Wendy's

For the Australian ice cream chain, see Wendy's Supa Sundaes.

Wendy's is a chain of fast food restaurants founded by Dave Thomas based in Dublin, Ohio and owned by the American corporation Wendy's International, Inc. There are over 6,700 Wendy's restaurants worldwide[1].

History

Wendy's was founded by Dave Thomas in 1969 and was named after Dave's second daughter, Melinda Lou Thomas, then 8 years old, whom her older siblings nicknamed "Wendy" (originally "Winda", stemming from the child's initial difficulty saying her own name), as Thomas stated in his A&E Biography show. The corporate headquarters is located in Dublin, Ohio. The first Wendy's restaurant was opened in Columbus, Ohio on November 15, 1969, and the chain grew rapidly to open over 3,000 stores by 1985. However, by the mid-1980s some underperforming Wendy's restaurants were closed. By 1989, Dave Thomas came out of retirement and started doing commercials for Wendy's and helped rebuild the restaurant until his death on January 8, 2002.

Products

The chain is famous for its fresh, (as opposed to frozen) square ground beef hamburgers, which are made to order at the time of purchase and in their own words, "served hot off the grill". They are served as either a Classic Single (1/4 pound), Big Bacon Classic (1/4 pound), Classic Double (1/2 pound), and Classic Triple (3/4 pound). It is also known for its Frosty dairy desserts and its chili. Originally Wendy's had only two kinds of chicken sandwiches, breaded and grilled. Their spicy chicken sandwich started out as a promotional sandwich but was put on the menu full-time in 1996 due to its popularity and the fact that compared to most promotional sandwiches, it was much simpler to make (it used the same condiments as the standard breaded chicken sandwich). To this date, it is the only promotional sandwich to have been upgraded to full-time menu status.

In 1970, Wendy's was the first fast-food chain to offer a drive-through window. Implemented initially at Wendy's second location, the "Pick-Up Window" used a speaker box to allow a customer to drive up, place an order, then drive to the window to complete the order. In 1988, they were the first fast-food chain to create a "99 cent Super Value Menu" where (until a couple years ago) everything on that menu was exactly 99 cents. Today however, the Super Value Menu prices can range from the traditional 99 cents up to $1.29.

Ownership

Breakfast

Wendy's has recently begun experimenting with a breakfast menu in some of its stores, notably in and around the Dublin, Ohio, where Wendy's is headquartered. Unlike most fast food chains, Wendy's historically did not serve breakfast, except for restaurants in Puerto Rico. Wendy's experimented with serving breakfast for a short time in the mid-1980s, but the endeavor was unsuccessful. The new breakfast menu differs slightly from the one featured in the 1980s.

The one notable exception to the new breakfast is the Wendy's location at the Port Columbus International Airport in Columbus, Ohio. It has served the original Wendy's breakfast menu since its debut in the 1980s.

Superbar

In the late 1980s and early 1990s Wendy's also offered the "Superbar" [2], an all-you-can-eat buffet. These buffets were reasonably-priced and generally consisted of three "pods": a salad pod, a hot items pod with spaghetti, tacos, burritos, garlic bread, etc., and a dessert and other cold items pod. These buffets, while economical and somewhat popular, did not fit into Wendy's fast-food oriented mindset. Most restaurants stopped featuring the buffets around 1998.

News events

Closing of the First Wendy's Restaurant

On February 23, 2007, Wendy's announced that the first Wendy's Restaurant in Columbus, Ohio, opened by Dave Thomas in 1969, would close permanently on March 2, 2007.^[2] The signs were removed from the building the morning after its last day in operation. Reasons cited for this closing included a lack of foot traffic by potential customers, the closure of museums within proximity of the restaurant, cost-prohibitive renovations that would have been needed, and the lack of an adequate parking lot in front of the facility.^[3]

