Or appearance is everything, if you prefer. There’s a reason why McDonald’s Germany is going to start looking a little green around the gills here in the coming months, it’s going to get a green facelift. Management here wants to “reposition the restaurant as a bastion of environmental friendliness” or something.

The 40 new restaurants set to open in 2010 will be allowed to keep the golden arches, but that snappy red background in the sign will be replaced by a green one instead. The facades of the new restaurants will include natural stone and wood too. Ronald McDonald will still be allowed to hang around for a while I guess, but only as long as he’s hugging a tree. By the end of the year, more than 100 McDonald’s restaurants will be outfitted with the new design style.

And best of all, the food will stay exactly the same as it is now.

Today the sign, tomorrow the arches. McDonald’s marches on.

“More than 2.58 million people eat at McDonald’s daily in Germany, while the company employs 58,000 people.”