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'Hardee's' is an
American fast-food restaurant chain, located primarily on the Eastern half of the
United States in
Southern,
Southeast and
East Coast regions. There are several stores located in the
Middle East.
Company History
Hardee's founder
Wilbur Hardee opened his first restaurant in
Greenville, North Carolina in 1960. On the strength of its two distinctive signature sandwiches (the Big Deluxe and the Big Twin), the chain experienced rapid growth by
franchising and, to a lesser extent, by acquiring other restaurant chains. The first "franchise" store opened in
Rocky Mount, NC in May 1961 by Jim Gardner and Leonard Rawls. The chain was headquartered in Rocky Mount until 2001.
The 1960s
Many original Hardee's were built with a hexagonal style building with a pointed roof. In keeping with that theme, for a short period of time, Hardee's hamburgers were actually
hexagonal, particularly the quarter-pound patties. Some early locations had lobbies, but almost all were fresco-walk-up style. As of 1965, franchisees had a choice of four different free-standing signs, with the "Home of the Huskee" slogan designated HH-1. Another promised "Jet Service - Charco Broiled".
The 1964 menu included: Hamburger 15 cents, Cheeseburger 20 cents, Fries 10 cents, Milk 12 cents, Coffee 10 cents, Coke, Pepsi, Root Beer and Orange, 10 cents and 15 cents, and Milk shake (Chocolate-Strawberry-Vanilla) 20 cents. Strawberry shakes were created from vanilla by addition of a berry syrup which had to be mixed on a spindle.
The 1970s
In the early-
1970s, the regular menu featured the Big Twin (a two-patty burger with a unique sauce) and the Big Deluxe (a quarter-pound burger with a tangy mayonnaise). Hardee's purchased
Sandy's in
1972, but primarily emphasized franchise growth on the strength of its menu. During the 1970s, when Hardee's saw rapid growth, the burgers were "charco-broiled" and were cooked in a process using heated "char-rocks" that caused the fat content dripping off the cooking beef to ignite for a distinctive "flame-broiled" taste. The charco-broiling process was discontinued throughout the '80s and '90s. Charbroiling (minus the rocks) was reintroduced in 2001 with the addition of their Thickburger menu.
Advertising campaigns in the early 1970s included cartoon characters of a '49er, "Gilbert Giddyup", and his nemesis, a purple-coated villain named "Speedy McGreedy". Radio adverts featured
"Mama Cass" Elliot singing the jingle "Hurry on down to Hardee's, where the burgers are charco broiled!" The ads were pulled after her death.
The 1980s and 1990s
Hardee's was affected by the buy-out phenomena of the 1980s. A new management team in the early 1980s seeking to cut costs immediately changed the signature burger recipe by, among other things, replacing the menu with frozen patties. When sales declined, the chain eliminated altogether the flagship menu items of the Big Twin and the Big Deluxe. Instead, the chain installed condiment islands where the customer had to take a plain fast food patty and bun. The Hardee's of the 1980s and '90s was frequently criticized for its very low hamburger quality. The chain leveraged itself to acquire
Burger Chef in
1982 and
Roy Rogers in
1990. Several Hardee's locations closed in the 1990s, however, as the chain faltered.
For a short time in the early 1990s, Hardee's outlets sold the popular fried chicken recipe acquired from Roy Rogers, which Hardee's claimed in their advertisements beat
KFC in a taste test, 63 to 37. However, they had only compared it to KFC's Original Recipe, thus giving KFC a clever counter-advertisement in which they claim that their Extra Tasty Crispy chicken beat Hardee's chicken. Hardee's chicken was quickly discontinued at some locations a few years later in another series of cost-cutting moves. However, some Hardee's franchisers still offer fried chicken and traditional chicken dinner side dishes at a few locations. Commercials advertising a free bottle of
Texas Pete hot sauce with the purchase of a family-sized chicken dinner were aired as recently as the summer of 2006. At one point the chain expanded to 2,500 locations in the
United States, but the chain's expansion has contracted in recent years.
