WADESBORO — Wadesboro got up bright and early on Wednesday to get a chance at free Dunkin’ coffee for a year, and to welcome the new location at its grand opening.
One man beat all the rest: Terry Griffith of Polkton got in the drive-thru line at 7 a.m. and waited in line for two hours for the grand opening to secure the years-worth of coupons for his wife, Pamela, who was working and wasn’t able to get in line soon enough.
“My wife is probably the biggest Dunkin’ fan in the history of the world,” Griffith said, who rattled off her regular order without hesitation: medium iced coffee, extra cream no sugar.
By the time 9 a.m. rolled around, customers had gotten creative in their effort to get to the drive-thru. The line branched off into every nearby entrance to the parking lot and took up much of the neighboring lot as well. Inside, Peter Patel’s staff of about 15 workers stood ready for the coffee floodgates to open.
“Start your engines!” Patel called out to his team, right on schedule.
The location’s flashiest new feature is a beer tap-style coffee dispenser, which Patel said keeps the coffee itself cold so they use less ice with each order.
“It feels good [to be open], we’re excited about this small community, it always supports us very well,” said Patel, the location’s franchisee who also runs the local Popeye’s and Subway locations. “Out of all our openings we’ve had this one has been a great success with the town, the town is very supportive.”
This Dunkin’ includes include a Baskin-Robbins inside, and the property will also host a T-Mobile store and additional retail space, according to Economic Developer John Marek. There is also a PNC drive-thru ATM alongside the coffee shop’s drive-thru.
Patel said the Baskin-Robbins was necessary to increase foot traffic in a smaller market like Wadesboro.
“The problem we run into is that, in small towns, we need two revenue streams,” he explained. “If it was Charlotte we would just put a Dunkin’ and it would be more than sufficient, but being a smaller town we need the Baskin end of it to help grow our sales. This small town has no Dairy Queen, has nothing so obviously the premium ice cream is going to sell.”
The Anson area appealed to Patel and his partners because of the amount of activity he would see passing through to his other franchises, but the closure of Walmart earlier in the pandemic caused him to worry about whether there would be drop off in business travel that would be hazardous to new ventures in the area. This fear related to Walmart is part of what caused the delay in the construction of Dunkin’, he said.
He’s since seen the town recover.
“We’re thankful now because now we see the traffic,” Patel said. “On [staff] training day we had like 100 cars out there.”
Hiring their staff wasn’t an issue, he said, because of the love young people have for the brand.
This location is a family affair for Patel. His family makes up several of the leadership positions for this location and the region, and his 6-year-old daughter Parina cut the ribbon.
Patel said he plans to support the Joy Foundation and partner with the town on other community efforts, and support local sports.
“Anything the community needs, we’re here for the community,” he said.