Shirley, who works at the local Wendy’s is used to me walking in and asking for Big Macs and Whoppers and even Scotch when she makes the mistake of saying, “anything else we can get for you?”

She knows by now that I’m there to order two half-size Apple Pecan Chicken Salads. They’re darn tasty and keep me from having to make a tossed salad when I get home.

I asked Shirley if she was passing my menu ideas up the chain of command to “corporate.” She punched me in the arm, indicating (I guess) that she wasn’t. Her punch didn’t hurt because the’s my age and still working a 9-5 gig.

So, since I know Wendys Corporate will see this post, here are a few ideas the local Wendys hasn’t been sending you.

• Offer Scotch. It’s very tasty with a junior bacon cheeseburger. It’s almost a must with the Baconator. I’d like to see a nice single malt, but if you have to keep prices down by serving a blend, that’s okay.
• Sell Competing Products. Sometimes people go into a fast food place and forget where they are. You could take care of this by stocking entrees from KFC, Taco Bell, Subway, and Burger King.
• Real Loaded French Fries. Your chili is pretty good, but I can’t see ordering “loaded French fries” with a ladle of chili on top of them. Shirley promised to tell you that drizzling a dirty martini over an order of fries would be the cat’s pajamas. Very tasty, very savory, as long as you don’t eat them while driving. And, you could certainly claim they were loaded–along with your customers.
• Marijuana Salad Dressing. Your salad dressings are pretty good. But a new “herbal” dressing that includes pot would not only ramp up the salads but would bring customers back for more. If anyone asks what’s in the dressings, just say “basil, thyme, oregano and other stuff.” Shirley told me the employees would just suck down the dressing straight out of the little packets. My response was you to think of that as medicine and that means fewer sick days. And really, from the advice of experts, a packet of dressing with a little pot in it is probably healthier than a super-sized Coke.

Wendys, if you want more ideas with the same quality and money-making punch as these, leave a comment on my blog. At some point, I might ask for a cut of the profits so I can afford the salad dressing and the loaded French fries.

–Malcolm