Hardee's today
In
1997, the chain was acquired by
CKE Restaurants, the parent company of the
Carl's Jr. fast-food restaurant chain. (Imasco retained the few remaining Roy Rogers locations, though CKE is reported to do some supplying of them). Over time, some Hardee's restaurants were converted to serve the relatively higher-quality hamburgers and other products available from
Carl's Jr., and also took on the
Carl's Jr. star logo in the process. Some locations were simply fully-rebranded
Carl's Jr.
CKE Restaurants has been dual branding some Hardee's locations with
Red Burrito, similar to its
Green Burrito/
Carl's Jr. dual brand concept.
As of 2006, Hardee's operates 1,993 restaurants in 31
US states. Hardee's has found a niche market in smaller towns that may lack franchises of the other major hamburger chains. Hardee's closed its restaurants in
Hong Kong on
December 27,
2006 due to problems with franchising rights
[1].
On March 12, 2007 the first ever franchised Hardee's restaurant (located in Rocky Mount, North Carolina) was demolished to make room for a veterans memorial park named after Jack Laughery, a former Hardee's executive and US army veteran.
[2]
Burger Chef Copyright Challenge
In January, 2007 Hardee's had a challenge filed against it with the U.S. Patents and Trademarks Office by River West Brands, LLC of Chicago, IL for the use of the Burger Chef trademark and name. Shortly thereafter, Hardee's reissued the Burger Chef Big Shef sandwich in Terre Haute, IN as a trial offering and later in other Indiana, Ohio and Missouri markets for a limited time. The reissue of the Big Shef has also utilized the Burger Chef name and logo in advertisements in the makets it is being offered. The claim was to provide Burger Chef fans with their Big Shef "fix". Some claim, however, that the move is an attempt by CKE and Hardee's to prohibit the revival of the Burger Chef franchise. The trademark case is still pending.
Breakfast at Hardee's
Main articles: Breakfast sandwich
While Hardee's has experienced extensive changes in its lunch and dinner menus over the years, its breakfast menu has remained largely unchanged. As a result, Hardee's still retains significant customer loyalty for this time of the day. The average Hardee's restaurant generates 40 to 45 percent of its business from breakfast, and the median age of its breakfast customers is 45, as it is particularly popular among the elderly in the
Southeastern states.
[3]
The core of the Hardee's breakfast menu are its
biscuit sandwiches, reflecting the southern origins of this chain. The meats on these biscuit sandwiches vary regionally. Most Hardee's biscuits have traditional fare such as a
sausage,
bacon, or
ham. More unusual biscuits with
chicken fried steak or
pork chop can be found in the southeast, but are more difficult to find in Hardee's outside this region.
Kids' Meals and premiums
Although the franchise would come to humorously criticize such concepts, Hardee's has conceived several memorable
Kids' Meal toys throughout the past few decades. The 1980s featured popular, nonposeable
figures of the
Smurfs as well as Beach Bunnies. Renditions of other
cartoon characters would later premiere, including the
Ghostbusters and
Nickelodeon characters.
Other popular licenses were garnered as well.
Marvel Comics characters would be featured in the 1990 ''Marvel Super Hero Vehicles'' collection. And in the summer of 2000,
DC Comics' ''DC Super Heroes'' finally found a spot in the Hardee's toy scene.
Possibly the most well known Hardee's premiums, however, would be the ''
Dancin' Singin' California Raisins''. Several collections of the nonposeable figures were produced in
1987,
1988,
1991, and once again in
2001. Traditionally, they would be available with the purchase of Hardee's cinnamon raisin biscuits.
Hardee's also marketed special
Super Bowl celebratory pins in the early 1990s.
Hardee's advertising
In the early days of the take-over by CKE, Hardee's began to use the
anthropomorphic smiling star logo that Carl's Jr. had used for many years. "''The Hardee's Star''", as it was now called, appeared in a series of commercials played by a dwarf in a costume likeness of the star.
Norm MacDonald provided the voice for the Hardee's Star. For a time, many Hardee's locations even gave out free antenna toppers in the shape of the recently adopted star. The star remains Hardee's logo, but the mascot ceased appearing in the commercials with the advent of the 'Thickburger campaign'. A new Hardee's logo was unveiled in 2006 that featured script lettering and further minimized the smiling star icon.
