CONLEY COMMENTARY (WSAU) – Last week the only remaining Wendy’s in the Wausau area closed. Several months ago, the Burger King in downtown Wausau, which had the best location of any fast food outlet in the city, also closed.
What’s going on here?
I assure you, Wausau doesn’t consume any more or any less fast food than similarly-sized communities. If anything, we eat more. As a smaller community, we’re less appealing to franchises like Chick-Fil-A or Chipotle. They need to do a higher volume of business to cover their higher operating costs, and there simply aren’t enough people here.
So why did these two businesses fail?
It isn’t lost on me, that these were the two worst-run fast food joints in town. The n0w-closed Burger King, which was right across the street from our studios, was the place you’d eat lunch at only if you didn’t have the time to go somewhere else. ‘The lunch place of last resort’ is not a good calling card for fast food. The restaurant was constantly understaffed, waits were long, and orders were frequently wrong. They also kept the dining room closed, long after they could have reopened in the wake of COVID.
The Wendy’s in Weston also had chronic staffing problems. There was one weekend where their workers walked off the job because of poor pay and low staffing. Since fast-food is based mostly on convenience, being suddenly closed is bad for business. The last time I ate there, they were out of things and my order was incorrect.
I’m sure staffing these types of businesses is difficult. Yet McDonalds and Culvers – two well-run chains with strong training programs – don’t seem to have personnel problems. They seem to be doing good business. In competitive situations, quality matters. Those that don’t measure up fall by the wayside.
Chris Conley
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