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This is a far more accurate account of the history of Hardee's than anything you will find on Wikipedia or on Hardee's own web site. One can gather from it that Leonard Rawls of Rocky Mount, not Wilber Hardee of Greenville, was the true founder of the Hardee's restaurant chain. It's distressing to see that Hardee, a dishonest man to the core, even has "Founder of Hardee's" inscribed on his grave, just as with subtitle on his memoir, "The Life and Times of Wilber Hardee." He started that one restaurant in Greenville, a copy of what he had seen of the first NC Hardee's in Greensboro, with the exception that the hamburgers were broiled over charcoal, a backyard method of cooking burgers that was just coming into fashion. The Hardee's chain as we know it, and everyone in the Rocky Mount area like me knew at the time, was as much or more the work of Leonard Rawls as the McDonald's chain was the work of Ray Kroc. When he died of a heart attack in 1982 at the age of 51, the headline of his obituary in the New York Times rightly called him the founder of Hardee's.
You know, I never used MSN messenger. I was jealous of all my friends that had AOL IM, which is why ICQ was so amazing...ANYONE could now do chat on the Internet! I used Trillium after that for a while, and then chat both became ubiquitous and disappeared.
In the 80s we always went to Hardee's instead of McDonald's. They had the mushroom & swiss burger which was delicious. As a kid I really enjoyed the movie promotions like for Ghostbusters 2 and Days of Thunder. Your drinks would come in collectable cups that would be kept for years. For Ghostbusters they even had an ice cream sundae with green ectoplasm.
What an awesome memory! The only thing I remember of Hardee's were the little plastic color/smile/shape people you could get. We didn't go that much, but it was always interesting.
@@smartyflix6898 he was an animatronic in showbiz pizza who was only around for a few months before a lot of complaints about him glitching started to show eventually they had to scrap him but again idk as I can’t find accurate information on it
I'm wondering if the El Torito chain you mentioned, and the El Torito logo you show (with Bucharest on it) are actually the same? Quick Googling doesn't SEEM to show that they are, but I could be wrong.
Don Pablo's was really good! I had one nearby that had a really cool fountain, and they had really unique chips and salsa. Sadly, they've been gone for well over 10 years now.
miss the old Hardee's before the late 90s buy out and they closed a lot of stores&changed the menu at the location nearest me that closed got bought by a local pizza joint but they never remodeled it so it still looks like a 1980s Hardee's to this day lol
I miss Hardee's 😥. I loved them in the 80s and the burgers are better than all the other places combined. I liked the crazy menu they used to have it was diverse enough that you could eat there all the time. And was a remedy for picky eaters cause they had everything. My mom still misses the ham n cheese.
Bob Brock was supposed to have adhered to Nolan Bushnell's agreement to establish up to 300 stores in 16 eastern and mid-western states by 1984, and this original plan was derailed after Brock ran into Aaron Fechter, whose Creative Engineering had (in Brock's view) better animatronics than what Chuck E. Cheese's was using, hence the birth of ShowBiz Pizza Place.
I'm 10 rn. When I was like 8 I wanted to research everything I could about showbiz n cec I wish I could of went to the og chuck e cheese pizza time theater or a showbiz pizza but most showbiz restaurants are either cec or abandoned
I swear I remember buying 50 cent hamburgers from Hardee's in the year 2001, I think it was just before they reinvented themselves into the current version of Hardee's.
I miss the Hardee’s of the 80s. Those hexagonal burgers were so good. The All American Burger had ham, Swiss in addition to the regular burger patty. And the mushroom swiss burger, roast beef sandwiches were amazing! Even better than Arby’s roast beef imo.