Thickburger campaign
Early commercials during the Thickburger campaign made a point of acknowledging and apologizing for the poor quality of Hardee's past cuisine and service. Later commercials demonstrated adults attempting to fit their mouths around the large Thickburger.
The point of most Thickburger commercials, however, is that most adults prefer to eat large, restaurant-quality hamburgers instead of smaller, allegedly lower-quality hamburgers sold by fast-food establishments targeted at children, in particular
McDonald's. The commercials took the rival fast food chain to task for the quality of its food and because it offers toys with
meals marketed toward children. One of the commercials depicted a pregnant woman enjoying a Thickburger and the announcer telling her to enjoy Hardee's while she can, since she will "be eating at McDonald's for the next 12 years."
Commercials that did not mention
McDonald's by name overtly referred to the chain, such as an ad where a man works on a classic car while eating a Thickburger. The announcer then says that "it's awful hard for those other chains to fit a busted carburetor in a bag" and then says that Hardee's "has big burgers because men need big toys."
Advertising Controversies
Hardee's cavalier marketing is not simply confined to burgers. Recent ads for its chicken products state that "we have chicken breast strips because scientists have proven chickens don't have nuggets" and another for its 1/3-pound chicken breast sandwich where a chicken walks around with a black "censored" bar over where its breasts would be if it was a human to
burlesque music.
In 2005, Carls Jr. and Hardee's aired a controversial commercial featuring hotel heiress
Paris Hilton soaping up a
Bentley in a skimpy bikini while striking poses and eating the Thickburger in a sensuous manner. Carl's Jr. aired the ad first, and Hardee's soon followed.
My Town My Hardees
In late May of
2007 a
Tennessee Valley regional marketing campaign was launched stressing the small-town nature of Hardee's throughout the Southeastern United States by focusing on the stories of local residents. The campaign was developed by
Coptix and Big Boom Town and was called "My Town My Hardees".
[4]
Menu Items
Monster Thickburger
The 'Monster Thickburger' is a type of double-
bacon cheeseburger with mayonnaise. The burger contains 1,410
Calories (5,900
kJ), 107 grams of
fat, and 2740 mg of
sodium.
Ingredients include a
sesame-seed bun,
mayonnaise,
bacon,
cheese, butter-flavored
shortening and two patties of
ground beef made from
Angus cattle for a total of 2/3
lb (300
g) (uncooked) of meat.
The marketing of this burger may represent a neo-
comfort food movement against alarms raised by
nutritionists about an
obesity epidemic. In an interview on
CNBC, Hardee's
CEO Andrew Puzder said the sandwich was "not a burger for
tree huggers." The burger was also parodied on an episode of the ''
Late Show with David Letterman'' when the "CEO of Hardee's" came out to talk about the then-new Monster Thickburger to
David Letterman, only to die from a
heart attack after just taking one bite. Nevertheless, sales for the 2,067-restaurant chain have risen steadily since the introduction of the Thickburger family in 2003, with
same-store sales up 7.8% annually.
The Monster Thickburger is based on the Monster Burger, which had similar ingredients but was the size of a double quarter pounder instead of two-thirds of a pound.
Notes
1. Goodbye Hardees
2.
★
3. Good day, sunshine: music in the morning: whether you want to draw customers in or keep them moving, a good mix can set the pace - Ambience
4. Hardee's Stresses Regional Appeal
★ Historical, promotional franchise materials, on display in lobby of Hardee's,
Chipley,
Florida as of 27 December 2006. Sign options drawing by Allen Displays, dated 29 December 1964.
Slogans
★ Hardee's - Where the food's the star. (post 1997)
★ We're out to win you over. (1989)
External links
★
Indianapolis Star Article About Hardee's Burger Chef Trademark challenge
★
Hardee's being challenged for Burger Chef trademark
★
Hardee's official website
★
Sandy's, national fast food chain bought out by Hardees in 1973
★
My Town My Hardee's
★
Nation's Restaurant News, August 11, 2003
★
Article on the release of the Monster Thickburger with information on the marketing and success
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