Valley City Chamber Ambassadors Welcome McDonald’s to Valley City

The Valley City Area Chamber Ambassadors held the official ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new McDonald’s on Thursday, January 21st.

Located southeast of I-94 exit 292, the restaurant and next-door Love’s convenience store have been in the works since last spring. Now, the McDonald’s drive-thru is open and, the owners hope, the lobby soon will be too. The fast-food restaurant is part of a family company, Dakota Drive LLC, Michael Doherty and his two sons Catlin and Zach. They founded the company in Minot about 7 years ago and have been slowly expanding ever since.

With Valley City’s McDonald’s, they now own nine stores, including the McDonald’s in Jamestown, Devils Lake, Thief River Falls and two locations in Grand Forks. Zach and Michael both live in Minot, where the company is based, and Catlin lives in Grand Forks.

Zach spoke a bit about what the experience has been like in

Valley City.

“The community has been absolutely amazing,” he said. “I would say it’s probably the most welcoming environment we’ve experienced yet—and I’m not just saying that. It’s been an absolute pleasure so far.”

He also pointed out that this McDonald’s store is state-of-the-art. It’s one of the first stores in this region to have the front counter setup that it does, with high tech menu boards and other features.

Currently, the Valley City McDonald’s is working on getting the whole operation up and running smoothly, and their hours are 6 a.m.-10 p.m.

“We’re taking it slow,” he said “We believe in quality over quantity, so as things progress with training and staffing, we hope to be able to be open 5 a.m. to midnight sometime in the near future, as well as opening the lobby up when we get clearance for that.”

Later, the hope is that they’ll be able to be open 24 hours, like their nextdoor neighbor Love’s, which opened yesterday, January 21st. Altogether, the travel stop is more than 13,000 square feet, featuring McDonald’s, truck parking, showers, fueling islands, Speedco, gourmet coffee, snacks and more.