Huntingburg’s First McDonald’s Opens its Doors

By: Corbin Lingenfelter, News Director

Huntingburg- It was a day of celebration for the Mann family.

Rick and Susan Mann and their children were joined alongside members of the Huntingburg community to celebrate the grand opening of Huntingburg’s first McDonald’s. 

The restaurant can be found on the corner of U.S. 231 and State Road 164. It features state of the art equipment that can only be found in one other McDonald’s in the country. 

“We got some of the newest equipment in our restaurant. We've got a restaurant order assembly table that is the second one in the country in the US,” Rick Mann said, “The McDonald’s headquarters Chief chef was supposed to get this one. He found out that we’d like to have it so he said send it to Huntingburg and then build me another one, so we got it. I think it’s the second one in the country. We also Have a conveyor assembly table so our prep line we make breakfast one Direction and they make lunch another direction they meet in the middle and you put it on the conveyor and it sends it up to that brand new order assembly table.”

The Southridge Marching Band played the National Anthem as the American Flag was raised. The Hamburglar and other McDonald’s icons were in attendance along with representatives from the Ronald McDonald House. 

Even with staffing being an issue for many businesses in Dubois County, Mann says he is blessed to have as many as he has currently. 

“We are super blessed,” Mann said, “We have a good number. We can always use more, especially during the daytime hours a week we could use more adult workers, but we were surprised because like you said second and the state gave us our biggest concern for opening this restaurant so we try to pay as much as we possibly can in still keep the big Mac sandwich where it makes sense to purchase, but it is an extremely fine line to to be able to service and in pay all the royalties and everything in and all the back door prices have gone up too, so the product and transportation drivers are much needed to bring us our product so there’s several challenges in the quick service industry for everybody and certainly employment is one of them, but we just hope to inspire and invest, every person that comes here with integrity for the purpose of improving, their lives. That’s really the wind in our sails is to try to do that and be a blessing to others.”

Those interested in working for McDonald’s can find employment information on the McDonald’s website.