There’s an interesting fact about McDonald’s that has nothing to do with its menu—like every McNugget being one of four shapes or the Filet-O-Fish being introduced for religious reasons. This one has a Chicago-centric detail involving the one and only Oprah Winfrey.
If you’ve passed by McDonald’s global headquarters on Randolph Street, you’ve probably noticed how massive the ~480,000-square-foot building is. But before the company moved in, the Fulton Market site was home to Harpo Studios.
McDonald’s global headquarters was built on Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Studios
In 1988, Winfrey bought the former armory property to build Harpo Studios. The studio opened in January 1990 and served as the production home of “The Oprah Winfrey Show” until 2011, helping put the West Loop neighborhood on the map.
After Oprah Winfrey filmed the final episodes of “The Oprah Winfrey Show” in 2011, she left Chicago. Her former studio then briefly became home to “The Rosie Show,” hosted by Rosie O’Donnell, which ran for less than a year.
In 2014, Chicago-based real estate developer Sterling Bay bought the Harpo Studios campus from Oprah Winfrey’s company, and shortly after, the studio officially closed its doors, and the iconic Harpo Studios signs were removed.
Jumping at the opportunity, McDonald’s later signed a lease to build and move its corporate headquarters to that site, and in 2018 opened its global headquarters.
