Construction has started this week on a new McDonald’s fast food outlet on Hindmarsh Drive in Phillip, providing an immediate boost for nearby Mediterranean street food van, Little Mez.

The new Macca’s is being built on the site of Woden’s last hardware store which closed in May 2020.

It will be the fifth McDonald’s restaurant owned and operated by local licensee, Brad Carroll, who joined McDonald’s as a crew member over 27 years ago. Mr Carroll now employs more than 525 staff across McDonald’s Manuka Plaza, Molonglo Valley, Weston, and Westfield Woden.

“This will be the first McDonald’s restaurant to feature a drive-through in Woden Valley,” he said. The fast-food outlet will open later this year.

Mr Carroll said that the construction of McDonald’s Phillip will create 120 local construction jobs, as well as a further 100 jobs once the restaurant is operational.

In light of this, the nearby small businesses that have been operating near this site for several years are evaluating how they will fare in the short term, and the long term.

John Mimellis owns and operates Little Mez, the Mediterranean street food van that locals flock to for their morning coffee and breakfast rolls.

Little Mez sits adjacent to the McDonald’s construction site, neighbour to Brodburger’s little red van. However, unlike Brodburger, Little Mez does not operate a larger permanent restaurant elsewhere. 

Canberra Daily spoke to Mr Mimellis, who said that the construction now casts a literal shadow over his business. Time will tell how being in that shadow affects his revenue. 

“Being a small business – I would go as far as to say a micro business, a tiny food van – it’s a positive outlook right now,” he said.

“Reason being that there are a lot of people working on the construction … We’ve already started to see an increase in business, just from the skeleton scaffolding.

“I’m told through the grapevine that they want to have that thing finished by Christmas, even as soon as October.

“The ramifications after they finish building will be a dramatic drop in business for us, with the tradies gone and people visiting the new Macca’s.

“Will that affect our coffee and breakfast? Initially, it will,” said Mr Mimellis. “Will it hurt us in the long term? I hope not.

“Our regulars come here because they like us. Small businesses have that personal approach.”

He explains that hope for small businesses in the area can be found by reading between the lines. 

“The reason that a company like McDonald’s would come to an area like this is because that’s where the money is,” he said on the increase in residential development Woden has seen as of late.

“They see with market research that this area is going to explode.”

He maintains that the increase in business will be a net positive for the area where he has lived and worked for most of his life. “Here I am, at 50 years old, still two kilometres away from the family home,” Mr Mimellis said.

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