The Charleston McDonald’s closed their doors May 7 to begin rebuilding a new building on the same site.

In the short time that McDonald’s has been closed, many local businesses have noticed the effect of McDonald’s absence.

While the new building is being constructed, some local businesses are looking to capitalize on the McDonald’s closing.

“It’s made a difference in local customers visiting more frequently,” Subway store manager Kelley Powell said.

Powell went on the further say that business has stayed steady so far. She said usually they lose some business since a majority of Eastern students leave for the summer, but with the closing of McDonald’s, they have not lost much business.

In an interesting turn, many businesses have started to change their hours and some of their business practices.

McHugh’s, Subway and Pizza Hut have all extended their business hours in attempt to draw in more business for the summer.

“We cut the price for the lunch buffet in half and we now open an hour earlier at 10 a.m.,” Pizza Hut Shift manager Steve Clark said.

But unlike Subway, which said they are getting more business from McDonald’s temporary closing, they do not feel they are getting more business.

“It’s been pretty slow since the students left,” he said. “I don’t think we’ve gotten anymore business.”

Other businesses say they will not change their practices to try to bring in more business.

“We’re going to keep the same hours and same practices,” Brandon Wininger said, a Little Caesars employee. “We stay about the same with business during the summer. We haven’t really picked up at all.”

The What’s Cooking night and weekend supervisor Katie Lancaster also does not believe that their restaurant has been affected all that much, but thinks that the mornings would be the most effected business hours.

“It would probably have more of an effect on the mornings since there are a lot of coffee drinkers that probably went to McDonald’s early in the morning that now can’t,” she said.

Other newer restaurants, such as Niro’s Gyros, said they do not know how the summer and McDonald’s closing has affected them.

McDonald’s tentative re-opening is this fall when the majority of Eastern students return to campus. The new building will be located more on the center of the property as opposed to the old location, which was more East.

The drive-thru menu at McDonald’s stands empty as construction takes place at the corner of Lincoln & Division. Construction is supposed to be finished by fall 2007. (Amir Prellberg/The Daily Eastern News)

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