Burger Chef
A tribute to the best fastfood restaurant franchise
Utilizing the falme broiler developed for Burger King, the Sani-Serv president Frank Thomas (the inventors of the soft ice-cream machine and the flame-broiler), in 1958, launched the remarkably successful Burger Chef franchise. The oringinals served hamburgers, shakes, and fries from outdoor walk-up windows. Using Burger Kings experience and expertise it expanded at breakneck speed and after 5 years there were 250 in 28 states.
It's growth expanded exponentially and eventually covered 43 states before being bought out by the General Foods Corporation in 1969. By the end of the 70's General Foods profits had dropped 1/3 and they wrote off 80 million dollars of their original investment. Several hundred Burger Chefs closed down when they recieved an unsolicited buy out offer from Hardees that was finalised in 1982, and also caused a series of several lawsuits. The now third largest fastfood franchise was fading. Hardees rules were the franchisees could, Convert to Hardees if there was none within 2 miles, Convert to any other franchise or continue to operate until their franchise liscense expired.
The Last Burger Chef, located at Cookville, TN closed it's doors May 1st 1996 after loosing it's last legal battle. It is truely uncertain what caused Burger Chef to die, the aim of blame or Bad JuJu, however one thing is for certain they were better than anything we have now.
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