonald's to get Barbies and i-Carly toys (whatever those are). more ›

A few residents in all-that Oakland neighborhood Temescal have helped appeal a decision by the Oakland Planning Commission who approved the rebuilding of a McDonald's spore at 4514 Telegraph Avenue. According to Christopher Waters and Rebecca Saltzman, who helped helmed the anti-McDonald's vitriol to the tune of $1,400, the McGriddle haven will cause all sorts of, ahem, traffic congestion. Check it: more ›

Talk about your unhappy meals: An armed gunman sporting a ski mask "walked into a Berkeley MacDonald’s prior to its opening early Wednesday, locking employees in a freezer before dropping a trail of money as he fled the scene," reports KTVU. more ›

Three-year-old Henry Tonts of Hayward eats fries from his Happy Meal at a San Francisco McDonald's on Monday. Cute, huh? more ›

Ugh, why not. It's Friday. This video was shot at the McDonald's on Third Street near AT&T park after Game 1 of the World Series on Wednesday. According to YouTube user gtothebomb, "some chick was arguing about their order, the chick with the yellow thong tells her, she shouldn't talk like that in front of her daughter. Chick says she's not my daughter and throws soda at the yellow thong chick. then all hell breaks loose." more ›

Well, this seems downright mean, depriving someone of a $1 McDouble. And that, dear readers, is just what the Haight and Stanyan McDonald's has done. See, according to the Chronicle, the store "eliminated its Dollar Menu about a month ago, making the items on it too expensive for the people who spend the better part of their day on the sidewalk in front." (Is that even legal? The Dollar Menu, as you all know, is as American as dissidence and apple pie.) more ›

East Bay cheese and pasta pushers Little Mac (founded by Allison Arevalo, Local Lemons blogger) might or might not get sued by high fructose corn syrup pushers McDonald's over the former's name, or whatever ridiculousness. The McLegal team claims that McDonald's owns all variations of "Mac" or "Mc," much to the horror of the Irish. However, Filet-O-FIsh says they're not threatening anyone with anything, no sirree. According to Inside Scoop, here is McRib's official statement: more ›

Jesus or the Burger King dude found on McDonald's Big Mac bun. more ›

SFist drove by this billboard near the Cala in Nob Hill on Saturday and mused about how the original phrase, "use them all," could so easily be riffed on by flocks of sarcastic San Franciscans. (We will admit we used to have a fondness for McMuffins before we started caring about what went into our mouths, but we disagree that they delight all 10,000 taste buds.) more ›

It's unusual that, while Barack Obama had a "Kill Obama" Facebook page, we have yet to see a "Kill Bill O'Reilly" Facebook page. Because, you know, he sure does love to hate a lot of people, erroneously so. Take, for example, his most recent brain abortion when he compared gay folks with terrorists when looking at that gay McDonald's ad. After discussing the French ad, which features a lithe gay man looking as if he's about to come out to his father at McDonalds (which: WHAT), the aging FOX anchor quipped, "Do they have an al Qaeda ad, you know, come as you are? You know?" more ›

Happy Meals are about to get a lot less happy. That is, unless the fast food chains that peddle them can change their ways. For the toys and other promotional items that accompany those highly-caloric kid's meals are soon to be banned in parts of Santa Clara county. more ›

Uh oh. Both Eater LA and the LA Times are reporting that an outbreak of McDonald's elusive McRib sandwich has ensued in the greater Southland. This naturally begs the question, when will the McRib spread to the Bay Area? According to the McRib Locator, the McRib has already been spotted in one of San Francisco's many McDo franchises. Could this be true? more ›

Wow. OK. At an appearance onstage at South San Francisco Day in Orange Memorial Park on Saturday, a PETA member got up on stage and smacked a guy dressed as Ronald McDonald in the face with a vegan custard pie. more ›

Want to see slinky, kinda nude women bathing in a tank of blood-colored water on Van Ness at noon? Of course you do. According to , PETA campaigner Jena Hunt "organized a protest scheduled for noon today at 600 Van Ness Ave., where two PETA 'chicks' in red bikinis will be crammed together in a tank of 'bloody' water with the message 'McDonald’s Scalds Chicks; to Death.'" (Aside: While we do not care much for McDonald's culinary vision, we highly recommend their Crispy ranch BLT sandwich, which you can get grilled or fried. Well worth the 600 calories. Trust us.) In an interview with the Ex, Hunt explains, there "a more humane slaughter method called controlled-atmosphere killing ensures that animals are killed painlessly while still in their transport crates before they have their throats cut or are handled by workers." Good point, Hunt. Also, there's a "McCruelty: I’m Hatin' It" billboard up at Sixth and Brannan today. more ›

