Wendy's

[storewanderer]

Yum already owns a burger chain…Habit Burger

Habit will go nowhere, it is a dead chain walking. Execution has fallen into the ground. YUM has tanked the quality of the operation, is opening odd new locations in places Habit never would have gone before and doesn't belong in, and keeps increasing prices.

Also look at consumer reviews on these new Habit locations, they are not nearly as positive as Habit reviews used to be. They are not able to hold onto their quality standards as they expand for some reason. I am not sure what happened. The old Habit before it IPOed ran a tight ship but it was mostly contained in a small number of geographies and most units were corporate operated. The expansion seems to throw small numbers of units in random places and it is difficult to manage/oversee that type of operation successfully. Also it is a mix of franchise and corporate sites which makes oversight that much more challenging.

I can't even believe what goes on at the Sparks Habit and my last couple tries of Sacramento-suburb Habits which used to be top of the line weren't much better. It was so bad I thought the locations (all were corporate) had been franchised out. They also seem to all have different prices (lowest prices seem to be in Rancho Cordova for some reason). Then I found out the units were actually all still corporate. I was quite shocked.

[Alpha8472]

Habit is really not doing well. There used to be long lines and the parking lots were packed. Now you see an empty parking lot and few customers if any inside. Their popularity has gone down.

Wendy's might do fine if the right company buys it.

[storewanderer]

Habit is really not doing well. There used to be long lines and the parking lots were packed. Now you see an empty parking lot and few customers if any inside. Their popularity has gone down.

Wendy's might do fine if the right company buys it.

I think Wendy's will keep being a distant second or third place burger chain. Wendy's does a lot of things right but there are things that just hold them back. Their locations aren't as good as competitors, they seem to be "comfortable" doing lower volumes and don't want to spend the labor to try and escalate volumes, and their marketing since the old Dave Thomas ads hasn't been great. For all the marketing they have done multiple times now of a new french fry yet every time the new fry is worse than the fry they served in the 90's, at some point you need to look in the mirror and realize what you are doing isn't working and figure out some other solution to the ongoing fry problem. Beyond that, I also think the Wendy's product line with the items baked potato, chili, and frosty in addition to normal burgers has a very broad appeal (I see many people who enjoy Wendy's of all ages), the old Dave Thomas ads from the 80's and 90's still resonate with the older generation and the food is generally satisfying to younger customers as well. Wendy's chicken sandwiches are some of the best in the business and the fried ones are actually pressure fried which is unusual for a burger chain (KFC and Chickfila of course do pressure fry). They have done a good job over the years with both "value" and premium offerings and having a stable menu over the years. The breakfast program is excellent but I doubt it is a profitable program.

[ClownLoach]

Before everyone panics here, Wendy's has not put itself up for sale. One of their large institutional shareholders said they would be interested in buying the entire company and taking it private. This company already owns 19% of the stock and has multiple board members. This just sounds like the institutional firm wants to get attention so they can get their point across to the rest of the board. These folks are making similar comments to what has been said above, that Wendy's needs to promote itself more and grow its business more. But really - who wouldn't be asking as a shareholder for the business to promote and grow itself more? I think it's a non story.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/24/wendys- ... -deal.html

[ClownLoach]

Habit is really not doing well. There used to be long lines and the parking lots were packed. Now you see an empty parking lot and few customers if any inside. Their popularity has gone down.

Habit is probably worth a new thread. The original Santa Barbara County units were all still owned and operated by the founding family until April 1st, 2022. The family retired and sold the units back to Yum brands.

Really think about this: as of the last week of March, Yum brands still had a open job posting promoted on LinkedIn that they needed to hire a District Manager for Santa Barbara County.

So first off they have so little talent within the Yum organization that they can't find anyone to go run one of the most beautiful markets in the world where there are still many affordable pockets to live in? And second - the entire founding family was managing this group of about a dozen restaurants. All of that leadership is being replaced by only one person, a District Manager who has just been hired from the outside by the company to run the flagship market for the chain. Seems like a lack of supervision for sure.

I haven't had a bad experience yet with Habit in SoCal, but I definitely think they have grossly over expanded already and yet I still keep seeing Habit coming soon on the failed tombs of Burger King and Carl's Jr locations that went out of business not only because the food was bad but also the location itself. I suspect the reason they're after these is that they are already permitted for charbroilers and California continues to make it more difficult to operate restaurants like this. Maybe there is upcoming legislation we don't know about that will make it even more difficult to open such a restaurant so they're so desperate to build out the chain that they are recklessly opening locations at a rapid pace with the expectation that they'll fix them later? Not a great idea...

[BillyGr]

Habit is really not doing well. There used to be long lines and the parking lots were packed. Now you see an empty parking lot and few customers if any inside. Their popularity has gone down.

Wendy's might do fine if the right company buys it.

Of course, some places it may just be the ones running the locations that refuse to unlock the doors at certain times contributing to the lack of parked cars and people inside. Most places have stopped doing that now, not like it takes more effort to serve someone in there (even just for takeout), and it does lead to lines that can cause traffic problems at some places.

