Prada replaces McDonalds in luxury Milan arcade, burger chain sues the city

It will be ‘Ciao Miuccia !’ and ‘bye bye Ronald!’ in Milan as a new Prada store replaces a McDonald’s in the city center.

The American firm is crying foul play though, and has complained that it was unfairly prevented from renewing its tender in the 19th century Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, located in the city’s picturesque center. The famous mall, which connects the city’s Duomo Cathedral and the internationally renowned ‘La Scala’ Opera house, also contains branches of the luxury goods stores Louis Vuitton, Gucci and Stefanel.

McDonalds has now filed a lawsuit against the city, demanding €24m in damages after the tender for the rental of the space was changed to require that the tenant would be a “business showing excellence in innovation, technology and communications,” which essentially ruled out the burger chain. “We don’t want to fight with the city, but we were kicked out unfairly,” Roberto Masi, CEO of McDonald’s in Italy, told the Financial Times. The city has denied that the tender was unfair.

This is not the first McDonald’s to have kicked up a stink in a sensitive location. A McDonald’s restaurant and McCafé were opened in the mall next to Paris’s famous Louvre museum (the most visited art gallery in the world) in 2009.

McDonald’s offered free food to thousands of customers this week before closing the doors on this location permanently.