The Tama-Toledo News-Chronicle says the Toledo City Council approved a plat of land “contingent on Fareway’s signature” that “is planned to be used for a new McDonald’s.”
That’s big news!
The Toledo city website has a bad link to the P&Z Board minutes for Dec. 22, so I can’t find any more details. Looking at Tama County Assessor’s records, the most likely location is the open space behind the Fareway. This is away from facing US 63, but still easily accessible. Given recent trends, it is likely to have two drive-thru lanes.
This will be only the second McDonald’s directly off US 30 between Carroll and Clinton, the other being in Marshalltown.
A more attractive location, if they could have gotten it, would have been the site of the former Big T Maid-Rite, at the intersection of US 63 and Business (old) US 30 just to the north. That would also be across the street from Hardee’s, which has been Tama County’s only fast-food restaurant for decades.
That Hardee’s could be in trouble, too. Vinton’s only fast-food restaurant for decades was also a Hardee’s, but when a mini-McDonald’s opened up as part of a new gas station, it was only a matter of months before the Hardee’s closed.
Hardee’s hasn’t been on the same price scale as the other fast-food restaurants since 2003 and the “Thickburger” brand/design revision. Since then, though, many Hardee’s locations in Iowa have closed, including one on 1st Avenue in Cedar Rapids that just got replaced with a Starbucks. At least one has opened — in Holstein, at the TA Travel Center, which is the last fast food on eastbound US 20 until Webster City.
On the other hand, no fast-food place has been able to hold prices down in the last three years. Maybe there will be a space for Hardee’s to stay around.