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UPSTATE UPDATE
Forget the Big Mac Along The New York State Thruway
If you plan to travel the New York State Thruway, you won’t be able to stop at McDonald’s anymore or other fast-food establishments at nearly a dozen service plazas.
On Dec. 31, a contract that originated in 1991 between McDonald’s and the Thruway Authority expired.
As a result, 11 remaining McDonald’s have closed for good at the Angola, DeWitt, Guilderland, Mohawk, Ontario, Port Byron, Schuyler and Warners service plazas on I-90 and the Malden, Modena and Ramapo plazas on I-87.
But McDonald’s didn’t just have its own restaurants at the sites — it operated the service plazas themselves, meaning the establishments it partnered with at those locations have shut down, too.
Now, the 11 plazas are without any restaurants and instead are being served by Applegreen C-Stores selling hot foods, grab-and-go sandwiches, salads, snacks and drinks 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Two of the plazas that had McDonald’s are completely closed for renovations, as of Jan. 1: Warners and Ramapo. Gas pumps are still open at both.
The changes are part of a $450 million project launched in 2021 to update the 570-mile highway system’s 27 service plazas by 2025. Applegreen, an Irish convenience store chain, is the new operator for all of them. (Contracts with two other operators, HMS Host and Delaware North, expired in 2021.)
When finished, all the plazas will have fast-food establishments.
So far, work has been completed at Junius Ponds, which has an Applegreen store, a Starbucks drive-thru and a Shake Shack; Chittenango, which has an Applegreen store, a Chick-fil-A (closed on Sunday) and a Starbucks drive-thru; and Indian Castle, which has an Applegreen store and a Starbucks drive-thru.
Applegreen has its own slate of tenants — including Shake Shack, Chick-fil-A and Panera Bread — in some cases the company will bring back businesses that were in the service plazas before it took over.
For instance, the plan is for Cinnabon and pretzel shop Auntie Anne’s to return to the Angola plaza, which is about 22 miles south of Buffalo and one of the larger sites on the route.
