photo by: Niamh Coomey
Iceburgh, the Pittsburgh Penguins mascot, was on hand Monday to celebrate the opening of Dunkin’s new location on National Road in Wheeling.
Dunkin’ held a ribbon cutting ceremony Monday morning to celebrate its first day of business in Wheeling.
The new location on National Road, which opened for business at 4:30 a.m., has already seen lines of hungry customers.
Mike Zappone, director of Facilities and Construction for Heartland Restaurant Group, said the old Hardee’s lot was the perfect location for the new Dunkin’. The franchise group has been looking at this spot for a long time, Zappone said.
“It was exactly where we wanted to be right with similar-minded competitors that have the same type of traffic, and it’s the most traveled section of road in the entire city. So, it was exactly where we’d want to debut in the market,” Zappone said.
The first day of business was successful, Zappone said.
“It’s been right up there with any other big openings that we’ve done, and we’ve kind of expected that between the media coverage and even people while we were training that were coming up and trying to see if we were open,” he said.
The parking lot remained consistently full during the ribbon cutting, with cars tentatively entering the drive-thru so as not to disrupt the ceremony. Several vehicles driving up and down National Road honked as they passed the new location, seemingly in support of the grand opening.
“We expected it was going to be a good successful opening, and Wheeling has delivered. It’s been exactly what we would want,” Zappone said.