McDonald’s to honor Mike Meoli with Golden Arch Award

Being a successful McDonald’s owner/operator runs in the family for Mike Meoli, and just like his father, Meoli is being rewarded by the company with the Golden Arch Award, McDonalds’ highest organizational honor.

Meoli is one of only 15 owner/operators in the United States to receive the honor, bestowed by McDonald’s every two years. Meoli will be presented with the award at McDonald’s worldwide convention in Orlando.

“I’m more humble than anything else,” Meoli said. “It’s exciting.”

Owner/operators are nominated for the award by their peers. Meoli owns six franchises in the Cape Region: Rehoboth Beach, Bridgeville, Georgetown, Long Neck, Millsboro and Selbyville, as well as the Hampton Inn and Courtyard By Marriott hotels in Rehoboth.

Meoli’s enthusiasm is hard to resist, whether its talking about his job, future opportunities or chatting with customers. He tries to visit all his franchises on a regular basis.

“I love it. I get up every morning and want to pinch myself that I was so lucky and fortunate to be in this opportunity,” he said. “I love the people I work with. I really think I was born to do this.”

Meoli's father, Tony, built his first restaurant in 1972 and eventually developed 12 McDonald’s franchises in Harford and Baltimore counties in Maryland.

Meoli’s father eventually sold his Maryland franchises in 1990, but when Mike graduated from college, he was ready to jump headfirst into the business.

“I was working for my dad in one of the stores – loved the business. Always wanted to be an operator. I was pretty devastated when he broke the news to me that they had decided to move on,” Meoli said.

“It just so happened there were four restaurants in Sussex County that were for sale because the owner passed away. So my father came out of retirement, came back into the business and over the years I became approved and have bought his portion out of the business, and here I am,” he said.

Meoli has overseen the rebuilding of the Georgetown restaurant and the relocating of the Millsboro location to the shopping center in front of BJ’s and Lowe’s. The flagship remains the Rehoboth location, which last year was rebuilt on the fly in 23 days. Meoli said the Rehoboth location was one of the first 150 McDonald’s locations in the country to sport a newer, more modern look.

“It’s really designed to modernize the brand,” he said. “There was a real disconnect between serving nicer, premium products – smoothies, frappés, some of the nicer products we want to be able to get in there – and these old, worn-out, tired buildings that have fiberglass seats. Now what you are seeing is more relevant, modern-looking buildings.”

Meoli’s father won the Golden Arch Award in 1990. Meoli said his award would never have been possible without the contributions of the 350 employees that work at his stores.

“It really is an amazing achievement, and its satisfying to be recognized for all that we’ve done. Winning the Golden Arch Award is never accomplished on your own. I would not accept this award and say, ‘Yeah, I did a great job,’ because that is absolutely not true. It is what we did. They really are the people that allowed this to happen,” he said.