R. Kelly, the Phantom of the Rock N Roll McDonald's

When I was a child and then a teenager in Chicago I was all too acquainted with a dazzlingly tacky tourist trap known as the Rock N Roll McDonald’s. When I worked for The A.V Club back in the day our offices were just a few blocks away from the Rock and Roll McDonald’s so if I wanted to, I could pull a Morgan Spurlock and eat there every day. 

The primary strength and weakness of McDonald’s is that they’re essentially all the same. That’s the essence of franchising in general and no one has franchised more aggressively than McDonald’s, to the point where “Mc” has become glib shorthand for conformity and mass production. 

All McDonald’s are deliberately the same with the very notable exception of the Rock and Roll McDonald’s. It’s the exception that proves the rule. 

The Rock N Roll McDonald’s got its name for housing a pop music exhibit centered around Elvis Presley on its ground floor and a smaller museum on the second floor devoted to McDonald’s own history. 

That was the Rock N Roll McDonald’s curious claim to fame back in the day. It served the same garbage food as every other McDonald’s in the world but at substantially higher prices in order to pay for the additional overhead that comes with maintaining a large, dramatically designed building in the heart of River North only a few blocks away from the Miracle Mile but it was a rare oasis of uniqueness in a company that strived to make everything the same. 

Wesley Willis wrote a song about the Rock N Roll McDonald’s. Wikipedia notes that throughout its existence the Rock N Roll McDonald’s has consistently ranked among the franchise’s most famous, busy and lucrative locations.  

McDonald’s kicked off its 50th anniversary celebration at the Rock N Roll McDonald’s with a guest list that included Colin Powell and Elton John. 

The Rock N Roll McDonald’s has always been famous but it is now infamous due to a musician who branded himself “The Pied Piper of R&B” after the storybook character who used his music to hypnotize and control children: R. Kelly, AKA Mr. Hiding in Plain Sight. 

Kelly is also the man who wrote "Age Ain't Nothing but a Number" for Aaliyah, who he mentored, abused and attempted to marry, and released a smash hit album called The Chocolate Factory (the one that gave the world “Ignition (Remix)”) after it had become nauseatingly apparent that Kelly liked to bring the bathroom to the bedroom in the most stomach-churning fashion imaginable. 

Kelly wasn’t just a casual fan of the Rock N Roll McDonald’s: he practically lived there. It was his home away from home, a safe place to find new victims and revel in the extraordinary money, power and freedom from consequences that comes with being one of the most successful songwriters and performers of the past fifty years. 

The disgraced sex criminal was so comfortable at his favorite restaurant that he would reportedly sometimes jump behind the counter and work the registers, just because he could.

The Rock N Roll McDonald’s appears in story after story about Kelly’s decades-long sex crime spree, although you pointedly won’t find any reference to the sex cult leader on its Wikipedia page, which to me means that a McDonald’s publicist did their job. 

As his trial is making clear yet again, Kelly wasn’t exactly subtle or understated in his criminal endeavors. Kelly’s predilection for underage girls was an open secret in Chicago for many years: I’m guessing it wasn’t a secret at all at the fast food giant where he picked up high school students and middle-schoolers. 

The Rock N Roll McDonald’s is a microcosm for a world that knew damn well what Kelly was doing, and how egregiously and widely he was doing it, but, with the exception of Jim DeRogatis, looked the other way because it was addicted to the disorienting contact high of Kelly’s fame, money and power. 

The Rock N Roll McDonald’s means so much to Kelly that when he was released from prison in 2019 it was the first place he visited, along with a cigar lounge. 

Kelly’s love for McDonald’s reminds me of another childhood memory that has come to take on a sinister dimension over time.

When I was a child in Milwaukee you could always tell if you were within a block or two of Ambrosia Chocolate Factory due to its bewitching smell. 

The Ambrosia Chocolate Factory later became infamous for one of its former employees: Jeffrey Dahmer. 

Yes, there are monsters everywhere but for some reason Midwestern sex criminals seem to have a weird fondness for Chocolate Factories, of both the real and figurative kind. 

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