What is now a fast-food fixture where moms take their toddlers for a Happy Meal or commuters grab a breakfast sandwich was once the social epicenter of teenage life in Orem. That's right -- McDonald's.

It was the place teens would go after the big football game, for dates, or to attend one of the many special promotional events staff planned at the restaurant, she said. Back then, there weren't the same corporate restraints on what employees could do or what kind of events could be held at the restaurant; it was operated more like a "Mom and Pop"-type diner, she said.

"When the movie 'Grease' came out, we had a big '50s night," she said. "A couple of times [the owners] let us sleep overnight and watch movies. ... We would watch fireworks from the roof. ... Everyone knew each other."

The restaurant's owner is now planning to tear it down to build a larger, more modern store complete with a Playland on the same spot. Hearing that news made VanLeuven want to renew past friendships and associations with friends and co-workers with whom she had shared so many fun and memorable moments.

"All these emotions are going through me," VanLeuven said. "... It's not really sad but that it kind of ended those things that people didn't know about."

Best friends worked with each other and younger siblings often got jobs working alongside their older brother or sister, VanLeuven said. Employees dated each other, some relationships even evolved into marriages. There also were tales of kids making out on the break room sofa and one infamous incident in which several teens were caught skinny dipping in the SCERA pool after closing the restaurant.

KayLynn Palmer, who was 20 when she started working at the McDonald's when it opened, said the employees were a close-knit group and would often get together after hours to go roller skating, dancing or to the drive-in movie theater.

"We would bring in TVs and watch the series 'Soap,' " she said. "People met their husbands and wives. I went through a marriage, baby and divorce all at McDonald's."

Debbie Lauder Woolf, a close friend of VanLeuven, said she and her husband Tim figured out they had met at the McDonald's before they knew each other, without realizing it.

"When we were dating, his voice sounded familiar. ... This was one or two years after I worked there," she said. The couple eventually deduced that Tim had come in regularly to eat there with his ski patrol buddies in the years she worked behind the counter.

"I recognized his laugh," she said.

Brent White, a classmate of VanLeuven who now lives in southern California, worked at the restaurant beginning his junior year of high school and continued into college. He said the dating scene was huge and the social atmosphere was even larger.

"You knew what was going on, knew what had happened between this guy and this girl, and that this group of guys was going racing," he said. "It was kind of '50s retro."

White remembers the ugly '70s orange and brown polyester uniforms they wore and to this day, when he walks into a McDonald's, recalls the distinct odor of the fast-food joint.

It was during their stint in the '70s at Mickey D's that drive-thrus, birthday parties, chicken nuggets and breakfast menus came into being.

One night, the employees all got together after closing hours and prepared a massive formal dinner, White said. Another time, eight employees conspired to take a guy's bright yellow Volkswagen Beetle and carry it into the shed in the back that housed grease canisters.

"The guy came out after his shift and there was literally no way he could get it out," White said. "It was the best and most memorable prank I've ever done in my life."

Woolf recalls someone dropping a smoke bomb into her Toyota Corolla.

"My heater didn't work all winter," she said.

Another time she was doing inventory at night and accidentally dropped her pen into a vat of oil used to cook french fries.

"I instinctively put my hand in," Woolf said. "I sat with my hand in a glass of ice water the rest of the night."

Woolf and VanLeuven say they have dreams that they're still working at McDonald's. White said his McMemories are something he'll always carry with him.

"Now, it's a job. You go there because you have to work. ... It wasn't work for us. It was our social life," VanLeuven said. " ... You felt that if you didn't go, you would miss [out on] something."