The Fast Food Legend Who Trained Wendy's Founder

Not every founder of a fast food franchise gets a menu item named after them. McDonald's calls its signature hamburger a Big Mac, after all, not Ray's Triple Decker Supreme or whatever. (Maybe that's because Ray Kroc, the controversial "founder" of McDonald's, didn't actually found it, but that's another story.) And yet, there's Dave's Single, Double, or Triple, which are Wendy's menu items named after its founder, Dave Thomas. So maybe it's only fitting that Thomas was mentored by the guy who made himself the mascot of his chain: none other than Colonel Harlan Sanders himself.

Well, we say Sanders made himself the mascot, but in truth, that was at least partially Thomas' doing. You see, in the 1950s, Sanders visited Columbus, Ohio looking for potential Kentucky Fried Chicken franchisees. Thomas, who was working for his other mentor Phil Clauss in a restaurant called the Hobby House, eventually signed on, becoming a KFC franchisee and helping the Colonel expand across the Midwest. A few of Thomas' suggestions eventually became signature parts of KFC's identity, including its red-and-white-striped buckets and Sanders' appearances in his commercials. That's right: Dave Thomas of Wendy's fame set off a chain of events that would one day lead to Reba McEntire dressing up as the Colonel.

The story doesn't end there. Phil Clauss, by now a successful franchisee in his own right, asked Thomas if he could help turn around four Kentucky Fried Chicken locations in Columbus which were in bad shape. Even though Colonel Sanders himself warned against doing so, Thomas took the challenge, and immediately set about righting the ship. (Or actually, he righted four different ships at the same time, which is even better.)

Thomas did such a good job improving those KFC locations that he sold them back to the Colonel for a sizable profit. Flush with cash and rich with experience, Thomas decided to try and right a wrong that had been bothering him for some time: his inability to get a good hamburger in Columbus. After a brief detour investing in Arthur Treacher (the old-school seafood chain with only three surviving locations), Thomas founded a hamburger franchise, which he named after a nickname for his daughter Melinda: "Wendy's Old Fashioned Hamburgers." He may have been inspired along the way by Kewpie Burgers with its square patties, but no one can say he didn't put in the work — for himself and for the Colonel.