El Minzah Hotel in Tangier

This new McDonald's in Tangier was opened in mid-September 2017, and it is located in what used to be Madame Porte's, for decades Tangier’s most elegant cafe-patisserie with a beautiful understated Art Deco marble interior.

Unfortunately, the new MacDonald's had to completely gut the interior to make it into this MacDonald's. In the process, a part of Tangier's historic past was permanently destroyed, which is a shame.

There are four self-service machines attached to one wall, from which you may place your order and get a ticket in advance of getting in line to pay. But these machines also accept major credit cards such as MasterCard or Visa.

This spacious location has seats, tables and booths inside that are not particularly comfortable, but there is another seating area outside, to the left of the entrance, set under an awning.

I hope that the manager of this McDonald's will ensure that the WiFi at this location is always working. On my first visit, I tested the WiFi and it worked very well and there was a strong connection.

A few days after it opened for business, I went inside to find this McDonald's amost completely filled up with young people and families with their children. It was not very quiet, and in fact was somewhat noisy, so I would hesitate to eat here if you want peace away from the crowds. There are several security guards, who keep everything safe and orderly. However, with the families with young children it can sometimes be too noisy, even at night.

You may also have a milk shake, Coca-Cola or coffee here if you don’t wish to eat. A large coffee in a ceramic cup is 18 dirhams and a small espresso is 12 dirhams. During the cool winter months this McDonald’s is heated, and in the warm summer months it is air conditioned.

On a visit at 9:00 PM, I decided to bring my iPad to do some work, and for the first 15 minutes I had to listen to screaming children at the table behind mine, and then someone turned up the volume of the ceiling speakers which blared some unappealing pop music much too loudly.

You may be annoyed by the loud live music on the weekends, even in the daytime. As I edit this on a Sunday at almost 6 PM, the live entertainment is so loud that I almost sat outside until someone turned the loud-speaker’s volume down to a more tolerable level. Otherwise, I would have gone to the manager to ask him to get the musicians to turn it down, it was so annoying. It would have been impossible to carry on any conversation with the speakers at full volume.

Madame Porte would not be happy to see her famous all-marble cafe-patisserie-bar in downtown Tangier ruined forever by a fast-food business, but others might call this progress.