Some people are desperate for different thing, some are desperate to see family and friends and will flout rules to do it, whilst some are desperate to get out of the house and go to a furniture shop or drive through.
Everyone is different.
I absolutely hate going to Ikea but through Mr MD once bought some metal bar shelves for the kitchen to put all his pans on. He also bought hooks which dangle from the bars to hang utensils from. Of course he did not buy enough so we had to go back. The way it is planned makes you walk through every department, hoping you'll pick up something else of course, but a very helpful person told us to walk through the doors marked "staff only". They just take you through the the department on the other side of the wall and you get through a lot quicker. If you want furniture and you know the reference number then go in through the exit door as that's where all the flatpack stuff is. You can get through if you are cheeky but polite.
I assume that the McDonalds thing is parents desperate to appease their kids that have had to go 10 weeks without a Happy meal. There's some sense to that.
My OH reckons it's people going to IKEA because they started jobs in lockdown that they couldn't finish. A couple of hours queueing is better than weeks of being moaned at. Makes sense.
I'm a knckle dragger but you wouldn't catch me queuing for it, in fact generally the only reason I use it is because it is fast. Must be the kid angle as suggested above.
As for IKEA, maybe people thought they would get their stuff easily but then found a queue so decided to tough it out expecting it not be be as long as it turned out to be?
//...but i've never been in a fast food restaurant, am i unusual? //
I went into one once. I think it was called "Wendy's" in London's West End. Why I went there is (thankfully) lost in the mists of time. I was given my dinner in two cardboard boxes and was given a paper "table mat" to eat them from. Once I'd tasted the food I realised why I'd been given the packaging: I'd have been better off eating the paper and cardboard.
My local McDonald's closed down for a few days a year or so ago for redecoration. Actually I think it was for a "deep clean" to get the grease off the walls. The scenes round and about were a sight to behold. People turning up to find it closed were literally wailing in the street. There was a delivery lorry in there yesterday, presumably stocking up for today's big reopening. I noticed the lorry had a sign on the side saying that they recycle their cooking oil to make fuel for their lorries. I think they'd do better to simply go into the fuel business and find a way to turn their burgers and chips into petrol.