Major restaurant franchise owner shuts after more than 30 years as he becomes latest causality of California's new $20-an-hour minimum wage - proof NO ONE is safe

The owner of a fast food franchise store which has been operating for more than 30 years has closed his restaurant for good. 

The branch of the McDonald's at Stonestown Galleria, about eight miles south of downtown San Francisco, abruptly shut on Sunday, in what is the latest causality of California's new $20-an-hour minimum wage.

Workers saw their wages rise from $16 to $20-an-hour on January 1 - but the added expense for owners to pay their workers has hit businesses hard. 

Fast food chains across the state have been slashing jobs as a way to cut costs, but franchisee owner, Scott Rodrick, was forced to take drastic action after the landlord was unwilling to negotiate a long-term lease at a 'sensible' price for the location. 

Rodrick also explained that the property taxes and shared tenant mall fees were also the highest paid for a single location for the company. He was faced with no choice but to close down.

'This is a gut wrenching day for my family,' Rodrick said to ABC7. 

All of Rodrick's employees have been offered jobs at other nearby McDonald's with the vast majority of them being able to stay with the company. 

'It has been a pleasure for my entire team and I to serve the 19th Avenue and Ingleside neighborhoods for more than 30 years,' Rodrick wrote in a note posted on their door upon closing.

'All of our valued team members have been offered opportunities to continue working with my restaurant company or at other nearby McDonald's,' Rodrick added.

Almost 10,000 positions across chains from Pizza Hut to Burger King have been cut since the higher minimal wage came into effect on April 1, according to a report from a trade group in the state. 

In some cases, chains have been forced to raise their menu prices. 

Wendy's, Burger King, Starbucks, and Chipotle, have put up the cost of their offerings by up to 8 percent in the Golden State. 

On top of that, chains have been shuttering restaurants - including beloved Mexican chain Rubio's Coastal Grill, which earlier this month filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and closed 48 locations in the state.  

Last week, Arby's Roast Beef that's been a fixture on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood for 55 years, which shut its doors

'With inflation, food costs have gone way up and the $20-an-hour minimum wage has been the nail in the coffin,' general manager Gary Husch told the Los Angeles Times.

The California Business and Industrial Alliance (CABIA) slammed Governor Gavin Newsom was for pushing the law through, which has also meant businesses in the state have had to raise prices.   

To highlight the impact of the law, the trade group even created a newspaper advert in  with mock 'obituaries' of popular brands.

Even before the law was made official earlier this year, chains including Pizza Hut and Round Table let go of more than a thousands delivery workers to brace for the financial ramifications of the change. 

The law signed by Newsom in September last year increases fast-food workers' minimum wages to $20-an-hour at chains with more than 60 locations in the US.

That is 25 percent more than the standard minimum wage of $16-an-hour in California, which itself came into effect in January.

On a national level, Congress has not touched the minimum wage in decades - it is still $7.25-an-hour. Instead, so-called 'wage wars' play out on a state level. 

'California businesses have been under total attack and total assault for years,' CABIA president and founder Tom Manzo told Fox Business. 

'It's just another law that puts businesses in further jeopardy.'

He said that officials were living in a 'fantasyland' if they think drastic wage increases will actually help workers or businesses. 

'You can only raise prices so much,' Manzo told the outlet. 'And you're seeing it. People are not going to pay $20 for a Big Mac. It's not going to happen.' 

When the Democrat governor signed the law in 2023, Newsom said the state was getting 'one step closer to fairer wages, safer and healthier working conditions, and better training by giving hardworking fast food workers a stronger voice and seat at the table.'

But Republican critics claimed the wage hike would simply mean workers are replaced with self-checkouts and 'robot cooks.' 

Harsh Ghai, a Burger King franchisee with 140 restaurants on the West Coast announced in April how he planned to have digital kiosks installed in all his locations in two months. 

Until the wage hike, he planned to roll them out over the next five to ten years. 

'We have kiosks in probably about 25 percent of our restaurants today,' Ghai told Business Insider at the time.

'However, the other 75 percent are going to have kiosks in the next probably 30 to 60 days.'