Franchise Closures

In October 2006, approximately 50 Wendy's restaurants in the St. Louis, Missouri area (including a large section of Illinois from East St. Louis, Decatur, and Bloomington-Normal), were forcibly closed without warning due to financial troubles from the franchisee, WenAmerica. As of March, 2007, the restaurants remain closed and vacant.^[4]

The "Wendy's Massacre"

See: Wendy's Massacre (2000 in Queens, New York)

Ellen DeGeneres

In 1997, the company pulled its advertising from the sitcom Ellen after the show's main character came out as a lesbian. The result was a boycott initiated by the gay and lesbian community.^[5]

Countries with Wendy's

Aside from the United States, Wendy's has opened restaurants in Aruba, The Bahamas, Canada (with some locations attached to Tim Hortons), Cayman Islands, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Greece, Guatemala, Honduras, Hungary, Indonesia, Italy, Israel, Jamaica, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Panama, Philippines, Puerto Rico, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, Venezuela, and coming soon Brazil and Chile.

When Wendy's opened stores in Australia and Colombia, they did not last long. Nine restaurants were picked up in Victoria by Hungry Jack's in 1986 after the Wendy's Hamburger Chain went bust.^[6]

There is currently another brand of fast-food restaurants called Wendy's in Australia and New Zealand. They are an ice cream and drinks franchise which is unrelated to the American hamburger chain. (See Wendy's (Australia)). The outlets have similar colour schemes to each other and most customers are unaware they have separate ownership.

Wendy's also had for a short time restaurants in Hong Kong.^{[citation needed]}

Wendy's restaurants closed in Greece in 2002 after almost 8 years of operation due to heavy competition from other restaurants such as Goody's and McDonald's.^{[citation needed]} It also closed its restaurants in Hungary in 2000-2001 due to the same reasons.^{[citation needed]} Wendy's also had locations in major cities across the United Kingdom; the company run locations were sold to McDonald's in 1999.^{[citation needed]} A handful of franchised Wendy's restaurants remained. Wendy's also had 18 restaurants in Argentina. All of them were closed in November 2000.^[7][8]

Advertising

After successful early growth of the chain, sales flattened as the company struggled to achieve brand differentiation in the highly competitive fast-food market. This situation would turn around in the mid-1980s. Starting on January 9, 1984, elderly actress Clara Peller was featured in the successful "Where's the Beef?" North American commercial campaign for Wendy's. Her famous line quickly entered the American pop culture (it was even used by Walter Mondale in a debate with Gary Hart in the Democratic primary election) and served to promote Wendy's hamburgers. Peller, age 84, was dropped from the campaign in 1985 because she performed in a commercial for Prego spaghetti sauce, saying she "finally found" the beef. Peller was soon after replaced by Wendy's founder Dave Thomas himself. Soft-spoken and cheerful, the "Dave" ads generally focused on Thomas praising his products and offering a commitment to quality service, although there would occasionally be "wackier" ads as well. After Dave Thomas' death in 2002, Wendy's struggled to find a new advertising campaign. After a round of conventional ads describing the food they serve, in 2004 they tried using a character they made called "Mr. Wendy" who claimed to be the unofficial spokesperson for the chain. After seven months, Wendy's returned to an animated campaign focusing on the difference between Wendy's square hamburgers and the round hamburgers of competitors. Wendy's marketing arm engages in product placement in films (such as The Day After Tomorrow, Mr. Deeds, Garfield: The Movie, and Click) and television and is sometimes seen on ABC's hit reality show Extreme Makeover: Home Edition serving food to the more than 100 construction workers. A recent Wendy's commercial features the tune from the Violent Femmes song "Blister in the Sun".

Community

Starting in 1994, Wendy's has sponsored the Wendy's High School Heisman Memorial Trophy Award (also known simply as the Wendy's High School Heisman), named after former college football player and coach John Heisman, to honor high school athletes who also excel in academics and in the community.

See also

Template:Commons

• List of Popular Culture references to Real Restaurants
• Carolina style (for Wendy's "Carolina Classic")
• Wendy's of Michigan The only publically-traded Wendy's Franchisee

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