An all new construction Burger King restaurant opened this morning in Washington Township (Gloucester County NJ), at the “Five-Points” intersection of Egg Harbor Rd, Rt 41 and Rt 47.
This newer building design features plenty of windows in the front which opens up the dining space to the outside in a way that no other area fast food restaurant offers.
The Burger King location at Egg Harbor Road (close to the Five Points intersection) was developed on what is basically a new parcel of land which was created with the relocation of Blackwood-Barnsboro Road to be further from the intersection traffic signal.
Burger King shares the multiple acre property with a new Wawa which opened less than a month ago. The two businesses are located directly next to each other and are owned/operated independently.
This new BK is a franchise operated by the Ampler group. Ampler focuses on four iconic quick service brands; Burger King, Taco Bell, Church’s Chicken and Little Caesar’s Pizza. They currently have over 475 restaurants as of 2022!
In the 42Freeway area Ampler also developed an all-new-construction Burger King on Blackwood-Clementon Rd (Blackwood location has an indoor kids play area), and they also recently completed a full rebuild of the Glassboro Delsea Drive Burger King location.
Burger King Washington Township Five Points
The new Burger King and Wawa effectively share a new extended property along Egg Harbor Road at the Five-Points intersection.
They are two distinct properties with different ownership of course, but the parking lots are connected between the two stores and they share some driveway entrances from Egg Harbor and Blackwood-Barnsrboro Road.
Burger King is positioned at the newer corner traffic signal which was installed at Egg Harbor and Blackwood-Barnsboro Rd.. This area gets significant car traffic, and the new Burger King building with it’s large front sign are very prominently positioned for cars driving by, as well as commuters sitting at the traffic signal.
Access to Burger King and Wawa is available from Egg Harbor Road in the direction heading towards Five-Points. Additionally there are two entrances off of the side/rear of the development on Blackwood-Barnsboro Rd with one of the driveways full support traffic entering and leaving, as well as moving to either direction on the roadway.
The Burger King building is rectangular in shape… I cannot locate the square footage at this time. The BK was developed with a dual-lane (menu board) drive-thri which then merges back into one lane as cars approach the cashier and food delivery windows.
Inside the restaurant I really like the dining room interior! Yes, I get it’s a fast food restaurant but they did a smart design to elevate the ceilings to be probably 12 or 14 feet high… and then filled the front of the dining area with full wall windows going up to the ceiling.
Not that there’s exciting things to see out in the parking lot or Egg Harbor Road, but the design just really opens things up and takes away some of that claustrophobic feeling that you can get in other restaurants.
Seating is predominantly a mixture of booths and individual tables (in the center of the dining space). There is one high-top table area supporting 8 stools, which has its own distinctive caged hanging lights and an overhead wood slat canopy.
The dining area also features one television at the front of the store.
The sidewall where the drive-thru cars move by features the fountain drink area as well as a brick facade wall with a Burger King signature slogan art piece… “Home Of The Whopper”
Two things that I noticed are… one, I appreciate that Burger King still develops restaurants with a full “old-school-style” counter. There is no digital kiosk inside the new Burger King, just a full view into the kitchen area and staff to take your orders.
This is definitely a different direction than McDonald’s where the location a block away not only has the digital order screens, they’ve further reduced the counter area making it almost like a small booth which at times seems like employees then don’t notice the waiting customers.
I also noticed that this new BK has gone back to the old-school soda fountain machines, and there is no frozen soda machine. The also new Blackwood-Clementon location has the digital soda machines and frozen drinks/
Overall it feel like the team at Ampler pumped up the development budget for the Washington Township location to make it a nicer store to dine in.
I live very close to this intersection on the Deptford side of Five-Points and honestly I’m happy to have the new Burger King! I am a fan of their flame-broiled burgers and even the old-school classic chicken sandwich.
It’s been surprising to me that with as much traffic as the section generates with so many key roads converging, that for so long the intersection area only had a McDonald’s… well, and of course one of my favorite diners, Seven Star.
So yes, absolutely someone is going to call out in Facebook that on the Deptford side of this intersection many years ago there already was another Burger King, which closed. If you look at the Bank of Princeton branch at certain angles you can make out the original shell of the old school Burger King building, particularly the windows of what was once the dining area!
And there will be comments “Why another Burger King when one already closed”, but it’s clear most people completely underestimate the importance of the local franchise ownership.
Burger King Corporate did not build this new location. BK is providing branding, design assistance, and a food menu… but the development costs and operation of this Burger King rests with the independent franchise owner. And how the individual ownership manages a location is likely the biggest factor for a franchise location’s success, and in the case of thew Washington Twp BK, well as I said the Ampler Group has almost 500 franchise locations.
Links and Locations
Burger King Washington Township – Five Points
Egg Harbor Road and Blackwood-Barnsboro
Washington Twp NJ
Now Open!