Bend’s 33-year-old McDonald’s on Southeast Third Street is shedding its uncomfortable plastic seating, dated fluorescent lighting and ”get-in, get-out” atmosphere.

Instead, customers soon can eat chicken McNuggets from the comfort of a cushy leather couch or meet with friends at a large, round booth designed for socializing and munching on Big Macs, fries and McFlurrys.

The new, swanky McDonald’s is part of the 50-year-old company’s ”forever young” campaign to make over its franchises, attracting customers who want to stop and stay awhile – along the vein of Starbucks’ home-away-from-home, cultivated environment.

The restaurants are adding plush seating, improved lighting, new decor, satellite radio and a fresh coat of paint. Some U.S. McDonald’s have Wi-Fi Internet and flat-screen TVs, which is part of what franchise owners say is the company’s way to reinvent itself by offering a food experience for the more health-conscious and sophisticated consumer.

Some McDonald’s purists, however, think the move is messing with perfection. But the company attributes recent financial success to the revamped menu options and contemporary restaurant designs, according to the corporate Web site.

McDonald’s offers financial incentives for the remodeling and some Central Oregon franchise owners began the makeovers three years ago, though none have added flat-screen TVs.

Restaurant owners say the changes are a smart adaptation to customers’ changing lifestyles that include name brands like Tillamook cheese and ice cream, and Seattle’s Best Coffee.

For Nanette Bittler, who owns five McDonald’s in Bend and one in Sisters, makeovers like these are how the company has been able to survive through the years.

”McDonald’s is always looking at innovative ways of increasing customer satisfaction and convenience,” said Bittler, whose parents first bought the south Bend McDonald’s in 1973. ”It has this forever young, embracing spirit that anyone can come in at any age and get the entire customer experience.

”We want them to leave saying, ‘I’m lovin’ it,’” Bittler said, reciting the company’s advertising slogan.

The south-side McDonald’s hopefully will be finished in early December, Bittler said. In the meantime, customers daily buzz in and out as construction crews strip familiar plastic seats and chairs from the dining area, yank the old ceilings out and gut the bathrooms.

Bittler would not disclose how much money is going into the remodelings but said it was a large investment. McDonald’s Corp. covers part of the bill for franchise owners and does not mandate the remodelings, she added.

Bittler remodeled the Bend Wal-Mart McDonald’s 18 months ago and is working on plans for the north Bend store, where La Pine resident Dave Fray took his lunch break Tuesday.

When asked if he’d like to see McDonald’s get a face-lift, Fray shrugged.

”I’m a working man,” said the sales manager for Central Oregon Roofing. ”I come in here for lunch and then leave.”

For Fray, who says he eats at McDonald’s twice a month, the restaurant is fine the way it is – usually a pit stop or a brief break from work.

A flat-screen TV? Fray would rather watch TV at home. New decorations? He probably wouldn’t notice. And if he did, he wouldn’t care.

”Atmosphere doesn’t mean anything to me,” Fray said, chewing on a Filet O’Fish with a side of fries. He doesn’t come to McDonald’s to lounge around.

Fray finds comfort in the restaurant’s conformity – for the past 20 years he’s eaten at the Golden Arches and appreciates that ”you always know what you’re going to get.”

Old red and white

When Paul Rodby opened his Redmond McDonald’s in the early ’90s, he had been in the business more than 30 years.

Rodby started making shakes at an Oakland, Calif., McDonald’s 37 years ago, earning $1.35 per hour. He eventually moved up to chopping potatoes at the restaurant and later got an economics degree at Arizona State University, worked for a McDonald’s corporate office in Phoenix, then studied in McDonald’s store-management program, became a consultant for the company and then decided to become an owner/operator, for which the company sent him to a place he’d never heard of: Redmond, Ore.

Rodby and his wife, Kathy, now own McDonald’s restaurants in Redmond, Prineville and Madras. He remodeled the Redmond store three years ago, ridding it of the ’80s color palette of green and beige, and adding XM satellite radio, a new lobby, upgraded kitchen, new Play Place and two televisions.

Now, the store has dark mahogany wood, new artwork, new ceilings and lighting that’s more conducive to sitting down and staying a while.

Rodby will not add flat-screen TVs, however, because he said they cost $2,000 compared with the $300 or $400 for regular televisions. He did not specify how much the bill for all his McDonald’s locations will be.

He also won’t be adding plush furniture to lounge areas.

”I didn’t see the need for that type of layout,” Rodby said. ”Most of my stores are on highways and we do very high drive-through traffic anyway, so putting in a living-room type of setting just didn’t make sense.”

Instead of paying extra money for loungelike decor in his restaurants, Rodby chose to invest in equipment that would make McDonald’s more family friendly.

”I put in new seating and a new Play Place,” Rodby listed some of the changes. ”I’m in a strong family market with a lot of moms with small kids, so that was the best way to use my money.”

At the Madras McDonald’s, Rodby recently remodeled the bathroom because that restaurant was a popular pit stop for travelers driving in and out of Central Oregon.

Rodby also is hoping to open a McDonald’s in north Redmond’s planned Wal-Mart Supercenter.

The ”forever young” McDonald’s makeover is the next step for what Rodby says is McDonald’s evolution.

”When I started with McDonald’s 37 years ago, we never had any seating, it was just a walk-up type of thing,” Rodby said. ”In the last 25 to 35 years, the country has become more mobile and the need came for people to go in and sit down, rest, take time with their families and kids.”

The franchise has gone through 20 different levels of change, Rodby said, adding that from the drive-through to offering breakfast to offering more health-conscious foods, McDonald’s is always trying to adapt to the times.

He’s seen a positive response from most of his customers, though some feel a bit of nostalgia for the old restaurant layouts – ”old red and whites,” Rodby calls them.

”They remembered going into that store as a kid,” Rodby said. ”And now all that old furniture is not in there and they kind of missed it.”