MOSCOW: Former McDonald's restaurants in Russia have been renamed "Vkusno i tochka" ("Delicious. Full Stop"), the new owner said ahead of their grand re-opening later on Sunday. "The new name is Vkusno i tochka," Oleg Paroyev, the director general of the new group, told a press conference in Moscow. Replete with a new logo to replace the Golden Arches, the restaurant on Moscow's Pushkin Square-where the very first McDonald's opened its doors to long queues and great fanfare in January 1990 --  opened its doors again at noon (0900 GMT).

The US McDonald's fast-food giant announced on May 16 that it would exit Russia in the wake of Moscow's Ukraine offensive. Three days later, Russian businessman Alexander Govor, who had been a licensee of the chain, bought the 850-restaurant operation. "I am very proud of the honor that developing this enterprise has given me," Govor said on Sunday. "I am ambitious and I don't only plan to open the 850 restaurants but to develop new ones."

Under the sale conditions, Govor agreed to retain employees for at least two years and fund exiting liabilities to suppliers, landlords and utilities, McDonald's said. The price of the transaction was not disclosed but in announcing its exit, McDonald's said it planned to take a one-time charge of $1.2 billion to $1.4 billion to write off the investment. McDonald's had employed 62,000 workers in Russia. Govor, a licensee since 2015, has operated 25 restaurants in Siberia. He is co-founder of Neftekhimservice, a refining company, and a board member of a firm that owns the Park Inn hotel and private clinics in Siberia.

MOSCOW: Customers wait next to a mirror wall as they stand in a queue to get in the Russian version of a former McDonald's restaurant after the opening ceremony in Moscow on June 12, 2022. - AFP

 The new name

"The new name is Vkusno i tochka," Oleg Paroyev, the director general of the new group, told a press conference in Moscow. Russian businessman Alexander Govor, who had been a licensee of the chain, bought it after McDonald's announced in May it would sell its Russian portfolio of 850 restaurants. Sunday marks a new dawn for Russia's fast-food lovers as former McDonald's Corp restaurants reopened under new branding and ownership, more than three decades after the arrival of the hugely popular Western fast food chain.

The relaunch began on Russia Day, a patriotic holiday celebrating the country's independence, at the same flagship location in Moscow's Pushkin Square where McDonald's first opened in Russia in January 1990. In the early 1990s, as the Soviet Union crumbled, McDonald's came to embody a thawing of Cold War tensions and was a vehicle for millions of Russians to sample American food and culture. The brand's exit is now a powerful symbol of how Russia and the West are once again turning their backs on each other.

McDonald's last month said it was selling its restaurants in Russia to one of its local licensees, Alexander Govor. The deal marked one of the most high-profile business departures since Russia sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24. McDonald's iconic 'Golden Arches' have been taken down at sites in Moscow and St Petersburg, where they will make way for a new logo comprising two fries and a hamburger patty against a green background. The reopening will initially cover 15 locations in Moscow and the surrounding region. - Agencies