Dick’s Drive-In, the popular Seattle-area burger chain, turned to social media again on Monday to announce the winner of its East vs. South online vote to determine where its next fast food eatery will be located.
In a Facebook Live video from the first-ever Dick’s, in Seattle’s Wallingford neighborhood, Dick’s president Jim Spady and his daughter Jasmine revealed that the South region had earned the most love. The three-week contest drew 170,000 votes.
Spady said the South came out of the gates strong in the first hour of the vote and never gave it up, finishing with over 60 percent of the votes cast.
Potential southern locations for the new restaurant include West Seattle, South Seattle, Renton, Burien, SeaTac, Tukwila, Kent, Auburn, Normandy Park, Des Moines and Federal Way.
Spady said the chain, which currently has six locations, will be looking for the best site and whichever location or small city fits that bill will ultimately win. Spady said on Facebook that the amount of time to find and develop the property will determine when the Dick’s will open — but he suggested the end of 2018 is likely.
This will be the first new Dick’s since the company held a similar vote and opened in Edmonds, north of Seattle, in 2010. Spady said fans suggested they should just build in both the East and the South, but “as a small family business with limited resources, we’re just not able to do that.”
“What we want to do is build sustainably and carefully to make sure that this business that has been here for over 62 years continues. That’s in line with my dad’s business philosophy,” Spady said of Dick’s founder Dick Spady, who started the chain in 1954.
The restaurant is a Seattle institution and small changes have crept in in recent years, including the acceptance of modern forms of payment after a long standing policy of cash only. The Queen Anne location even played host to a Snapchat Spectacles vending bot a few weeks ago, and fans circled the restaurant to get their hands on the high-tech camera glasses.
Spady told burger lovers in the East to hang tight.
“We’re not forgetting about you,” he said. “We’re going to build this restaurant in the South, and then we’ll build one in the East. Don’t give up.”
