COLUMBUS, Ohio, Feb. 24 (UPI) -- The original Wendy's hamburger restaurant, a Columbus, Ohio, icon full of company memorabilia, is closing.
"This was a painful decision," Denny Lynch, a Wendy's spokesman, told The Columbus Dispatch. "The store is a walking history of the company."
Company founder Dave Thomas, who died in 2002, opened Wendy's Old Fashioned Hamburgers in 1969, naming it after his daughter. The chain now has 6,600 restaurants.
Lynch told the Dispatch sales at the original site were 70 percent below the chain's average. He said the company has put off closing the spot for years.
Thomas' daughter, Pam Farber, said she and other members of Thomas' family knew the restaurant might close.
"It's like dismantling a lifetime," she said.
But, she said Thomas would have agreed with the business decision.
"You know, he always said, 'Profit is not a dirty word.'"
