Veronica Shields-Witter jokes that her initial sitter was the McDonald’s PlayPlace.
She’s checking out the lunch counter at Walters Road and Interstate 35, a place that was run her by moms and dads Katherine and Charles Shields– they were the initial Black McDonald’s franchisees in San Antonio.
Although the area has actually experienced numerous renovations given that it initially opened its doors in 1981, Shields-Witter claimed she still keeps in mind doing research in the rear of the dining establishment, waiting on her mother and father to complete their shifts.
Shields-Witters, 42, is expanded with youngsters of her very own and is proceeding their heritage of running McDonald’s dining establishments.
Her moms and dads opened their initial collection of Golden Arches at the Walters Road and I-35 area greater than three decades earlier, after that opened up a 2nd area at the crossway of New Braunfels and Interstate 10.
However in 1995, when Veronica was just 13, disaster struck the household when her dad was eliminated in a cars and truck crash, leaving her mom to increase her and her 4 brother or sisters while additionally running both dining establishments.
In spite of the challenge, Katherine Shields took place to open up a 3rd area at Farm-to-Market Roadway 78 and Foster Roadway simply a year later on. Veronica Shields-Witter debts her mom’s belief and the East Side area’s assistance for her mom’s success.
” My mommy hoped whether to market business or maintain business, and the Lord claimed, ‘Maintain business and maintain moving on,'” Shields-Witter remembered.
Eventually, the mother-daughter duo opened up added areas throughout the city.
Today, 93% of McDonald’s dining establishments around the world are had and run by independent regional local business owner, with 33% of united state franchisees determining as individuals of shade, and 12% determining as Black since 2023.
While Katherine Shields took place to market the initial 3 areas, consisting of the one at Walters Road and I-35, she maintained it in the hands of a relied on close friend and San Antonio business owner Ned Stagg.
The household really did not market all their shops– Shields-Witter still is the proprietor and driver of the Reverse and Windcrest areas. She is the only black women McDonald’s franchisee in San Antonio.
A tradition to carry
In 1980, Katherine and Charles Shields relocated to San Antonio with their 2 earliest youngsters after coming to be McDonald’s franchisees and being asked by the Chicago-based firm to open up a dining establishment on the city’s East Side. Charles had actually previously been an exec at a State Ranch firm in Dallas, and Katherine had actually been operating at Xerox.
Born and elevated in San Antonio, Shields-Witter claimed she invested a great deal of time at the dining establishments with her household, playing, expanding and discovering. That’s where she satisfied faithful, long time workers, like Veronica De La Rosa, that claims she’s been operating at the Shields’ initial East Side area for one decade.
Speaking in Spanish, De La Rosa informed the San Antonio Record she is grateful to the Sheilds’ household for employing her a years earlier and transforming her life right.
Browsing a tiny pink picture ablum Shields-Witter has a loads comparable tales of workers for many years. She keeps in mind that it had not been unusual for the periodic worker to find remain at their home momentarily, while attempting to come back on their feet from challenging scenarios.
” Individuals come near me and they share tales with me of just how [my father] assisted them leave a scenario, or they were homeless, and he assisted co-sign them to obtain them in an apartment or condo, or he acquired this structure and assisted rehab it,” Shields-Witter claimed. “… I’m still drawing the sheets back on points that my dad performed in the East Side area in the ’80s and the 90s that I recognized absolutely nothing regarding still, still in 2025, so it’s simply been so impactful.”
After the loss of her dad, Shields-Witter remembers attempting to tip up to assist her household run the dining establishments and to assist with her more youthful sibling, that was just 8 months old at the time.
She took place to finish from Incarnate Word Senior High School and afterwards Texas Christian College prior to mosting likely to operate in Chicago for the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Train, a products railway that is among 6 North American Course I railways. She invested 11 years with the BNSF Train as a frontline manager, exercising in the rail backyard prior to she transitioned right into advertising and marketing for the firm, where she climbed up the pecking order up until 2015.
But that year, Shields-Witter claimed she seemed like she was being drew back towards her calls– the household company. She returned to San Antonio.
” My heart claimed, ‘Okay, you have actually obtained all this terrific experience, you have actually developed all these fantastic partnerships, now it’s time to go and do the job that you were contacted us to do,'” she claimed.
After aiding her mom run numerous areas throughout San Antonio up until 2021, Katherine Shields retired, offering numerous of her shops off and offering the staying 2 to Veronica to handle.
She kept in mind that several widely known political numbers, particularly Eastern Side champs like Constable Kathryn Brown and Bexar Area Commissioner Tommy Calvert (Pct. 4), have actually travelled through her McDonald’s shops for many years, sometimes also making use of the Walters Road and I-35 dining establishment as a meetup center to assist intend the yearly MLK March– taken into consideration among the biggest Martin Luther King Jr. marches in the country.
” I look a whole lot like my dad, and I’m my mom’s double,” she claimed. “I would certainly simply remain in the shop, or in the gasoline station, or anywhere, and individuals would really approach me and claim, ‘You’re Charles Shields’ child, you’re Katherine’s child’ to now.”
The following phase
Ned Stagg got on an airplane to Little Rock, Arkansas, when he checked out a duplicate of Black Business Publication that would certainly transform his training course in life; the publication consisted of a write-up regarding just how McDonald’s was the top franchise business possibility for African Americans. At the time, Stagg was operating in the oil and gas market, yet Stagg claimed he recognized he intended to help himself eventually.
That had to do with two decades earlier, establishing Stagg on the course to coming to be a franchisee himself. After conserving up for greater than a years, Stagg chose to participate in “Burger College”– McDonald’s training center situated in Chicago– where he learnt more about taking care of a dining establishment and the firm’s assumptions.
Stagg, that currently survives the city’s much Northside near The Edge and La Cantera, is currently the proprietor and driver of regarding 35 areas in San Antonio, consisting of the 3 initial areas that were had and run by the Shields household.
He claimed he could not think his ears when Katherine connected to him to allow him recognize she was thinking about retiring and offering numerous of her residential or commercial properties to him.
” I informed her, ‘No, you can not do that,’ and we chatted for some time, and I assumed I would certainly chatted her down,” Stagg claimed. However he had not. In the complying with months, Shields began the procedure of placing those areas under Stagg, informing him she trusted him like household.
It’s a tradition Stagg claimed he attempts his finest to meet. For him, success resembles effort, a kind spirit and a great ethic.
” I more than happy to recognize the Shields household,” he claimed.
