I’m at a rest area McDonald’s in Framingham. Or Natick. I forget which town it’s technically in. I’m heading to Worcester and then Northampton for the night, and this was the easiest place to pull over for breakfast on the way.
There’s a McCafé space carved out in the seating area, kitted out with stools and cozy nooks. There’s also a glassed in conference room, named for a Don Thompson. I’m not sure who Don Thompson is. I will investigate when I am done with my coffee.
The Mass Pike is a strange little walled garden of a highway. It’s a toll road, so your access to it and its rest areas is heavily restricted. There are no back roads into this rest area. You have to be traveling on the westbound side of the Pike to access it. If you were traveling on the eastbound side, you’d have to drive to the exit by Lake Cochituate, get off, then drive around to the westbound onramp.
So who is using this conference room?
Unless there are back roads I don’t know about. I mean, I know there are back roads into these rest areas, but they tend to have locked chains across the entrances. It’s how the employees get in, so they don’t have to pay a toll each time they go to work and leave.
Is the conference room for people who work here? Or maybe for people who work for the Pike?
I think I need to look into who Don Thompson is or was. I am going to investigate.
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Okay, I investigated. The door to the conference room is locked. There’s a printer in there, and a picture of the family that has managed this rest stop for decades. None of them is Don Thompson. Don Thompson was the President and CEO of McDonald’s from 2012-2015. There is a picture of him in the entryway standing with Don Wright, the patriarch of the Wright family.
A bunch of employees were in the café area on their break. None of them has seen the conference room used. They were also all a little annoyed that I was bothering them on their break, and nervous that maybe they were in trouble.
I’m just going to assume at this point that the conference room is used by the Wright family. I think they run some of the other rest stops on the Pike. They must need to meet with people sometimes.
It’s possible that I will look this all up later. It’s also possible I’ll forget all about it. Very possible.