[arizonaguy]

Habit is really not doing well. There used to be long lines and the parking lots were packed. Now you see an empty parking lot and few customers if any inside. Their popularity has gone down.

Wendy's might do fine if the right company buys it.

I think Wendy's will keep being a distant second or third place burger chain. Wendy's does a lot of things right but there are things that just hold them back. Their locations aren't as good as competitors, they seem to be "comfortable" doing lower volumes and don't want to spend the labor to try and escalate volumes, and their marketing since the old Dave Thomas ads hasn't been great. For all the marketing they have done multiple times now of a new french fry yet every time the new fry is worse than the fry they served in the 90's, at some point you need to look in the mirror and realize what you are doing isn't working and figure out some other solution to the ongoing fry problem. Beyond that, I also think the Wendy's product line with the items baked potato, chili, and frosty in addition to normal burgers has a very broad appeal (I see many people who enjoy Wendy's of all ages), the old Dave Thomas ads from the 80's and 90's still resonate with the older generation and the food is generally satisfying to younger customers as well. Wendy's chicken sandwiches are some of the best in the business and the fried ones are actually pressure fried which is unusual for a burger chain (KFC and Chickfila of course do pressure fry). They have done a good job over the years with both "value" and premium offerings and having a stable menu over the years. The breakfast program is excellent but I doubt it is a profitable program.

Wendy's offers great value for the money. Their 4 for $4 and 5 for $5 specials are very competitively priced (heck, at a lot of places the drink alone is $2.50). Their food, while nothing special, tastes decent and seems to be a higher quality than their competitors. It's one fast food place where myself, my wife, my kids, my parents, and my in-laws can all eat (to echo your comment about multiple generations). They also don't seem to have completely lost direction like Burger King and to some extent McDonald's has over the years.

Wendy's may be bought by another private equity firm or maybe Inspire Brands (Arby's, BWW, Jimmy John's, Sonic). However, Wendy's isn't going away and I don't expect major changes. While they may be #3 they're a lot more solid and stable of a company than Burger King which seems to bounce around from owner to owner every couple of years or so.

[Super S]

Wendy's, in my opinion, has the best quality product and variety of any fast food chain. And they typically are tops in processing orders accurately.

With that said, my local Wendy's has been screwing up drive-thru orders on a regular basis lately. As in not a single item is right. For example, I order a Dave's Single, fries, and a Dr. Pepper and end up with a Chicken sandwich, baked potato, and Diet Coke. Maybe it's the management, maybe it's changes in the way the drive-thru operates after Covid. I don't know. It used to be a place I could count on when I was on my lunch break and needed something quickly, but now I avoid them if I am pressed for time. The last few times when I went back in to have my order fixed, the people from the 2 or 3 cars before me were also in there waiting for the same reason I was. This doesn't seem typical.

[Alpha8472]

It is the high turnover for fast food employees. You see so many new faces all the time. The good managers that trained employees well have all fled for higher paying jobs. You end up with the lowest quality employees and plenty of new people that have no work ethic. It is affecting retail and restaurants. Sometimes they have to settle for people with learning disabilities or people who can barely read. Unless restaurants improve work conditions, restaurants that pay low wages will still get the bottom of the barrel employees.

Due to COVID many senior citizens have left the fast food industry. There used to be many senior citizens who had great work ethic, but due to health concerns they have gone back to staying at home. I rarely see as many senior citizens working in fast food restaurants as before.

[storewanderer]

Wendy's, in my opinion, has the best quality product and variety of any fast food chain. And they typically are tops in processing orders accurately.

With that said, my local Wendy's has been screwing up drive-thru orders on a regular basis lately. As in not a single item is right. For example, I order a Dave's Single, fries, and a Dr. Pepper and end up with a Chicken sandwich, baked potato, and Diet Coke. Maybe it's the management, maybe it's changes in the way the drive-thru operates after Covid. I don't know. It used to be a place I could count on when I was on my lunch break and needed something quickly, but now I avoid them if I am pressed for time. The last few times when I went back in to have my order fixed, the people from the 2 or 3 cars before me were also in there waiting for the same reason I was. This doesn't seem typical.

I noticed when going to drive throughts for mobile order pick ups I was often either asked for payment or handed someone else's order. Somehow the mobile ordering seems to mess up their queue and it throws orders out of order.

This is why the drive through should not be processing mobile orders. As far as I'm concerned the drive through should be banned; it is a pollution city and causes a poor experience overall. If they don't want people inside they can install a walk up window. At this point it seems to have turned into a labor saving idea for some franchisees. What is odd is when I go into CA, everything is open as normal. But here in NV this drive through only thing still continues in force with a select few chains, Wendys is one of them.

I have discontinued doing business with these "drive through only" fast food places; unfortunately the main Wendys franchisee in Reno/Sparks is one of those businesses that seems to have fallen in love with being drive through only, and so is the main McDonalds franchisee in Reno (not a huge loss there, I don't really miss going there). There are too many other fast food places around that are operating normally that I no longer tolerate these "drive through only" policies.