At the McDonald’s on the corner of Third Avenue and Pine Street in downtown Seattle, the dining room is essentially off-limits. The double doors are covered in plywood, customers stay on the sidewalk, and staff now pass food through a narrow plexiglass slot instead of welcoming people inside. Workers and nearby employees say the fortified setup is the result of years of street fights, open drug use, and repeated assaults along the Pike/Pine stretch.
As reported by The Independent, the restaurant’s doors remain boarded, and a makeshift transaction hatch has replaced the public entrance. Staff and locals told reporters the change traces back to pandemic-era closures and a January 2020 shooting, after which the dining room never reopened to customers. The Independent noted that its story relied in part on a visit documented by the Daily Mail, which photographed the plywood exterior and small plexiglass window and relayed interviews with employees and neighbors.
One man who said he previously used drugs in the area told reporters he “watched a girl get shot and killed right here,” according to The Independent. A worker described seeing assaults play out on the sidewalk outside the restaurant. Neighbors and regulars interviewed by the outlet said the corner has picked up a dark nickname, “McStabby’s,” a reference to how often violent incidents seem to cluster around the storefront.
Numbers and city response
Seattle Police Department data and mapping tools give residents a way to pull up recent reports and confirm that certain downtown blocks carry a disproportionate share of violent and property crimes. The department maintains an online crime-data portal for neighborhood-level lookups; Seattle Police Department maps provide daily updated offense information, and city officials have pointed to targeted technology and patrol shifts for high-traffic corridors…