New restaurant chains coming to Hallettsville

The City of Hallettsville will be getting some new restaurant chains coming soon.

The first restaurant chain coming to town is McDonalds. The City Administrator Grace Ward, and Mayor Alice Summers recently had a meet and greet with the owners.

It will be located north of the old Sonic at 1628 North Texana St.

“The site was chosen because of the traffic,” Summers said. “The baseball field is right there at the park. Hallettsville High School is out during lunch in town and it’s close to that. The Expo Center also has a lot of roping and events going on during the year. Children from the Little League also can get their Happy Meals at Micky D’s. That’s one of the reasons they’re building at that location. We have a lot of traffic on 77 North.”

The McDonalds is expected to open up in August.

“Hallettsville is a good location for this restaurant because of the traffic that we get,” Summers said. “The owners of McDonalds did marketing themselves. They have stores in Victoria also.”

There will be an estimate of about 50 jobs this new McDonalds establishment will create.

“The McDonalds will be open 24 hours a day,” Summers said. “I anticipate this encouraging further business development in the area.”

Summers said the community has been very supportive about this new McDonalds.

“Everyone that I talked to is very excited and they’re looking forward to it,” Summers said. “We did have a McDonalds in Wal Mart many years ago. It closed because it was just on the side of Wal Mart and was part of the store. The kids will love this McDonalds. They love happy meals because they get prizes and it’s a good meal.”

Summers said this fits in the broader vision for economic development in this town.

“We already have Whataburger that came in recently,” Summers said. “Hopefully we’ll get some more manufacturing businesses. There’s jobs here. There will be management jobs and regular jobs. If people want to work, they’ll have the opportunity to do so.”

Similar to what Whataburger did, the McDonalds plans to be open two or three weeks before an official grand opening.

Hiring will open up soon for the McDonalds as well.

The next chain restaurants that are coming to town will be a Popeyes Chicken restaurant and a Dominos Pizza. It will be right across the street from Morton’s.

“There’s construction there now and they have a slab down,” Summers said. “They’ve gotten their permits. This is a sign of growth and a turning point in the town’s economy. These jobs are pretty good jobs that will pay around $12.50 an hour and up. Students can work hours to fit in with their school days and college students can work there too. It’s really good that these chains that come in can give students an opportunity to transfer into a job at that same business elsewhere. This is particularly good for college students who leave.”

Summers is looking forward to these new businesses. Her go-to McDonalds meal is a simple Happy Meal.

“They also have excellent breakfast,” Summers said. “They have an oatmeal dish with raisins and nuts that’s really good.”

Overall, Summers said there are a wide variety of food chains in the area now.

“Along with these new chains, we also have other good options including Italian food and our seafood place,” Summers said.