Menu at Abandoned McDonald’s Stuns Internet With Rock-Bottom 1994 Prices

Declan Gallagher
·2 min read
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A photographer captured eerie footage of a McDonald’s located within a naval base on an Alaskan island and abandoned since 1994, and the internet can’t stop talking about the rock-bottom prices.

Chris Luckhardt posted a photo to his private Instagram which shows the Adak Island restaurant’s menu stuck in time. Though originally taken in January 2023, the picture has recently gone viral due to McDonald’s escalating prices, which resulted in the chain pledging to make its food more affordable in 2024.

Burgers and fries were plenty affordable in 1994, however. A 20-piece Chicken McNuggets cost just under $5, less than half of what a 20-piece costs now in most markets. Similarly, French Fries cost either 99 cents or $1.29, whereas now a large serving runs close to $5. Big Mac, Quarter Pounder with Cheese, and two Cheeseburger meals, including fries and a drink, cost just $4.59. Sandwich combos now cost close to $20 at some McDonald’s locations.

A breakfast burrito costs just $1.49, while you can get sausage, eggs, and a biscuit for only $2.95. The nostalgic menu also offers “Dino-Size Fries,” apparently a tie-in to the (then) brand-new blockbuster Jurassic Park (1993). Happy Meals (just $3.36) also came with a Bobby’s World toy, based on the animated series which ran from 1990 until 1998.

The abandoned McDonald’s was opened in 1986 but closed in ‘94 as the Navy slowly decommissioned the Adak Naval Air Facility in which it was located. The naval facility completely closed in 1997, according to the Los Angeles Times. It was used at the height of the Cold War as a surveillance center and a base for sub-hunting Navy planes. In the early ‘90s, before the town shuttered, it was Alaska’s eighth-largest city, with 6,000 sailors, officers, and military dependents calling Adak home.

Adak’s McDonald’s has been the subject of fleeting internet curiosity over the years, most notably in a 2021 Sun article. In that piece, pictures of the restaurant’s interior show chairs neatly stacked upon tables, sitting untouched since the early ‘90s. But it seems the nostalgic menu was lost on most viewers until recently, as McDonald’s prices have climbed across the globe.