Speaking at a VIP event to celebrate the opening of the restaurant, franchisee Richard Forte told Wokingham Today: the Wokingham location in Bridge Retail Park is his 32nd, with most others located in and around Berkshire.
He added: “I’ve absolutely loved my whole time working for McDonald’s.
“I ended up being the chief operations officer for the UK, and I left McDonald’s in 2016 to come home to Berkshire and become a franchisee.
He explained how a location in Wokingham had long been on his horizon.
“I think it became a real possibility about a year ago when this site came up as an option.
“That’s kind of where the relationship between me and McDonald’s lies, It’s down to McDonald’s to find the locations.
“As somebody that lives and works locally, I’ve been able to point them in areas that I’d feel would be good to set up a new restaurant to serve the community, and to be a successful business too..
“This came up about a year or so ago. McDonald’s came to me six months ago and said, we think it could happen.
“We’d like you to open it, which I duly accepted.
Asked about possible concerns about litter and anti-social behaviour, he said: “I’m not new to running restaurants.
“My commitment here at McDonald’s is long term because I’m a local business owner.
“We’ve made it our business to go and introduce ourselves to our neighbours.
“I think that’s a good way to start.
“If anti-social behaviour or traffic issues or litter issues come up, we’re here. We want to listen because it’s really important that we’re a good neighbourhood.
“It’s much better to talk about them [any issues] and address them and do our best.
“We hired a dedicated litter patroller who will be going out to the community at least three days a week on a broader sweep of the local area, not just to pick up McDonald’s rubbish and being responsible with this retail bar, but also to go out further afield and do our bit.”
“We can’t solve every problem in the world, but we can actually be a big part of the solution.
Asked about his total investment in Wokingham, he said: “ I think you’ll understand it’s commercially sensitive figure.
“It’s a significant amount of money,” he said.
“McDonald’s is my landlord for want of a better description, So everything you see fitted in here has been my personal investment.”.
He also confirmed that vacancies at the Finchampstead Road site were filled almost instantly.
He said: “Within the day that we opened up our recruitment website, we had hundreds of applicants so we had to close it down.
“We ended up recruiting 60 employees from day one.”
