Jan. 6, 2022

What does the McDonald’s of the future look like?

Even the restaurant giant is still trying to figure that out, but there will be glimpses of it in the newest McDonald’s set to start building in south Sioux Falls early this spring.

Located on Minnesota Avenue north of 85th Street, it won’t look much different from other locations from the outside, but inside, an adjusted layout will reflect the direction the quick-service restaurant industry appears to be heading.

“We’re certainly excited,” said Jordan Hartshorn, who became the franchisee for the Sioux Falls locations about a year ago.

“We’ll have some adaptations of a new service platform, which is more conducive to delivery, curbside, any of our mobile order pay, kiosks, things like that.”

Delivery drivers will have designated areas to wait, and the building itself will be positioned in case adaptations are needed in the future.

Customers still will be able to eat in a dining room, though some McDonald’s being tested in urban markets are only takeout and delivery.

Experts in the quick-service restaurant industry estimate that within five years, digital sales will account for 50 percent of the business, Hartshorn said.

“And right now, it’s 10 to 12 percent,” he said. “They’re testing three or four new concepts, and we’ll see what works best and is most conducive to what our customers’ habits are. It’s very tech-driven.”

The new Sioux Falls location is expected to start hiring in February so staff can train at other locations, break ground early in the spring and open five or six months after construction starts.

“We’ve had no issues with supply chain as it relates to food and small-wares equipment, but large equipment is backed way up – grills, drink stations,” Hartshorn said. “It’s basically the microchips that go into them.”

While he’d hoped Sioux Falls could serve as a site for one of multiple prototypes McDonald’s is testing, the company is doing those in larger markets.

However, heading in the new year, Sioux Falls has been named one of two test markets nationwide for a new employee emergency care benefit.

If an employee who requires care for a child or adult in the family is left without it for a day, McDonald’s will connect them with a contracted agency to provide care. If a family member needs to step in and provide care, McDonald’s will reimburse $100 for the day, assuming all required documentation is provided.

“We’re excited about that and think it’s going to be a good benefit for employees,” Hartshorn said. “A lot of times when we have someone who can’t come into work, it’s due to child care or someone they’re caring for, so it’s a win-win in our eyes. But the biggest win is for our employees. They don’t have to miss a day of work, and it (the care) is paid for them.”

Overall, while “there were three or four months where I was very concerned about the number of applications we were getting, it doesn’t sound like it was outside what anyone was experiencing,” he continued. “We had a great year with sales and guest counts and hitting our targets. We’re used to a higher turnover rate than other industries … and we have a lot of first-time people and college and part-time workers, so it wasn’t a huge shock when this “Great Resignation” came in, and I feel like our teams handled it very well.”

Other improvements

The coming year also will bring updates across Hartshorn’s McDonald’s portfolio, including a renovation at the Brandon location that will modernize it like the rest of the stores.

He’s also hoping to open a remodeled play land inside the East 26th Street location – a rarity for McDonald’s today.

“We did go back and forth very often because we wonder where our customers’ minds are on facilities like this, post-pandemic or how that’s working, but there are a lot of rooftops around our location, and prior to the pandemic when we closed our dining rooms, we had a lot of activity in our playroom, so we said let’s go for it,” Hartshorn said.

The new play land has a lot of digital components, “like three gaming systems, so we’re hoping to host birthday parties once we open,” he continued. “Right now, McDonald’s is telling us to hold off on opening, but as soon as we get the green light, we plan to go full bore on having a good experience.”

Dining rooms in Sioux Falls haven’t yet reopened because Hartshorn wants to open them all at once, and “every time we gear up to open, there’s these surges of community outbreaks,” he said. “The company watches those very closely and has data set that if you have certain amounts of cases in the community, you should be very cautious with reopening dining rooms.”

With the new variant taking off, the plan for now is to wait and see.

“In our other communities, they’re usually the only location in the community, so it can open and close as levels go,” Hartshorn said. “But in Sioux Falls, it has definitely been a different strategy.”

New corporate home

Hartshorn also is making a move for himself and his business. He’s moving Hart2Hart Inc., his franchise entity for 17 locations in three states, from Watertown to Sioux Falls.

He bought the former Core Orthopedics building at 2908 E. 26th St. and is remodeling it into offices and a space to lease to another tenant.

“It’s exciting for us because we’re rooting and then certainly for our employees,” he said. “We’ll have eight administrative employees who will work in the office, and the training facility will serve as a regional training facility, so we’ll have employees from all over North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota and Iowa coming in to train from a corporate standpoint.”

The hope is to move in March or April and lease the main floor to another business.

“I think it’s a great location, either retail or office, especially with how 26th Street came out with road construction,” Hartshorn said. “This road is bustling.”