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Comment by namdnay | Hacker News Reader

I guess this is limited to the US? Ball pits are going strong here in Europe, they're a staple of every indoor playpark.

There's a special machine for cleaning them, it looks a bit like the robot from teletubbies

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No, ball pits are ubiquitous at most indoor play parks here too, the author is extrapolating their disappearance from fast food restaurants, and correlating it to the 90s rumor mill. These rumors were definitely a thing, but more than just ball pits have been removed; most McDonald’s locations have had their entire PlayPlaces removed, due to the fact that people don’t sit down in fast food restaurants anymore, and also a general race to the bottom in terms of economics to remain competitive.

Yah, and to be honest-- good riddance. PlayPlace was definitely non-core, not-well maintained, etc.

because they used to market to kids. the whole place was kid oriented. fast food switched their demographic to adults about 15 years ago with great success

They're still common in Chick-Fil-A, and they complement the playgrounds with family night activities for kids on certain days of the week. Chick-fil-A prob doing better than ever too.

Tbh Chick-Fil-A is the only fast food restaurant where im like "damn this slaps" not "meh its food ig". Food i actually like eating at fast food prices.

Chicken Fillet is good; but I’d hardly describe it as “fast-food prices.” Although it is fast food. It’s more like a chain restaurant prices (think Olive Garden and such).

No fast food places have "fast food prices" anymore unless you heavily coupon and/or use their apps. Seems to be a method of price discrimination. If you're poor you know about the app and coupons and never pay menu prices. If you're not then you think "god damn, fast food got expensive" and pay menu price anyway, when you happen to go to such an establishment.

Like, they've always done coupons, but menu prices used to also not be a complete rip-off. They are, now.

In-N-Out is a nice exception. I don't think I've ever even seen an In-N-Out coupon.

I did not even know chick fil a had play areas (between west coast and north east). I thought all the play areas in McDonalds and Burger King had closed down due to liability reasons.

I haven't seen a new play area in years, but some of the older franchise locations continue to run the ones they have.

Chick-Fil-A's core demographic is somewhat wealthier than McDonalds (the food is somewhat more expensive), and I think that helps keep the play areas clean and organized.

(fewer parents trying to use it as free daycare...)

They require the franchisee to be a full time manager so they are more invested in the cleanliness of the store.

I've never been to Chick-Fil-A, I'm not a big chicken guy, but now I think about it the one near me does have a spot for play place and none of the other chains do. Guess I'll have to try them out, any business that goes out of their way to make the experience fun for kids will get some of my money.

From what I’ve noticed, the Chik-Fil-A playplaces are considerably smaller than the McD’s and BK places of yore, just fair warning, YMMV.

Research their political donations first before deciding to patronize them.

given that they're closed on sunday you don't really have to do any research to know they're a christian organization

That isn't the issue. Lobbying the government to strip people of their liberty is.

yea, like i said, christian organization

They've almost entirely eliminated fast food play areas in the Northeast, but I was surprised to see them everywhere in Lexington KY. I wonder why.

A lot of McDonald's are franchised, its probably up to the franchise owner whether or not to build a play area. In the age of covid and monkeypox I doubt many franchisees would shell out the cash.

And of course they have been closed for COVID for a few years.

I'm glad you have a machine for cleaning them. One thing I noticed in the US, even as a child, was that ball pits were filthy and musty. I don't think they were ever cleaned.

Video of the "Ball Washing Machine" (this is actually from the US):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrHvFiePokI

This is UK:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8VjIJuMyiE

Huh. That goes a lot slower than I would have expected. I wonder at their procedure for getting all the dirty ones out before the freshly-cleaned ones start piling back in.

Not complaining, glad to see them taking hygiene seriously.

The UK video I posted has some details, 15,000 balls per hour doesn't seem that slow to me[1], and still, according to the video, they are putting the clean ones into "netsacks".

Most probably when they have the sacks full there are not that many "dirty" balls remaining in the pit and they can put a separator of some kind across it to start putting back the cleaned ones.

Found the site of the manufacturer of that machine:

https://ball-pool.eu/services/

What I doubt is more that the cleaning is actually done on a weekly basis or so as recommended.

[1] I have no idea on how many balls are in the "average" pit, but the US video is touting 80,000 as if it was an extremely large one

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