McDonald's opens new Route 66 east side facility

Gallup City manager Eric Honeyfield speaks as owners Mara and Martin De La Riva stand by and John McBreen records their comments during the grand opening ceremony for McDonald's new restaurant on East Route 66. The brand new $2.2 million dollar building is the first of it type in New Mexico. [Photo by Brian Leddy/Independent]

By Bill Donavan
Staff Writer

GALLUP — On Tuesday, the newly renovated McDonald's on the east side opened.

Martin De La Riva, the owner of the McDonald franchises in this area, said he expects the new store to attract plenty of attention, as people who usually go to the other two McDonalds in town check it out.

But eventually, he said, the traffic to his stores will go back to normal.

The question is whether area families will be able to tear their children from the new 5,500 McDonalds with its indoor play area and free video games for kids.

And as for the adults with two different drive-ins, there will be less waiting, especially since the new store comes equipped with machines that will make the drinks automatically as soon as the order is placed. The machinery can also automatically make french fries and operate a security monitoring system.

Even Eric Honeyfield, Gallup's city manager, was impressed at the improvements that the De La Riva family brought to the new building.

"Modern customers want modern facilities," he said.

The De La Riva family, which owns the McDonalds here and in Grants, as well as several more throughout New Mexico, decided that when they complied with the company's requirements to build new stores every two decades or so, they would do it right.

"We didn't have to do this big a store," said De La Riva. But he spent $2.2 million because, he said, "it would be good for the city and my customers."

Chamber Director Herb Mosher pointed out that the building is the first of its design in the state and praised the De La Riva family for making the restaurant fit into the area by using natural stones on the floor.

The size of the store ended up with the seating going from 79 to 120, with parents being able to sit by large picture windows in the restaurant part and watch their children play on the slides and in the tree house.

The new store will also increase the number of employees by a third to 60.

De La Riva said he had hoped to have the store open by the middle of December but the wet winter forced the opening to be moved back more than three months.

Since the other two McDonalds in town were either rebuilt or opened in 1993, it will be several years before these will have to be renovated.

But his next big project will be at the McDonalds in Grants, which he expects to close down in February so a new facility can be built there. Since it's the only McDonalds in Grants, De La Riva said he hopes to get the new facility up and running quicker than this one.