By Gary Nager
You regular readers know I’m not the biggest fast food fan and there’re so many places my body, at this age, will literally no longer allow me to eat. But, every now and again, I do get a hankerin’ for an order of McDonald’s French fries…and maybe an occasional hot fudge sundae (with extra fudge).
So, perhaps the only drawback for me at our new office on S.R. 54, east of I-75 in Wesley Chapel, is that the closest “Mickey Ds” for me (on S.R. 54, just west of I-75) has been closed for renovations since Jan. 1 of this year.
The good news, in this case, is twofold. There already is a brand-spankin’-new McDonald’s that opened south of S.R. 56 at 1733 Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd., within a few miles of our office, and the closed location S.R. 54 will reopen by the end of this month, with an official Grand Opening and ribbon-cutting ceremony being held on Saturday, May 3.
Jack Frost, who actually originally opened the S.R. 54 location that is under renovation (it was his first in Florida) back in 1985 and the BBD location south of S.R.56 is the fourth he today owns with his sons Chris and John. The Frost family has been the only McD’s franchise owner the residents of New Tampa and Wesley Chapel have had to deal with and there’s no doubt that the Frosts have always been outstanding community partners.
Closing the S.R. 54 restaurant, even temporarily, has been a tough, but necessary thing to do for the Frosts, as operations manager Carlos Pietri says the original Wesley Chapel location has been the busiest of their four franchise locations (the others not yet mentioned are located in Tampa Palms and in the New Tampa Center, just north of Cross Creek Blvd. on BBD).
But, Pietri says that the new McDonald’s that will open in its place later this month actually will be, at 134 seats, the second largest in the entire state of Florida, behind only the popular location on Sand Lake Rd. near Universal Studios in Orlando. “It also will feature what is known as a ‘Fast Forward’ McCafe area,” Pietri says, “which is sort of a store within a store for coffee and other beverages and may add specialty snacks in the future.”
Pietri adds that the Grand Opening celebration is taking place so much later than the reopening because, “That was the earliest we could get Ronald here. That’s one busy clown.”
For the Wiregrass Ranch-area McDonald’s, call 907-9400.
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