They got fries with their home: Couple find 60-year-old McDonald's meal in a wall

Can the good time and great taste of McDonald's survive 60 years inside the walls of a suburban home?

Last week, Crystal Lake's Rob Jones found out by accident.

Jones said he was renovating his home bathroom on April 19 when, after pulling out the toilet paper holder, he noticed something inside the wall.

"As I was pulling the holder out, I can feel there's something in there," Jones said. "I was nervous to open it up. You see stories of much worse things people can find in their walls. My wife and I like true crime stories."

The couple were relieved and delighted to find that it was just a bag, old wrappers and leftover fries from an old McDonald's meal. Jones described the discovery, especially the fries, as "neat."

Jones speculated that the meal was probably from construction workers; the house was built in 1959, Jones said, the same year that a McDonald's franchise opened in Crystal Lake at Virginia Street and Lake Shore Drive, less than a mile from where they live. At that time, according to Crystal Lake Herald archives, the price of a hamburger was 15 cents.

Jones posted his discovery on Reddit. The morning after, Jones said he was contacted via that website by a Newsweek reporter.

"It's been crazy how quickly this spread," Jones said of the media coverage. "It's definitely weird. I just threw the story on Reddit while scrolling through there before I went to bed."

Since that first interview, Jones has been contacted by television reporters and other national news outlets, he said.

"I never thought I'd make it to television," Jones said. "I'm glad it's only for this."

The story has even been picked up by some international publications; Jones said his favorite headline so far was from the UK Daily Star, which referred to him as a "bloke."

Jones joked that nobody had ever before shown interest in the garbage he'd discovered.

Both Jones and his wife are from McHenry County, and Jones' wife, Grace, even said that her mother was at the grand opening of the first McDonald's east of the Mississippi, which opened in Des Plaines in 1955.

"We live in a pretty mature neighborhood," Grace said, "so the folks that we've shown it to are people who actually remember eating at McDonald's during that time period. It was nice to hear their stories, a really touching experience listening to different accounts of visiting the restaurant."

At the moment, the couple are keeping the packaging and burger wrappers in a folder, and the decades-old fries are being kept in a container while they figure out what to do with them.

The fries are still intact, though hard and dried out, Jones said.

"How do they last that long?" Jones asked about the fries, adding that they smelled like "old must."

While the couple have explored selling the items or giving them to McDonald's as a kind of artifact, they have yet to hear any "serious offers," Jones said.

The couple have yet to hear from the McDonald's Corp. about the discovery.

When asked what he's learned from the experience, Jones has an important lesson for home renovators.

"Check your walls," Jones said. "You never know what's in there."