McDonald’s Corp. calls Chicago home, with its corporate headquarters and some 400 restaurants, but CEO Chris Kempczinski issued a frank warning Wednesday about the city’s crime and social deterioration. “Everywhere I go I am confronted by the same question these days: ‘What’s going on in Chicago?’ . . . There is a general sense out there that our city is in crisis,” he said, and he’s right.

The fast-food chain moved its headquarters to the Loop from the suburbs in 2018, and Mr. Kempczinski estimates its economic contribution to the city at $2 billion a year. But lawlessness is taking a toll. “It’s felt most significantly every single day in the restaurants,” he told the Economic Club of Chicago. “We have violent crime that is happening in our restaurants . . . we are seeing homelessness issues in our restaurants, we are having drug overdoses that are happening in our restaurants.”