Fayetteville figured to be a prime spot for Texas-based Whataburger to expand its operations in Arkansas.
College town. Lots of Texas students. One of the country's fastest-growing regions. A metropolitan statistical area of 500,000 people and climbing.
Thanks to all of those factors -- and some we're probably not even realizing -- Whataburger expected to be well received in Northwest Arkansas.
Perhaps not this well received.
Whataburger sits less than a mile from campus, and throughout the week the line to get into the drive-thru of the fast-food chain stretched beyond the entrance to campus at Martin Luther King Boulevard and Razorback Road.
Vehicles were lined up until about 4:30 a.m. Tuesday. The line began forming when the restaurant opened for business about 17 hours earlier.
"We expected some crowds, but we were definitely surprised to see the amount of people who came out," Whataburger spokesman Karina Alderete said.
Social-media chatter led operations executives at the chain to have Fayetteville police on hand to help direct traffic in their parking lot. At peak hours, uniformed officers were working four at a time, and the restaurant has asked to have police on hand for at least another week.
People apparently waited hours -- multiple hours -- to get a taste.
This column won't do the madness justice. Do yourself a favor and search online for video shot of the opening day when traffic was backed up nearly a mile.
Workers on Tuesday were telling customers that they thought the restaurant had set a corporate record for opening days. Whataburger, which does about $1 billion in annual sales at nearly 800 restaurants in 10 states, told me it was still tallying results from the first day. And as a privately held company, Whataburger will only tell you so much about its earnings.
We do know nearly twice as many workers as the chain originally planned for were on hand for opening week.
When Whataburger announced it was hiring for the restaurant in March, the goal was to employ between 60 and 90 people. More than 130 workers staffed the store last week. Regional operations employees also came to town to assist with the grand opening.
Why the burger madness? There are plenty of other places in Fayetteville to get fast-food burgers. And the city's list of -- for lack of a better term -- gourmet-burger places is also extensive.
From a look at the University of Arkansas enrollment report by state, Texans make up about 17.5 percent of the 26,237 student population. For 2014, there were 4,595 Texans enrolled, up from 1,044 a decade ago.
Back in May 2014, we discussed in this space the fact that Texas-based chains taking an interest in Northwest Arkansas as Texas-based students increased at the UA was not a coincidence. And, sure enough, there were plenty of Texas license plates in the lines throughout the week.
Plus, Whataburger -- which opened in Corpus Christi, Texas, in 1950 -- has for years had only one location in Arkansas. (And before anybody asks, no, it isn't the Feltner's Whatta-Burger in Russellville. They're not related.) That Whataburger is on the Arkansas side of Texarkana.
"There's usually a built up demand, and there are a lot of people in Fayetteville who were familiar with Whataburger from growing up in Texas or traveling out of state," said Alderete, the company spokesman. "Northwest Arkansas was an area we had on our radar for sure."
Whataburger will open a second location, in Rogers, in August. Additional locations are being planned for Fayetteville and Springdale.
Perhaps those lines will be shorter.
SundayMonday Business on 07/26/2015