New McDonald's to feature tech upgrades
Scott Hadwin, second-generation owner of the five McDonald’s restaurants located across Northwest Montana, is preparing to upgrade the U.S. 2 Kalispell location with the new “Experience of the Future.” (Seaborn Larson/Flathead Journal)
Artist’s rendering of the new exterior design for the U.S. 2 McDonald’s. The new restaurant, to be built where the original McDonald’s is located on U.S. 2 West in Kalispell, will feature self-ordering kiosks and other cutting-edge technology.
Big plans are in store this year for the McDonald’s restaurant that raised the golden arches in Kalispell in 1974.
The landmark restaurant on U.S. 2 West near the bypass will be coming down at the end of February, according to owner Scott Hadwin. The building is scheduled for demolition on March 6, to be replaced by the first Montana McDonald’s carrying the theme “Experience of the Future.”
“It’s going to be pretty cool,” Hadwin said. “We’ll have technology that no one else has.”
McDonald’s new campaign — one that centers on self-ordering kiosks accompanied by a new interior design in the restaurant lobby — has already rolled out in parts of Europe, Canada and Australia, and in recent months has been taking hold in the United States.
Hadwin makes clear, though, that the growth in technology doesn’t mean a cut to the human workforce. One employee still will work the regular ordering station for those who don’t want to use the kiosks, while additional employees will act as hosts and hostesses, showing customers how the new-fangled contraptions work.
“We’re taking the same amount of labor work and moving it out to the lobby,” Hadwin said.
The shift into the future is a big adjustment for the company, but for Hadwin, the change is another notch on the lifelong McDonald’s timeline established by his family more than 40 years ago.
James Hadwin, Hadwin’s father, left his physicist job in Boulder, Colorado, in the 1970s and moved to Kalispell. He didn’t go back to physics, but instead opened the first McDonald’s in the Flathead Valley on U.S. 2 on Nov. 7, 1974.
“He told his mom that he was going to become a hamburger cook and she couldn’t believe it,” Hadwin recalled about his father. “I guess he’s like me. That’s what’s in our blood, being our own boss.”
The Hadwin family eventually built an empire of golden arches. They headed north to Whitefish to build their next McDonald’s in 1981, then to Libby in 1991. The U.S. 93 North Kalispell and Evergreen locations came in 1995. Hadwin’s parents also built the McDonald’s in Polson and Ronan, although the family eventually sold the pair to a couple from Havre.
Hadwin learned the value of earning his own money at an early age. He first started working at the U.S. 2 location when he was 9, counting the Big Mac boxes in the sleeves once they arrived by truck.
“My father was so thrifty —I mean that in a good way— so he wanted to make sure he got every box he paid for, but I was 9 and that was all I could do,” Hadwin said. “I think half was just coming up with a job for me to do, and half being the thrifty part of him.”
Hadwin said initially he didn’t plan to take over the family business and left Montana in 1987 to pursue different interests. But by working at McDonald’s since age 9, Hadwin had acquired enough management experience to quickly land jobs wherever he went in Western Washington. Those jobs included bartending, retail management, accounting for a commercial grain operation, capital equipment with Boeing and then working for a packaging group. Eventually, he decided it was time to come home and do what he said he’d never do.
“You find out what the world is like and then you come back to your little town, which isn’t so little anymore,” he laughed. He said when he returned nine years later in 1996, “small-town traffic” had begun building and a more diverse crowd had settled in the Flathead. “I think it’s a bigger version of itself,” he said.
Hadwin and his brother Matt eventually took over the McDonald’s franchise legacy left by their parents; Scott owns the Montana locations while Matt owns 14 McDonald’s in Vancouver, Washington. Hadwin’s children, ages 16 and 19, both work at McDonald’s and the 19-year-old recently was certified for a management position while home on winter break from Carroll College.
Hadwin said demolishing the old McDonald’s for a new facility didn’t bother him at first. But a late September stroll between the rodeo at the Flathead County Fairgrounds and the restaurant, just like the one he had taken each year for most of his young life, illustrated how far the Hadwin McDonald’s domain had come.
“It was a cool thing that happened,” he said. “I realized when I came back from the rodeo this year that it was the last time I was gong to walk to this building from the rodeo and I got a little emotional at that.”
But the “Experience of the Future” is coming, and Hadwin is preparing to keep the 65 employees at the U.S. 2 location busy while construction gets underway. A handful will go to the other locations to add training, customer service and cleaning services. He’s been in contact with Habitat for Humanity and the Flathead Food Bank, with other charity groups in his sights. Hadwin plans to send the remaining employees to charity groups throughout the valley, working the same hours, but side-by-side with community members rather than serving them.
“No one’s going to lose hours,” Hadwin said. “We believe in payback to the community. They supported us, so we’re going to support them.”
Reporter Seaborn Larson may be reached at 758-4441 or by email at slarson@dailyinterlake.com.