Dinner Break!!! Wendy's, St. Anthony, MN

Here sits a perfectly good -and fairly new- abandoned Wendy's...


Sitting in the southeast corner of the old Apache Plaza shopping mall (story to come) was a very tiny Taco Bell, that also used to be a Zantigo's. When the mall was demolished in 2004, Taco Bell went down with it. Which was sad, but it had served it's purpose as a convenient place to grab a Chilito or three, and open those packs of baseball cards just purchased at Coach's Corner, inside the mall.


In the mall's place, a "Town Center" was built. Which is basically a mall, but you have to go outdoors to change stores. Possibly drive a block away to park in front of the next store you want to go into.

Hardly convenient, but that is how we choose our retail these days....


The replacement for the mall on the south end was a big ass WalMart (which is also now closed, story also to come...). The replacement for Taco Bell was a brand new Wendy's. However, Wendy's didn't even get to survive for a decade. The new restaurant went up, served a few years worth of Double Stacks and Spicy Chicken Sammiches, then closed when WalMart fled the city.


You can tell it was a new store in that they didn't get to plant a giant Wendy's sign in front. Instead, the store's identity was confined to the trendy "monument" style of signage. Which is supposed to be more visually appealing, and I'm assuming has something to do with city code. Most of the mall replacement retail signs in the area are similar. Once the sign is removed, you are left with what looks like a window mounted on rocks for no apparent reason...

Apparently this isn't ugly...


Before we check out the inside via unboarded windows, they were nice enough to leave a floor plan of the building for us! Now we all know how this style of Wendy's was laid out. This was before the 2013 rebranding which just made the stores and logo look dumb...


The entrance to Wendy's. No, wait... According to the floor plan, this is the vestibule. (All my best to you and yours...) A few lights have been left on inside, which made the place look more warm and open. If not downright welcoming.


View from the north looking in. All tables and chairs are gone, but the Wendy's quad-booths are secured firmly to the ugly carpet. You can faintly see the kitchen on the right side of the picture.


From the east looking toward the kitchen and restrooms.


Better shot of the lobby from the south. 

I'm trying to come up with anything to say about this place, but it's just so boring...

Moving along then...


View from the drive through window. I'm always interested to see what kitchen equipment was left behind, and what was removed from closed restaurants. The entire front counter has been taken out, but the kitchen looks like it's ready to make me a Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger with NO MAYO!


Conversely, behind the cooking equipment, nearly everything else was gone...


Before we leave this place and go somewhere less boring, I have one more minor detail I want to note... Around back, they had built a handy little stairway for roof access. Now closed by an impenetrable barricade. Had I more time that day, a climb up there may have gotten me arrested!  I haven't seen too many of these before. You usually just get a ladder coming halfway down from the roof...

So... Hooray! Stairs!

Overall the place looked very clean. Boring... But clean... Not one single bit of tagging or graffiti on the entire property.

Which is nice, but also boring...

I took these pictures on September 18, 2015.

As of today, I have no update on the site. So it may have been leased by a new restaurant, maybe boarded up, could be torn down... I have no idea...

But there you go... Abandoned Wendy's...

*****

This is an abbreviated post, as I've got several larger stories I'm working on that will appear over the next few days...


Oh, and good luck to Jose Berrios. I'm hoping to watch the Twins win their 7th in a row tonight...

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