Culver’s 2nd Location In Warsaw Opens To Line Of Customers
Culver’s 2nd Location In Warsaw Opens To Line Of Customers
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David Slone-dslone@timesuniononline.com
Culver’s 2nd Location In Warsaw Opens To Line Of CustomersThey came for the ButterBurgers. They came for the frozen custard ice cream.
And they came Monday morning to be one of the first 100 paying customers at the new Culver’s at 2455 Jalynn St., Warsaw, to get a free pint of frozen custard a month for a year.
Michael Kendall, Warsaw, was the first person in line. He said he arrived there at about 8 a.m. for the 10 a.m. opening to get the free pint frozen custard a month for a year.
“Culver’s has quality foods,” he said, adding that the wait was fine with the nice, warm weather.
Angela Stinfer, Warsaw, arrived close to 9 a.m. for the free frozen custard, plus, “I love the mushroom and swiss burgers. The ButterBurgers.”
Glenn Hensley came all the way from Columbia City, arriving at 9 a.m. “I shop over here from time to time,” he said.
He said he was there for the free frozen custard, but he also likes the ButterBurgers.
Teresa Martin, Silver Lake, said her grandson forgot his glasses so she had to drop them off to him. While she was in the neighborhood, she thought she’d swing by Culver’s and get in line.
“We go there every week to Culver’s,” Martin said. With two Culver’s now open in Warsaw - the other Culver’s is on Parker Street near Menard’s - she said they will stop at whichever one is more convenient.
“If we have to go to Aldi’s and Menard’s, we’ll probably go to the other one, but if we’re just coming through here on the way home from my mom’s in Wakarusa every Sunday night, we’ll stop here,” Martin said.
Culver’s franchise co-owner Kevin Ray said the second location was probably in planning for about year, with six of those months to build it. He was excited the day finally arrived to open it.
“We had a little difficulties the last couple weeks with vendors coming out and a gas issue. NIPSCO came out on Friday and had the whole town here working on it, it seemed like, to get us open. So, yeah, we’re excited to get open,” he said.
As for why they wanted to open a second location in Warsaw, Ray said, “Culver’s does lots of studies on traffic patterns, and so we think this one is going to be a pretty different traffic pattern. And, at the volume of the other restaurant we’ve had pretty good success with being up in sales and helping as many people as we can. Hopefully, we can spread out the load and keep giving really, really good service.”
Culver’s is still looking to hire, but they have enough employees to get the second location going.
“We’re right around the 50 range and we like to be in the 70-75 range,” Ray said. “We do full-time, part-time. We start hiring at 14-15, but it’s a little limited with the 14- and 15-year-olds because they have a lot of hour restrictions, but we’re definitely still hiring.”
Culver’s is open 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. seven days a week.
“Culver’s is all about the hospitality and getting to know people in the town, and hopefully we can do some give-back nights with either a school or nonprofit organization. We love doing that kind of thing. It helps us out and it helps that organization out so we love to do those kind of things, too. Just make it a strong part of the community, it’s not just a restaurant in town you can eat at. It’s a place that people like to hang out and enjoy families and friends,” Ray said.
While the menu is the same at both Warsaw locations, the set-up is a little bit different at the Jalynn Culver’s compared to the Parker Street Culver’s.
“Just because of the way they’ve orientated the building, how much space there is and any sort of advancements in equipment, but it’s basically the same,” he said.
