A 19-year-old Australian tourist was stabbed inside a notorious Manhattan McDonald’s that locals call “Murder McDonald’s.”
The attack happened around 2 a.m. Monday at the 24-hour McDonald’s at 490 Eighth Avenue, near West 35th Street and Penn Station. The teen, who was eating inside the restaurant, was stabbed in the ribs and back during a confrontation with a knife-wielding attacker, according to police and law-enforcement sources. Words were exchanged between the two men, but sources said the incident was largely unprovoked. The victim, who had been staying at a nearby hotel, was rushed to Bellevue Hospital in stable condition.
Cops later arrested Juan Mercedes, 25, of Florida, and charged him with second-degree assault. Mercedes was awaiting arraignment later Monday. The attacker “was screaming and ran to [the victim] and stabbed him twice,” a security guard stationed outside the restaurant said her co-worker told her. The fellow guard, who was on-duty at the time, “said he asked why he would do that and he just stared at him,” she added. “He waited outside for the cops. When the cops came, he dropped the knife.”
The McDonald’s has earned a grim reputation among neighborhood regulars, who describe it as a magnet for drug dealers, thugs, and junkies from a nearby methadone clinic after dark. “It’s like a f–king nightmare,” said one clinic patron named Toaster, 45, who told The Post he eats at the restaurant about once a week. “It’s a murder McDonald’s. They do whatever they want here. It’s like a little slice of hell because you can get whatever you need here,” He added: “You gotta watch out while you’re eating McDonald’s and you’re not even freaking from here.”
Nearby, a panhandler and admitted former drug pusher named Tony said anyone with common sense stays away from the eatery after midnight. “Once it gets dark that’s when all the stuff comes out… That’s when the vampires come out, the bloodsuckers,” he said. “The bloodsuckers come out when it hits dark. When it’s light, they sleep, just like a vampire,” Tony continued: “It’s money hour. Not a place to be hanging out here at that late night.”
The security guard stationed outside Monday acknowledged the location’s problems. “It is bad,” she said. “There’s a clinic across the street so the clinic people come in.” But she said the violence usually takes place outside: “It’s more so the homeless people fighting the homeless people. It’s not really inside here.” Her co-worker, however, nearly became a victim himself — “I almost got stabbed too,” the fellow guard told her.
Khan Raze, who works at a nearby gift shop, said drug activity is a constant presence around the restaurant. “The drug people always be here,” he said. “They’re always selling and drinking. Late night it’s dangerous, especially 34th Street. It’s always people sitting and the drug mafia,” Locals said “spotters” looking to sell drugs or rob the unsuspecting are always around the eatery, and that the scene changes dramatically when darkness falls.
In the viral moment that preceded this latest attack, the 490 Eighth Avenue McDonald’s was already notorious enough to be the subject of a 2015 New York Times article chronicling its sordid reputation. The restaurant sits in the NYPD Midtown South precinct, where major crimes have dipped by 11% — with one exception being three murders so far this year compared to two over the same span in 2025. By early afternoon Monday, the restaurant was packed with patrons and there were no signs of the violence that unfolded there hours earlier, but locals predicted the dangerous pattern would resume after sunset.
Mercedes was awaiting arraignment in Manhattan later Monday.