|
tesg's guide to big chain road food consumption
CHAIN -- Hardee's Lee Staak's father opened a Sandy's franchise in Iowa City, IA in 1969. Staak took over the business upon his father's death and continued growing even after Sandy's was absorbed by Hardee's in 1973. He owned several Hardee's througout Iowa, was significantly involved in the franchise association, and continues today to be a well respected man about town. In recent years, he's been winding down his operations as the opportunity arises to where he just has a couple of stores open now. So when his Coralville store was flooded out last year, I expected the property to go up for sale. But Staak demolished the 30 year-old structure and put up a brand new Hardee's. He felt he owed it to the community. The community clearly appreciated it...it was the busiest Hardee's I've ever seen when I had lunch there on its second day in operation. The place was an absolute zoo at 2 in the afternoon. But the staff worked like a well-oiled machine, churning out Thickburgers at a feverish pace. Everything was perfect. It was a textbook example...easily the best I've seen since at least the mid-eighties...of what Hardee's could be. Should be. What a long strange trip it's been. Wilbur Hardee opened his first walk-up stand in Greenville, NC, in 1960. The enormously successful stand attracted Jim Gardner and Leonard Rawls Jr, businessmen from Rocky Mount, NC. They convinced Hardee to partner up, and the trio formed Hardee's Drive-Ins, later changed to Hardee's Food Systems. The first company-owned store opened in Rocky Mount in 1961. The first franchisee opened in 1962. Hardee himself bowed out of the operation early in its expansion. He went on to launch several other restaurant concepts. He died in 2008.
Hardee's expanded partly by buying up other chains and converting them, sort of like if the Catholic church went around buying other churches and forced all members to convert to the Catholic faith. You're always going to end up with some bitter apples. Their 1990 purchase and subsequent conversion of the Roy Rogers chain ended in a customer revolt so serious that they actually aborted the whole idea and returned the Roy Rogers brand to some stores initially converted, and even adapted some of Roy Rogers menu items and practices into Hardee's. The Sandy's brand was replaced by the Hardee's logo in 1972. The last successful conversion (Roy Rogers notwithstanding) was Burger Chef, acquired in 1982 and still missed by its fans to the point that there are several tribute sites on the web. After Roy Rogers, Imasco figured out that the fast-food industry was in decline and started discussing exit strategies. Possibilities, including a sale, were mentioned beginning in 1990. This may explain why, about this time, Hardee's started to crack. The next seven years were not good ones. As Imasco looked for ways to cut costs, or sell the chain outright, customers stopped coming. Who could blame them? Customer service quality was getting worse all the time, and frequent revamps of the menu left you wondering if what you liked yesterday would even BE on the menu today. Hardee's experimented with new sandwiches, fried chicken (still available in some markets), optional sides like chili or macaroni and cheese, and countless other variations on all of the above. These would appear overnight, and be gone the next. The Hardee's loved in the eighties was gone, dead and buried. The one shining jewel Hardee's had left was its breakfast. The breakfast menu, highlighted by "made from scratch" biscuits, was introduced by the original (and currently largest) Hardee's franchisee, Boddie-Noell, and rolled out nationally in 1978. CKE Restaurants, also known as Carl Karcher Enterprises, was built on the back of the Carl's Jr hamburger chain. Carl's Jr was as dominant as any hamburger chain in California that wasn't called McDonald's, often only being behind McDonald's in market share. Carl's Jr was loved for their premium charbroiled burgers topped so heavily that their marketing slogan was "If it doesn't get all over the place, it doesn't belong in your face." Carl's Jr placed their heaviest marketing around their double-patty burgers. Their crown jewel was the double-patty "Super Star". Karcher was overthrown from the board in 1993 and effectively staged a coup utilizing the talents of William P Foley. Foley put CKE’s paws into all sorts of concepts, including JB's Restaurants, Galaxy Diner, Rally's, and Taco Bueno. Foley was also working on some dual-branding of Carl's Jr with a California Mexican fast food chain called Green Burrito. Partnerships were mostly minority investments that were ultimately spun off or sold to Green Burrito's parent company, who became Santa Barbara Restaurant Group (also headed by Foley), who in turn invested in and/or spun off the various concepts, eventually merging with CKE outright in 2002 and giving CKE 100 percent control of its brands at the time (Green Burrito, Timber Lodge Steakhouse, and La Salsa.) Somewhere in the middle of all this (1997), CKE purchased the 3,119-unit Hardee's outright. They had no idea what they were getting themselves into.
I remember going into one of the original converted Hardee's a few months after the fact, then sporting the name "Carl's Jr", in Peoria. The help, still being asked questions by customers, would say things like "It's from out West, that's all we know" with bitter resonance. The burgers weren't nearly as good as their west coast counterparts. The restaurants weren't nearly as nice either. The haphazard remodels and the aforementioned "who cares" employees really hurt.