Let the Irish minstrelsy begin! (After the jump.) more ›

Ever since a few cry babies got the sniffles over a few bad tomatoes last week -- fine, it was salmonella food poisoning, but tomatoes are the most awesome thing to eat in the entire universe, so we don't much care for the bad press they've been receiving -- McDonald's has decided to nix all sliced tomatoes on its sandwiches. (Wait, what sandwiches at McDonald's use tomatoes? One of those swank new chicken-ish items this now serve?) more ›

Herb Peterson, inventor the the McDonald's Egg McMuffin, died this past Wednesday at the age of 89 in his Santa Barbra home. Peterson started his career with McDonald's as vice president of the fast food chain advertising firm, D'Arcy Advertising, where he came up with the questionable slogan, "Where Quality Starts Fresh Every Day." more ›

San Francisco is really behind on the inane most-expensive food item trend. Serendipity-3, a restaurant in New York, just unveiled to the public (well, mainly for the benefit of Guinness World Records) the world's most expensive dessert. The Frrrozen Haute Chocolate was declared the most expensive dessert in the world on Wednesday by Guinness World Records. The dessert is a frozen, slushy mix of cocoas from 14 countries, milk and 5 grams of 24-carat... more ›

This morning a little before 1:30 a.m., the fuzz tried to take down a couple of robbery suspects at an Ingleside McDonald's (mmm -- sorry, we had a couple of beers last night.) Although the suspects managed to get away, one person got hit, or so she claims. more ›

Oh No, Chris Kavanaugh! Berkeley's own Ed Jew, a Green Party member of the Berkeley rent board who was actually living (and litigating with his landlord) in Oakland, pled not guilty to three charges of voter fraud, one charge of perjury, and one of grand theft (for taking a stipend from the Berkeley rent board) yesterday. Kavanaugh spent Friday night living in the Santa Rita jail before being released on $30,000 bond, and will report back to court on Oct. 26. Kavanaugh has reportedly told other board members that he lives in Berkeley but his girlfriend lives in Oakland. more ›

More mysterious criminal events in Fremont! This time, someone dropped a five-foot tall safe off a truck in the middle of the road. The safe had been pried open, revealing...... a collection of about 70 Star Wars action figures, still in their original packaging. Somewhere, a broken-hearted fan weeps. more ›

Hey, there's lots of stuff going on this weekend! And in exchange for telling you about it, we're going to ask again for a favor in return -- if you go to any of these events, would you mind terribly sending us your pictures of them, and we'll show them off on the site for you? Tag 'em SFist on Flickr, or mail them to editor-at-sfist.com! more ›

Hey, don't you hate how expensive it is to replace inkjet and laser printer cartridges? Well, guess what, you can have them refilled with new ink that's mixed on site at Cartridge World for about half the price of new ones! How cool is that? They have one location in downtown San Francisco at Steuart and Mission and several locations throughout the Bay Area. Refilling printer cartridges and keeping them out of landfills is one example of how a company can reduce office waste and increase their bottom line while helping the environment. Businesses are catching onto the benefits of going green, and there are many resources out there to help get them started. Presidio School of Management has created a useful Sustainability Dictionary, and large corporations can consult Environmental Defense, a nonprofit that has helped Wal-Mart, McDonald's, DuPont and Fed Ex "do well by doing good." more ›

What's with all the "McDonald's coffee is better than Starbucks," survey stuff going around? Evidently, a taste test or two places the coffee from the Golden Arches in a higher position than the ubiquitous chain-coffee house. This started about a month back with this Consumer Reports study, and has been percolating further on recent "stunning revelations" that McD's is going to serve actual espresso as well. One of the most bothersome aspects of this is major news concerns are talking and talking about it. STOP! PLEASE! more ›

There are many fine examples of patisseries and boulangeries that make wonderful coffee. Cocola, one such establishment in the Westfield, that new wondrous monstrosity of a shopping complex, is not one of them. While we're confident that most savvy SFist readers would have realized this on some fundamental level, we hoped that our instincts would prove wrong. After all, most everyone gets dragged on occasion to the mall or a similar place they'd rather not be; the promise of a decent cup of joe in the Westfield would have done much to mitigate our own reluctance. more ›

Torontoist visits the site of a new Frank Gehry structure, stalks "the elusive Bahamas streetcar", and watches Tom Green get surgery. more ›

--From Rita more ›