Inside Wendy’s Forward-Looking Design Strategy
Photo Caption: A newly designed restaurant in Wendy's portfolio.
Skift Take
Wendy's has got a lot of great ideas about how restaurant design can display the company's values. Will everybody make the connection between the new communal sinks and Wendy's fresh-never-frozen motto? Probably not, but it's a nice touch to have access to a sink without having to walk into the bathroom.
This past Monday at 10am, a ribbon was cut in Gluckstadt, Mississippi. It heralded the opening of a new Wendy's location, one that the company was especially proud of. The new Wendy's has a fireplace tucked into the corner, a 12-seat community table anchoring the dining room, and a cheery quote from Wendy's founder emblazoned behind the registers: "All of Wendy's spins off of one word — FRESH."
The dramatically different look and feel of the Gluckstadt location is part of Wendy's ongoing new restaurant design strategy. Several years ago, Wendy's laid out a mission to start remaking its restaurants for the future. The plan involved a top-to-bottom reimagining of how restaurant design affects all parts of Wendy's operation. Like the competition, Wendy's is perpetually focused on driving success in a number of key ways, including increasing food sales and restaurant traffic and opening new locations. Store design affects those measures of success just as much as introducing a 50-cent F
