They don’t use the local senior center, they said, because it’s in a church a mile and a half away. (Never mind that it’s in a church basement.) “There’s a van that will take us there,” Kun Pae Yim, 86, one of the McDonald’s regulars, told me. “We’re grateful for the offer. But we are not schoolchildren or government workers. We want to see our friends when we choose.”

So independence is a factor. It’s a big part of why anyone lives in the city.

At the same time, people don’t want to be alone. So they find a sense of belonging in what they think of as their neighborhood, which tends to shrink as they age. The Flushing branch library, free and welcoming, the busiest in New York, is always packed with young and old people, but it’s almost a mile away. A park closer by has benches where some of the regulars meet when the weather is good, but outdoors is not an option in winter or high summer, when McDonald’s has air-conditioning.

Step into the McDonald’s on Main Street, whose layout is one of those glum shoe boxes with the counter in the back, and on a recent Saturday, you could find a clutch of elderly Chinese women nursing a single coffee, cheerfully occupying a nook near the entrance. It’s an area that accommodates eight or so, set apart by a low divider: the equivalent of courtside seating in terms of watching the comings and goings, but slightly separate from the main dining room, with a view onto the street through the front window. Bathrooms are on the second floor, a major deterrent for older people. I watched an elderly man descend the stairs like Mallory from Everest, clinging to the handrail for dear life.

Across downtown Flushing, managers at eateries with restrooms have had the most problems with lingering elderly patrons. Not long ago, on Union Street, a branch of Tous les Jours, a South Korean chain of French-style bakeries, opened, replacing another bakery, but with fewer seats and without a toilet for customers.