Workers all wore white aprons, with men in white pants, a white shirt and a black bow tie and women in white dresses and scarves. It had an upscale overtone, with carpeting, Tiffany lamps, hanging beads and bentwood chairs. The first Wendy's restaurant opened in downtown Columbus, Ohio, in 1969. Thomas told her, "I should've just named it after myself, because it put a lot of pressure on you," Wendy Thomas-Morse, who later became a Wendy's franchisee, recalled in a blog post for the chain's 50th anniversary in 2019. I don't blame her."īefore Thomas died in 2002, he apologized to his daughter for naming the restaurant after her. "Because some people still take her for the official company spokesperson, sometimes she hedges speaking her mind.
"She's lost some of her privacy," he said in his autobiography. Jell-O, Morton Salt, Sun-Maid and others used girls and boys as brand mascots.īut Thomas later regretted his decision to name what would become a fast-food empire after his daughter, believing it put too much attention and pressure on her.
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The full name he chose - "Wendy's Old Fashioned Hamburgers" - evoked nostalgia, and his choice of a young child to serve as a brand character was a long tradition in American branding. I knew that was the name and image for the business." "Her cleanly-scrubbed, freckled face was it. "To me, nothing would be a more appealing advertisement than showing a little girl, smiling and rosy-cheeked" enjoying one of his hamburger's, Thomas said. She wore a blue-and-white-striped dress sewed by her mother for the photos that would eventually turn her into a fast food mascot recognized around the world. Thomas told his daughter one day at home to pull her hair up in pigtails and took pictures with his camera. Soon after, her family started calling her Wendy.
Melinda Lou, Thomas' eight-year-old daughter, was nicknamed Wenda when she was born because her siblings couldn't pronounce her name. He found what he believed to be the perfect name and mascot in his fourth child's nickname. But none of his kids' names fit the nostalgic, family-values persona he wanted to create for the business.įrom his tutelage under Sanders at KFC, Thomas had learned the value of using a mascot to create an emotional connection with customers and a "personal identity tied to the restaurant," he said in his 1991 autobiography "Dave's Way." Thomas wanted to name the restaurant after one of his five children and turn it into a family business. These customers, he believed, craved fresh beef and their own choice of toppings and would be willing to pay higher prices for a better-quality burger. The fast-food burger market was becoming saturated, but Thomas believed there was an opening to target wealthier young adults - the Baby Boomer generation - who weren't satisfied with burger chains geared to children.
Melinda's.ĭave Thomas, a successful Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise owner in Columbus, Ohio, and a protege of founder Colonel Harlan Sanders, was struggling in 1969 to find a name for a new hamburger concept he hoped to open.
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