Man revealed as source of heritage plaque at Queen and Spadina McDonald's
The source of the hilarious heritage plaque that mysteriously appeared at Toronto's most notorious McDonald's has finally revealed himself.
Just days after a faux heritage plaque went up outside the infamous McDonald's location at Queen and Spadina, Toronto content creator, Jamison Lightfoot, has claimed responsibility for the prank.
Lightfoot posted a video to his social media accounts on Monday, July 8, that documents the entire journey of creating and putting up the sign outside of the McDonald's, cleverly disguising himself as a construction worker to fly under the radar.
The video details Lightfoot's odyssey of creating and putting up the sign, returning each day to see that it was still there before ultimately finding, on the third day, that it had been stolen.
Honestly, wouldn't you steal it, too?
When blogTO asked Lightfoot about the impetus for his now-iconic prank, he says he was motivated by a desire to honour the "REAL" culture of Toronto.
"Inventing Insulin, birthing Lorne Michaels, and giving rise to Neil Young do not come close to the stuff that's gone down in that McDonald's," says Lightfoot.
As for the response the sign has gotten, Lightfoot tells blogTO that he's overjoyed "we are finally being put back on the map for something important."
"After Drake's historic loss against Kendrick ... Toronto needed a win."
While the physical process of creating the sign — devotedly replicating the design of the city's real heritage plaques — required tender care and attention to details, when it came to deciding what to put on it, Lightfoot tells blogTO that he had no issue.
"I reached my flow state while writing it. All of the horrific stuff I've seen there came to me like an epiphany."
This is far from the first time Jamison Lightfoot has proven the mastermind behind legendary pranks in the city — just last year, he put up fake signs around a Toronto neighbourhood claiming "electric vehicle exclusive parking," and the year prior he went viral with a fake menu claiming Tim Hortons was now offering pad thai.
While the McDonald's sign, like Lightfoot's other creations, ultimately proved to be fake, in his own words, perhaps "the real sign of what's to come are the friends we made along the way."