CKE bled money for a couple of years and ended up concentrating on ridding itself of debt by selling off assets (company-owned stores and the Taco Bueno chain) instead of concentrating on the restaurants. So Hardee's was allowed to continue to provide some of the industry's worst service and quality without interruption. In 2002, while McDonald's and Burger King were getting ready to have a dollar war, Carl's Jr rolled out something called the "Six Dollar Burger". It was a $3.95 monster that featured a half-pound patty and premium toppings. It was a huge success. So much so that they later rolled it out at Hardee's, who you could say was surviving on $2 for $2 specials of various menu items, but, "surviving" would be stretching it. My local market went from more than a dozen stores to just two today in the span of a couple of years. The Hardee's of today has over 1,000 fewer stores than the Hardee's that existed when CKE bought the chain. If you go back to the 1980's, Hardee's has roughly HALF the number of operating locations it once did. The Six Dollar Burger also struck a chord at Hardee's, apparently enough so that Hardee's executives were commenting in the press that they were planning to shift away from discounting in favor of emphasizing a premium product. I don't think anybody guessed how far they'd go to do it. The original St Louis test of the Thickburger menu was dubbed "Revolution" internally. The after-breakfast menu was completely abandoned, save for the already premium Chicken Breast Strips and the Big Roast Beef. Burgers (save for mini burgers called "Slammers") ranged in size from 1/3 pound to 2/3 pound. The Thickburgers were big looking, big tasting, and priced as such. It was as if they'd looked at the McDonald's-Burger King dollar war and said "Fine, we'll take the other end of the market." On paper, it was absolutely brilliant. The customer service format for the Thickburger concept isn't all that different from the original "Star" changes: Order at the counter, get your drink, have a seat, and your food will be brought to your table after it is cooked to order. You'll have longer wait times at the drive-thru, but frankly, you shouldn't be eating this stuff while driving in the first place. The Thickburgers are a hit. Hardee's is actually growing for the first time in years. Hardee's won several "Best Burger" awards in core Midwestern markets. Hardee's got a tremendous amount of press by rolling out a bunless version of the Thickburger targeted at the Atkins diet crowd which many articles credited as being a first, even if In-n-Out had been quietly offering it for years. Hardee's shamelessly played the press later with a Thickburger variation of the classic "Monster Burger", which one of those wacky nutritional groups labeled "food porn". In 2007, for the first time that I can remember, the number of operating Hardee's locations quarter-to-quarter actually went UP. Hardee's is planning extensive remodels of its entire base. Their new buildings look nice, if not a little generic. Some have windows that go all the way to the ground with the bottom third being glass blocks. The new interior, also being used at Carl's Jr, has a primary theme of brown, brown, brown, red, brown, silver, brown, beige, brown, chrome, and brown. The specific color mix varies from store to store. Some use more red and beige and look pretty nice. Some of the new Carl's Jr's I've been in don't have false ceilings, which I usually approve of, but they're painted so dark that they make the dining rooms feel like caves. Different stores use the same parts in different ways, as if no two are exactly alike. Limited-time premium burgers rotate on the menu and have included a Chili Cheese Thickburger (which was actually on the original Thickburger menu but was eventually replaced by a Thickburger version of the Mushroom Swiss), a Jalapeno Thickburger, a Philly Cheesesteak Thickburger, a Western Bacon Thickburger, and a Prime Rib Thickburger, among others. Most of these are variations of the Carl's Jr lineup...or eventually become limited time offerings there too, sharing the same advertising. The Hardee's brand may have survived, but the lines between Hardee's and Carl's Jr continue to blur. There's a few chicken sandwiches on the menu, including a crispy chicken fillet and two non-breaded sandwiches. The Hot Ham n' Cheese is also still on the menu. Still want a Big Roast Beef? Go to Arby's. Fish shows up periodcally during Lent. Hardee's replaced their fries with "natural-cut fries", a big improvement, and occasionally have a "bacon cheddar" version available. Those are the BEST. "Crispy Curls" (curly fries), a longtime Hardee's favorite, are still available after an initial absence. Chili cheese fries show up whenever the Chili Cheese Thickburger appears. Onion rings, which were available in the Star Hardee's days even if they often didn't appear on the menu board, are back right now. In 2008, Hardee's offered chili dogs. Pretty good chili dogs.
In another blurring of the lines, Hardee's is playing around with co-branding a Mexican concept called "Red Burrito". The idea is based on Carl's Jr's "Green Burrito" co-branding. Red Burrito essentially IS Green Burrito with slightly less eclectic recipes and sauces (sadly, there isn't any green sauce to be found anywhere) and a more limited menu. The meat, beans, and rice are about the same, as are the hearty portions. A Red Burrito-branded taco salad shows up across the chain occasionally. I've eaten at four different Hardee's/Red Burrito combo stores in Missouri and Illinois, and two of those have since discontinued Red Burrito. In the end, you could say Carl's Jr's original plan to keep the Hardee's breakfast and replace the lunch/dinner menu ultimately happened. The after-breakfast Hardee's of today bears no resemblence of any kind to the Hardee's previous to CKE. Frankly, that's a good thing. Click here to return to tesg's guide to big chain road food consumption |
