A story of "launch" disaster: fast-food style

I'm the original author of this. And just to clarify a few points:<p>1. This really happened. 2. It was done on purpose by the owner. 3. They did normally close one day per year for repaving/repairs...and Wendy's did announce their grand opening well in advance.<p>Thanks,<p>Andy Swan

Not the intended point, but it reminds me of the good side of living in Italy. I just got back from lunch at a nice trattoria, where I had a plate of fusilli with "speck" (like prosciutto), cream, and rucola (I think it's argula or something like that in English) for less than 5 euros. There's a time and a place for McDonalds, but every day at lunch is way too much.

So if a competitor site is launching, shut down your site for the day and redirect all traffic to their site in an attempt to flood their server? Interesting tactic but I don't think it's gona work somehow.

The two things I would learn from this story are: 1) to be prepared for the success. As someone said, be prepared for the time when all your ten thousand customers tell their, maybe, thirty friends about how good is your service. 2) Find always the good side of bad things. For example a competitor can simply emphasize your strong points and (as you said here) increase the market as a whole.<p>I guess this is why we like this story even if we do not really believe it.

OP infers that McDonald's intended for Wendy's to fail on their first day. Based upon my experience in foodservice (including 7 years with McDonald's), I don't believe it. They never conducted business that way, and I doubt that they do now.<p>Years of study have taught something counter-intuitive in the fast food industry (especially in a small town where everybody knows everybody else): the better Wendy's does, the better McDonald's does. With more choices downtown, there will be more traffic.<p>The best food service organizations welcome others, not as competitors to fight over a bigger piece of pie, but as "partners" to make the whole pie bigger.<p>It's up to us to figure out how this lesson applies to our industry. There's probably a symbiotic relationship out there for us to find as well.

I don't know - it could backfire as well. Sometimes long lines in a new place could give the impression that place is better, especially for people not in line - people just driving through downtown. So, it might be an experiment worth trying, but by no means guarantees success.