The Square Deal

Ever wonder why a Wendy’s® hamburger is square? Our founder Dave Thomas started Wendy’s in 1969 in Columbus, Ohio with a simple idea. Great food, served hot and fresh, by nice people. And the square thing? That came from his childhood role model, Grandma Minnie, who told him to Never Cut Corners. Dave didn’t have the easiest childhood. He was adopted as a baby and then his adoptive mother died when he was very young. His father remarried three times and often struggled to find a job so the family moved around frequently. Dave found solace and community in restaurants – he recalled being eight years old when he first dreamed of starting a restaurant where “everyone would love my food.” Today, we remain committed to his ideals like Quality is our Recipe® (and we still don’t cut corners), and Do the Right Thing. With his childhood as our example, our signature cause is foster care adoption and finding homes for the hundreds of thousands of children who are waiting in foster care to find their forever families. Interested in hearing more? We’ll use this space to give you The Square Deal™ – our views on food, quality, culture, children’s issues and doing our best to make Dave proud.

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Content from this campaign

Diversity & Inclusion

The Future is Female: Break Through Ideas for Women in Foodservice
As we celebrate Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day this week, I’m spending it with 50 of my Wendy’s colleagues at the Women’s Foodservice Forum (WFF) Annual Leadership Development Conference in Dallas. Together with thousands of other women – and a few men – in our industry, we’re celebrating women in leadership positions while also navigating the difficult conversation of gender equity in the workplace. I’m coming away from it both hopeful and now armed with powerful tools and a community of colleagues championing the same vision.

Responsible Production & Consumption

Wendy’s Chili Recipe Isn’t Your Family Recipe… but It’s Pretty Darn Close
Being a resourceful man – and a little ahead of his time – Dave Thomas inherently understood the concept of food recovery. And by building the brand on the promise of serving fresh, never frozen beef*, Dave knew his hamburgers would have a shorter shelf-life. He even asked himself, “what do you do with the leftover hamburger?” The answer was simple: combine the beef we use for our hamburgers with a hearty helping of vegetables, chili beans and a dash of spice.

Philanthropy & Cause Initiatives

Meet the Woman at Wendy’s Fighting for Children in Foster Care
Mary Schell, Wendy’s® Chief Public Affairs Officer, recently spoke to the International Franchise Association about her goals for the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption in 2018 and beyond. With ambitions to dramatically scale the unique Wendy’s Wonderful Kids® recruiting model by convincing all 50 states to join those already on board to make this model their official approach to adoption, the end goal is simple: find a forever home for every child in the foster care system.

Awards, Ratings & Rankings

Beyond the Food: Wendy’s Recognized as an Outstanding Workplace
At the recent TDn2K™ (Transforming Data into Knowledge) conference, the Wendy’s Company received a 2018 Global Best Practices Award for being an industry leader in hourly and management turnover, diversity, compensation and year over year results.

Responsible Business & Employee Engagement

Lessons Learned from Restaurant Icon Dave Thomas
It’s difficult to quantify the number of lives that Dave Thomas touched throughout his 69 years of life. From our 6,500 restaurants who employ around 30 employees per restaurant per year, combined with the thousands of children in the foster care system who have been paired with a Wendy’s Wonderful Kids Recruiter, plus all the restaurant support center employees, contractors, suppliers and agencies that serve to support the Wendy’s restaurants…the number must be in the billions and counting.

Research, Reports & Publications

Wendy's | Investing in Quality and Making Progress on Animal Antibiotics
We’ve just published a year-end recap of our corporate responsibility efforts at Wendy’s. Having now done this twice, it’s fair to say this is a practice we will follow on at least an annual basis. It was a busy year with encouraging progress on several fronts, and we spent a lot of time working on sustainable food issues related to the livestock in our supply chain.

Events, Media & Communications

#NuggsForCarter and Wendy’s Chicken Nuggets Make Twitter’s “Year on Twitter” List
Carter Wilkerson is still the reigning Twitter king for getting the most retweets of all time, surpassing Ellen DeGeneres and her celebrity friends’ infamous Oscar-Selfie. The best part of this whole thing? Carter is a wonderful young man from a great, supportive family. While the attention was almost overwhelming, he responded the only way he knew how: by remaining his true self. He took the opportunity and the fame and paid it forward by raising money and awareness for both foster care adoption and breast cancer research. Both causes benefitted significantly because Carter thought more about others then he did himself, and that’s something that is all too rare in today’s world. We can all learn from his example.

Social Impact & Volunteering

Supporting and Honoring Our Veterans
With Veteran’s Day just around the corner, we wanted to pause and take a moment to reflect and share our thanks to those who’ve dedicated their lives in service to our great country. We’re proud of the many men and women in the armed forces who’ve fought and continue to fight for freedom.

Philanthropy & Cause Initiatives

Mark Your Calendar: Dinner at Wendy’s on November 14!
On Tuesday, November 14 between the hours of 5:00 pm and 8:00 pm, 15% of restaurant sales from customers who visit a participating Wendy’s restaurant for dinner will be donated to the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption® in recognition of National Adoption Month. These funds will support the DTFA’s continued efforts to find forever homes for children waiting in foster care.

Supply Chain & the Circular Economy

Wendy's Celebrates Supplier Excellence with Annual Golden Link Awards
Wendy’s recently hosted its annual meeting in Las Vegas, at which the most outstanding suppliers and distributors were presented with Golden Link Awards by Quality Supply Chain Co-op (QSCC). The Golden Link award recognizes the critical role they play as a link in Wendy’s supply chain. Wendy’s also presented their Quality Assurance award to honor a supplier who consistently maintains the highest standards of food quality and product safety. Of hundreds of suppliers and distributors, these twelve earned the QSCC Golden Link awards for their performance over the past two years.

More from The Wendy's Company

  1. The Square Deal
    Ever wonder why a Wendy’s® hamburger is square? Our founder Dave Thomas started Wendy’s in 1969 in Columbus, Ohio with a simple idea. Great food...