Around 200 million customers visit Wendy’s every year.
The chain wants to make sure it can keep those guests coming back and add even more. A big step is operational improvement.
“You’ve heard the saying that you only have one chance to make a good first impression. Well, many of our restaurants do this day in and day out, but we are not consistently making a good impression,” said Abigail Pringle, U.S. president.
At Wendy’s Investor Day on Thursday, the chain announced a new operations vision called “Model of Excellence”—model restaurants, model performance, and model P&L.
The first defines Wendy’s standards; these stores have the best GMs, they’re disciplined with training and recognition, equip employees with the necessary technology, and lead the system with the best AUVs. Model performance is how well a location performs against this benchmark.
“And if you have a model restaurant and it’s achieving model performance, then you’re likely having a model P&L achieving great profitability,” Pringle said. ” … To unlock our potential, our mission is to ensure all Wendy’s restaurants are model restaurants. We will lead the way with our company portfolio, and we will work side by side with our franchise partners to drive consistency from one restaurant to another.”
READ MORE: How Wendy’s Plans to Outpace Competitors with 1,000 New Locations and $700M in EBITDA
One major initiative is Wendy’s new scored restaurant assessment. It’s heavily weighted toward the customer experience in areas affecting food quality, taste, and accuracy, and core operating systems in areas impacting training, turnover, and hospitality. Every store will be evaluated regularly by the field operations team.
“This tool tells us where we need targeted coaching, training development, and a disciplined action plan to drive improvement,” Pringle said. “Operators will also use this tool for self-evaluation and driving what they can on additional coaching and seeing momentum in between Wendy’s official visits.”
Additionally, this spring, Wendy’s will deploy a new business intelligence platform across the system to provide one source for performance analytics, reporting, and insights to operators. Pringle said franchisees will use this information to ask the right questions, diagnose issues, inform targeted solutions, and understand how they stack up against other restaurants.
To help operators, the chain will add more field operations managers and double the number of restaurant visits. Underperforming locations will receive even more support, Pringle said. Wendy’s also wants to crystalize accountability. In the past, multiple officials were assigned to each of the chain’s 200 U.S. franchisees. In the new structure, each operator has one dedicated Wendy’s leader to help steer performance, create action plans, focus on operations performance, engage in brand initiatives, and improve profitability.
These combined efforts should help P&L, which has room for improvement, Pringle said. At the start of last year, Wendy’s compared its EBITDA to others and found a 200-to-300-basis-point improvement opportunity. Wendy’s began developing a multi-year margin plan to close this gap, putting it into practice at company restaurants and early-adopting franchisees. In 2024, the chain saw 70 basis points of improvement in corporate stores, achieving a 16 percent U.S. restaurant margin despite labor and food inflation and a competitive sales environment.
Wendy’s believes it can improve company margins by more than 200 basis points by 2028 via five strategies—P&L benchmarking, operations productivity upgrades, menu strategy evolution, technology, and labor model evolution.
A new P&L collection and benchmarking platform will provide automated monthly P&Ls and balance sheets for franchisees. This move aims to shift Wendy’s financial management from reactive to proactive, enabling franchisees to better understand their financial performance relative to benchmarks and identify areas for improvement. The insights gained will also inform brand development strategies, including marketing, menu innovation, and new store expansions.
The chain is also rolling out a series of productivity upgrades designed to streamline operations and reduce labor hours by approximately 1 percent. Key upgrades include the deployment of handheld operations tablets for managers, a new wear-wash dishwashing system to save time, and upgraded delivery scales that boost order accuracy and reduce refunds. Improved labeling systems are also being introduced to simplify food preparation and ensure accurate custom orders.
With the menu, Wendy’s wants to optimize the mix of items to favor more profitable options and expand beverage sales. Notably, 30 percent of customer visits do not include a beverage. The expansion of the Frosty lineup, with new flavors and toppings, is also intended to boost the average check size and improve customer satisfaction.
Additionally, the chain is making significant investments in a new tech stack to support innovative solutions for customers and employees. A partnership with Google has accelerated the rollout of digital menu boards, voice-enabled ordering with AI at the drive-thru, and digital kiosks. These platforms are designed to simplify the ordering process, improve accuracy, and increase throughput, ultimately resulting in higher check sizes.
Automated voice ordering is based in 100-plus locations, and Wendy’s plans to expand that to 500 by year-end. More than 80 percent of drive-thru orders receive a verbal suggestion, and more than 20 percent of customers answer “yes.” Also, the system can speak English and Spanish. As for digital kiosks, at pilot restaurants, over 75 percent of dining room orders came through this channel.
To address labor challenges, Wendy’s is refining its model to reflect the growing importance of digital orders and updated food preparation systems. This approach looks to increase productivity and ensure staff can focus on delivering high-quality food and service. Technology will streamline tasks and improve employee satisfaction, Pringle said.
“Over the past several months I’ve been visiting restaurants, talking with employees, talking with franchisees and company operators, and engaging our suppliers and distributors,” Pringle said. “I spent countless hours digging into our operations, restaurant economics, and our customer feedback. This clarified for me both our strengths as well as our opportunities of where we can do better. These insights are the catalyst for how we’re going to accelerate growth in sales, profits, and new restaurants.”