I love Hardee's, I have a long, long history with Hardee's. I collected the California Raisins from them, the Mickey's Chistmas Carol plush, the Disney plush (following year), the Tang Mouths, the Beach Bunnies, the California Raisin plush (posable), the Rise & Shine coffee mugs, the plastic version made for your car. I've supported them since the 80's (as listed above). After their merger with Carl's Jr, it began to change little-by-little. The big cookie is gone, but they still have cookies. Their fried chicken is gone. They at least have roast beef, but their buns are now potato buns. I think the real change happened when the CEO decided to begin offering some of the highest calorie burgers using sex to sell them circa 2007. That's why it feels like a different Hardee's today. It's similar to how people feel about these McDonald's building designs and how they're not nostalgic for them, this Hardee's doesn't feel like the same Hardee's I went to in the 80's, but I will keep going to them, I don't see a reason to stop when I still like their chicken strips, their Famous Star, their cookies to name a few, and they even have kid's meals once more (along with no longer using sex to sell, so hopefully no more stories like this): www.ocregister.com/2007/09/11/sexy-teacher-ad-by-carls-jr-and-hardees-miffs-educators/
All I remember as a little girl growing up in AL is having my parents buy me a two piece chicken, a biscuit and that amazing peach cobbler that I’m so angry I will never have again!
As a teenager, I worked for Chi-Chi's for two years (1985 - 1987). Great memories. The food was phenomenal and it was before its time. The food was sensational! What most people don't know is that Chi-Chi's was started by an ex-NFL player. That ex-NFL player hired all ex-NFL players and managers. Big mistake! All of the General Managers and high paying executive positions were ex-NFL players that had ZERO restaurant experience. My GM was a former Dallas Cowboy who was abrasive and nasty. That culture permeated within the industry and Chi-Chi's was finished...despite a very loyal and lucrative restaurant industry that would have survived but not for very poor corporate decisions.
Carl totally killed Hardees. Hardees was the dominate one when it came to food service etc when he bought it why kill it into his crap. But i guess when you got the money its worth it to kill the better of the two to make you look better.
Hardees menue has gotten so expensive, may as well rather take the family to a resturaunt. Probably from raising minimum wages to $15. But when i woeked there as a teen in the early 90s they were cheepskates and paid me $5.05 an hour.
I think Carl's Jr learned a lesson from what Hardee's did to Burger chef Burger chef was a well-established franchise well established brand and it took Hardee's 13 years to get back the sales volume it had when the concept was still Burger chef . Hardee's by increasing its brand by terminating the brand Burger chef Roy Rogers and Sandy's literally shot itself in the foot people or brand loyal to those concepts those regional concepts looked upon Hardee's as a company that killed the brand they loved . Although I'm one of those people who love Hardee's I just loved Burger chef more . I hope this will be a lesson since Hardee's really no longer exists it's just a code name for Carl's Junior Don't go into regions buy up be loved regional concepts and change them into your brand people actually do have brand loyalty what was the builder of Hardee's acquiring restaurants changing their names to Hardee's changing their concepts to Hardee's ended up killing Hardee's . If Carl's Jr really wanted to increase the sale of Hardee's they would strip the name Hardee's from the Marquis and changed them to their original regional concepts like Burger chef Roy Rogers and Sandy's and of course Hardee's in the Southern United States . And I believe they would see their sales and their brand loyalty return big . Hardee's built their growth by acquiring and killing regional brands that had serious brand loyalty . Hardee's tries to pull out the old Burger chef name and a promotion every now and then just to remind Midwest consumers that Hardy still supports the Burger chef brand loyalty ! But they never do it right they actually serve the big twin which once again was a Hardee's concept and try to call it the Big chef the Big chef had three buns not two . So anyone who is truly a Burger chef fan knows that the big twin is a Hardee's concept and not a Burger chef concept so it's not really the Big chef . Burger chef was the biggest fast food restaurant only behind McDonald's . Hardee's would have been better suited to have kept the name Burger chef and just introduced the Hardee's menu which they did in 1981 which did increase the cells of Burger chef by introducing breakfast as well as roast beef hot ham and cheese to their menus . But when they changed their name to Hardee's in regions that were very successful by Burger chef they literally took 13 years to get back the sales volume they had when the concept was named Burger chef .And primarily that's why Hardee's is now a failing concept except in the south and it's no longer Hardee's it's just Carl's Jr with a different name on it .
I've only been to Showbiz Pizza once. Literally the best pizza ever, and I still remember how it smells and tastes! The guy in the bear costume walked around the place and I was really young, probably 4 or 5 years old, and the bear scared me so much I started crying lol!
