The Real Reason You Can't Eat At The Original Wendy's Anymore

Like all fast food chains which have gone on to establish themselves as competitors on the global stage, Wendy's started with a single location of its restaurant, famous for its square burgers. Since its humble beginnings, Wendy's has ballooned to have more than 5,000 locations around the globe.

And although you can visit the restaurant that gave birth to the Chick-fil-A franchise just outside of Atlanta, Georgia, as well as the original Kentucky Fried Chicken (which is paradoxically in Utah), you're going to have a difficult time going to the original Wendy's.

The original Wendy's location, which was opened in 1969, in Columbus, Ohio, was closed in 2007 due to underwhelming sales (via The New York Times). Because the restaurant was located in an area of town that was surrounded by government offices, the store was unable to bring in revenue on nights and weekends while government employees weren't working.

The decision to close the location was entirely a business one. Because the restaurant had no drive through, didn't have much parking, and would have required a good deal of money to be spent on building improvements if they had stayed open, it was considered the appropriate move to close down the branch.

Dave Thomas, the company's founder, who died five years before his original location was closed, knew that there was a chance that the struggling location would have to be closed for financial reasons. "I guarantee he would support this decision," Wendy's spokesman Denny Lynch said at the time (via NBC News). "He recognized that a company needs to be profitable." The restaurant ownership admits that they kept the location open longer than they should have, largely for sentimental reasons.

If you want to experience the next best thing, pay a visit to the Wendy's flagship store, which is located in Dublin, Ohio. It's got an entire room full of memorabilia and feels a bit like a restaurant crossed with a museum (via Mental Floss).