LYNNFIELD — A Lynnfield businesswoman is taking to heart an old McDonald’s slogan — “We do it all for you” — in the hopes they will not only encourage more people to get vaccinated, but also reward those who are.
Lindsay Wallin, owner of nine North Shore-area McDonald’s restaurants, is offering a free medium hot or iced coffee through the end of June to customers who are fully vaccinated. Proof is not required — it’s all on the honor system.
She is also giving a cash incentive to her employees to get vaccinated, offering $100 to each upon full vaccination.
“My philosophy in business has always been ‘why not,’ so my business partner (Vipan Khosla) and I just decided to do it,” Wallin said. “Seventy-five percent of my 450 employees live in Lynn, and I know that Lynn has a slower rate of vaccination. Some of them are very cautious about getting the vaccine. I am hopeful this will give them a reason to put their hesitancy aside.”
Wallin is no stranger to McDonald’s. Her father, Bob King, and mother, Judy Hajjar, owned several restaurants. Early on, Wallin had little interest in going into the family business. A graduate of Winchester High School, Wallin ventured out on her own, working at places like Starbucks and Bertucci’s while in high school and college.
“Back then, I didn’t want to go down the same path so I didn’t work for my family,” said Wallin.
After graduating from Babson College, Wallin worked in real estate for a few years before finally deciding to work with her father. It wasn’t easy, however.
Wallin underwent five years of intense training, after which she was approved as an owner/operator. She bought her first restaurant (Route 1 Southbound in Saugus) from her father in May 2009.
“I was fortunate, as now it’s almost impossible to become an owner/operator unless you are ‘next generation’ or a spouse,” Wallin said. “There are a few out there, but not many.”
Wallin said the nature of ownership has changed significantly, with owners typically owning 10 or more restaurants compared to an average of two or three just a few years ago.
King owned 14 restaurants at the time of his retirement in September 2019, six of which were purchased by Wallin shortly thereafter. Wallin’s holdings include locations in Lynn (Boston Street), Middleton (Route 114), Danvers (Route 114, Endicott Street), Salem (Traders Way), Saugus (Route 1 North and South) and Beverly (Elliot Street).
When the pandemic struck, Wallin knew it was serious.
“I woke up the morning before the schools closed and knew it was trouble and was going to get bad,” she said. “We had a corporate visit that had been scheduled pre-pandemic. We debated, ‘Should we close the kiosks? Should we close inside?’ We were trying to be aggressively responsible. We ended up being one of the only food services to serve in a relatively safe way.”
Wallin said she scrambled to purchase personal protective equipment (PPE) overseas so her employees could manage operations safely.
“It was really hard to get PPE, but we had a really big opportunity to excel and be the heroes in the industry,” she said. “We eventually closed down the dining room and had only drive-through, which I love because drive-through doesn’t work unless you have great teamwork, so we were thankful to have that.”
As cases started coming onto the premises, Wallin knew many of her employees were afraid.
“Our priority was finding ways to help our crews,” said Wallin. “We sent them home with take-home dinners after every shift. People really appreciated it.”
To help customers, Wallin reduced the prices of Happy Meals to $1.99 and increased reliance on third-party delivery services.
The restaurants also offered free meals to first responders, firemen and police officers.
With two school-aged children, Wallin knew firsthand the challenges parents were facing with remote learning. Her solution? Bringing her kids to the office.
“Doing home-schooling was just a ridiculous burden on parents and I knew it because I was one of them,” she said. “I put two cubicles in my Saugus office, we made lunches every day and basically went to school every day and logged in. I couldn’t picture them in their beds at home doing school work, so I was so glad when they finally were back at school.”
Wallin said menus were downsized to lighten the load and focus on key items. Some of the healthier options — like salads, parfaits and grilled items — were casualties.
“I don’t know when we will go back to full menus, but we are still doing some limited-time offers,” Wallin said. “We are still developing new items, but like many restaurants, we just went to a smaller menu.”
Now that things are beginning to return to normal and the state has reopened as of May 29, Wallin said vaccinated customers don’t have to mask up, but employees do.
“It’s for their safety as well as our customers,” Wallin said. “We’ve been fortunate that we haven’t had a single case traced to in-store transmission and we want to keep it that way.”
