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Cunningham emerges from retirement, plans to build Bojangles’ |
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Monday, 08 February 2010 |
 Paul Sims/SDN Bill Cunningham stands with a sledgehammer at the former McDonald’s location on Highway 12 and is pictured with a sign calling for those interested to apply for work at Bojangles’. Crews are expected to begin demolition today on the former McDonald’s to make way for the Bojangles restaurant. The former burger restaurant was his first McDonald’s location. He retired in 2007 and will return to the restaurant business with the new restaurant, which specializes in “Southern comfort food,” Cunningham said. By PAUL SIMS
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A Starkville man has come full circle in his restaurant career in the community.
Bill and Pat Cunningham owned seven McDonald’s restaurants and sold them in 2007 after working 35 years with the company, Bill Cunningham recalled in a prepared statement.
He says they spent two and a half years traveling with family.
“I didn’t enjoy it,” he said of retirement. “It just wasn’t Cunningham. It just wasn’t me.”
They soon found themselves searching for another challenge, he said, so they started looking at research and asking “’What’s not here?’”
“That’s when we discovered Bojangles’. We liked it. Got excited about it,” Cunningham said. “Taking on this Bojangles’ was a like a dog and a bone.”
Bojangles’ Famous Chicken and Biscuits came up in their search and Cunningham drove to Florence, Ala. to sample the food at the closest location to Starkville.
The first contact with Bojangles’ was fall 2008 and the parties involved signed the development deal around Labor Day 2009, Cunningham said.
“It’s been a fast pace,” he said.
Cunningham says he wanted the first Bojangles’ in the state to be here. “This is home. We started here, our children went to school here and our grandchildren go to school here,” he said.
Not only will Cunningham’s reconnection with the restaurant business bring him back to Starkville, it also carries him back to his first McDonald’s restaurant in the community – on Highway 12.
When traffic studies were conducted, they showed the location still possessed the best traffic counts, he said.
Daughter Stefanie Douglas – a 1994 Mississippi State University accounting graduate – will be the operating partner. They’ll build a 4,000-square-foot restaurant with Conn Construction of Columbus as the contractor.
“This is exactly what we all need to do in this country to get back on our feet. I, as a Mississippian, hire a Mississippi contractor who will use Mississippi craftsmen, to build our first store here in Starkville and we will hire 50 to 60 local Mississippians. That’s Econ 101,” he said in the statement. “Talk about a shovel-ready project,” he said.
Crews are expected to start demolition on the former McDonald’s today. Cunningham expects the Bojangles’ will open in July.
“This business is very simple. It’s quality, service and cleanliness and you do that with people. You’ve got to have the right people at the right place at the right time,” Cunningham said.
The new restaurant property will feature a bike rack, a bench, two drive-through menu boards and a cut-through to South Montgomery Street.
When asked what challenge he might face with the new venture, he said: “I think it’s getting people used to the menu” of Bojangles’ “because people don’t really know about it.”
He described Bojangles’ as serving made-from-scratch items “and it’s chicken and biscuits. This is Southern comfort food,” he said. He also said the prices are reasonable.
Bojangles’ was founded in 1977 in Charlotte, N.C. By the end of this year, Bojangles’ will have locations in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, Alabama, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Mississippi.
For information on Bojangles’, visit: http://www.bojangles.com/.
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 09 February 2010 )
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