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Dave Thomas Interview
(Founder of Wendy's)

Dave Thomas, Founder of the Wendy's Hamburger chain, is clearly one of the most famous American Entrepreneurs around today.

He opened his first restaurant in 1969, naming it after one of his daughters, Melinda Lou, who was nicknamed "Wendy" by her brothers and sisters.

In that first year of operation sales amounted to a little under $300,000.

Today, with 5000 restaurants in the United States and 34 countries and territories, sales top the $5 billion dollar mark.

More than 5 million customers are served each day in Wendy's restaurants.

Dave Thomas has received every major restaurant industry honor as well as countless Entrepreneur and Man of the Year awards.

It is an honor for us to present an interview with an American original - Mr. Dave Thomas.

Q - Before you build a restaurant in a town, do you do any market research as to where that restaurant should be located?
A - Sure.

Q - When you started franchising Wendy's in 1973, did you have a hard time convincing people to come on board?
A - No. I'll tell you what, I didn't. I didn't really want to franchise. It was my purpose when I opened in Columbus (Ohio) in '69 just to have 3 or 4 restaurants. That was my thinking in '69. I really didn't want to franchise because I'd been a franchisee with Kentucky Fried Chicken and I knew what the responsibility was to be a franchiser. I just didn't think I wanted to have that responsibility. I thought we'd just run a few hamburg restaurants and have a lot of fun. The reason I started franchising was I had a lot of people come and ask me for a franchise. I had some that had been my competitors.

To Purchase this Interview please contact Gary James