Cook County News Herald

Grand Portage sets record destination distance from McDonald’s



We know we are remote in Cook County. The school bus route is either the first or second-longest in the contiguous United States. The nearest movie theater is in Thunder Bay, and it is 85 miles away from Grand Marais, but who can cross the border to see a movie? And if you are having a baby, plan, plan, plan because Duluth is 110 heart-pounding quickly expanding uterus miles from here and that’s the closest place to give birth in a medical facility.

But the furthest inhabited area from an American McDonalds in the lower 48 states is, wait for it…Grand Portage, Minnesota, which is 88.7 miles away from the McDonald’s in Two Harbors. That’s a long drive to pick up a Big Mac, but I have known people who have made the trip for just that.

Even the folks living in towns or cities in Alaska have a shorter commute than the folks in Grand Portage to get their “Mac Attack” orders filled, with an average commute of 56 miles.

The average distance to travel to a McDonald’s in the lower 48 states is 3.07 miles from home. If you live in a city of a million or more people, that distance drops to 1.02 miles.

Folks living in Crum Lynne, Pennsylvania, have to travel a scant .16 mile, the shortest distance to pick up a Happy Meal.

Of course, when the border finally opens for non-business travel, Grand Portage residents with a craving for crispy fries, snack wraps, Chicken McNuggets, salads—not salads– can make the 44.4- mile drive to Thunder Bay and search out the three McDonald’s in that fair city to the northeast.

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