The Resto of the Future movement is finally catching up with the Little Red-Haired Girl. Wendy’s is closing it’s ‘under-performing’ stores in preparation for a massive identity update and business model shakeup to prepare for the inevitable…
Wendy’s founder Dave Thomas (far right, above) opening his first location in Columbus,
Ohio, back in 1969. I wonder what he’d say about the Wendy’s of the Future?
It’s a story we’ve heard time after time since the Millennium. “This Fast Food chain (or that) is closing (insert number here) of under-performing stores…” And that story has usually been followed closely by another touting the chain’s plans for its ‘Restaurant of the Future’…
‘Resto of the Future’
Brand after brand is planning to close stores in locations where they aren’t working anymore, and phasing out its old business model. It’s a drastic move, but deemed unavoidable to meet the chal-lenge of the future, as dictated by climate change and persistent higher prices for everything.
The RotF concept is uniform across the Fast Food space. Move to a smaller, cheaper real-estate foot-print. Eliminate most (or all) dine-in seating. Re-design the ‘store’ to optimise the layout for drive-thru, delivery, and takeout traffic. Leverage AI and robotics to phase out more-expensive human staff. Streamline the menu to cut inventory complexity and cost.
Out with the old…
I, for some reason, assumed Wendy’s would not be affected by the RotF shift. But even the Little Red-Haired girl from Ohio is now taking her first steps into a new world where her particularly deep ‘fa-mily’ roots are about to be chopped back by the necessities of survival.
Wendy’s will close 140 restaurants across the chain in the coming months, the fast food chain an-nounced this week. CEO Kirk Tanner said, during a quarterly earnings call last week, that the stores targeted to close are are, ‘outdated and located in under-performing’ areas. As a result, their recent financial performance has been, “well below the system average.” These latest closures are in ad-dition to an estimated 100 announced last May.
Keep in mind, Wendy’s has about 6,000 locations in total. “Overall, Wendy’s system is incredibly healthy,” Tanner reassured investors.
… In with the new
However, the company also said it plans to open an equal number of new locations, in areas where it believes the brand can do better. And as sure as the sun rises in the East, and cats don’t have antlers, the new stores will be RotFs.
“The chain is building about 250 to 300 new locations, which are based of the technologically enhan-ced design revealed in 2022,” CNN reports.
My take
The latest chapter in the Wendy’s saga is just further confirmation that nothing stays the same. ‘They’ also say, times change, and we have to change with the times. But that’s a best-case scenario. We do change, but not always in time, or in tune with ‘the times’.
As much as I (and probably many other fans out there) would like to preserve the original vision up-on which founder Dave Thomas created Wendy’s, I’ve already come to terms with the inevitable.
I’ll cope with whatever the months and years ahead may bring. As long as they don’t tamper with those trademark square beef patties… Or change the recipe for the fries…
~ Maggie J.