Southside McDonald’s Manager

Wins Top Honors For Restaurant

ONEONTA “ John Crotts, General Manager of the McDonald’s on Southside, knows that it’s all about service with a smile.

“I enjoy my job,” he said. “We have a good time here.”

And last week, Crotts was once again given the McDonald’s Outstanding Restaurant Managers award for the Philadelphia Region, which spans from Pennsylvania to Watertown, as well as parts of New Jersey and Delaware. “It goes to the top 10 percent of General Managers across 14,000 restaurants nationwide,” he said. “It’s really nice to get.”

It’s his seventh such award, taking the prize in 2007, when he started as the General Manager of the McDonald’s inside WalMart, then every year from 2009-13 on Southside. “In 2014 and 15, the restaurant was closed for renovation,” he said. “Hard to win Outstanding Manager when you don’t have a restaurant to manage!”

In 2010, he was also award the Ray Kroc award, the highest recognition to be given to a manager.

The award is based on sales, survey results and corporate metrics, said Crotts. “We’re very fast compared to other restaurants in our area,” he said. “We have a lot of friendly people on our crew, and our customers like that.”

Crotts has been with the company since 1999, when he started working a crew member at the Chestnut Street location to pay his way through SUNY Oneonta, where he was studying restaurant management. In addition to Southside and WalMart, he also, for a time, managed the restaurant in Delhi.

“This is a great location,” he said. “We have a lot of people who come in every morning, and we get to know them.”
And it’s near where his wife Alison works, just up the hill as the director of sales at the Marriot. “She comes down and joins me for lunch!” he said.

The couple live in Oneonta and have two children, Ryan and Annemarie.