If I could spend just one more day in time long gone, I'd probably have lunch at Burger Chef. Enjoy what you have. Enjoy it TODAY. Remember the taste, sound, feel, or whatever. Never forget it, because it'll likely be gone before you know it. Double for family and loved ones. And yours is the very best music for nostalgia videos. The best. Thank you.
I couldn't agree with you more. This video brings back memories of growing up in the '60s and '70s when the world was a simpler place and we enjoyed simple things. Its the things we take for granted that we don't pay much attention to, and those are the things that we long for when they're gone and wish we could remember them more clearly.
Our local Burger Chef is long gone now & so are the friends I used to go with. I don’t know how or why I’ve outlived them all. If I had a time machine one place I’d revisit is Burger Chef with my old friends.
My dad would stop by Buger Chef every Saturday night after he got off work and get 6 Big Chef hamburgers for us 4 kids my mom and him. What a treat we could hardly wait for him to get home. Great memories.
We'd stop on way to drive in movies. Load up on burgers and fries. They were cheaper there than the drive in snack bar. We'd also pop a paper grocery bag full of popcorn too. Cheaper and tasted better too. Sometimes though my mom would splurge and let us buy snake bar candy and pizza. Those were great times and at the time never realized it.
Man. You talking about a great tasting hamburger. No one made it taste like this chain. Seriously. It was the best tasting. Should be where MD is today.
they had one in port arthur texas in the 1960-75. it was on gulfway drive on hwy 87. when you arrived and stepped out of your car, the charcoal smell was fantastic. you could by a couple bags of hamburgers, drinks and french fries for hardly no money at all. i later got a summer job there when i was a little older. the set up for making hamburgers consist of chain driven conveyor . you lay the meat patties on and the conveyor and it would slowly move across the broil grill. they put me later on the graveyard shift and my job was to clean that place spotless. gulfway drive at that time was what we called the drag. and about 2am-4am, i would see some great drag races, ss cameros, ss chevelle 396, mustangs, and plymouth roadrunners. it was all a sight to behold. america at that time was a very cool place to be alive and young. it is all just a memory now.
My mother used to take me to the Burger Chef in Temple, Texas every time we went there from Cameron. I loved those burgers and fries. I've eaten at Hardees before, but it's certainly no Burger Chef.
I had similar memories of Burger Chef as others here do. We had one in Amarillo, TX in the 60's and maybe into early 70's. It was the first national chain burger restaurant to come to Amarillo I remember when I was in 3-6th grade my mom would come pick me up at school on Tuesdays and take me to lunch at Burger Chef. The burgers were so very good and the fries too.. I also loved the fantastic Googie architecture (yes that is a real word) of their restaurants. Ours looked just like the first one you see at 00:25. I wish they could come back and look like they did in the 60's
Man did I love those hamburgers!!! And the hamburg buns were the best ever made! My mom would take us in a taxi once every other month. We never had much growing up in 60s & 70s so a trip to Burger Chef was huge for us kids! Thanks mom, I still miss you everyday!
Burger Chef was where we'd hang out for hours on the weekends, meeting friends, and just hangin'... Hamburgers were GREAT! It was RIGHT BY the High School... We'd go to Burger Chef before n after school... That was in 69' ....They had YUGE burgers, plank fries and great milkshakes. What days!
Growing up in the 70s in Indianapolis, my dad would take us to Burger Chef on the weekends. My younger brother and I couldn't wait for Fridays. The burgers were so good and I loved the commercials.
If my memory serves me, this is the place that just sold a burger in a bun and then you would go over to a small salad bar and finish out your burger exactly how you want it, perfect, I always like extra onions.
Yes, the "fixins bar" was why I liked them too. I presumed at the time that this innovation was to keep the line moving faster and to minimize incorrect orders (can't be wrong if the customer made it, right?). All I knew was that I liked having it "my way". I think that may have even been their slogan - Have It Your Way, or something to that effect.
@@rtwhitson3 Actually, that was Burger King - - "Hold the pickle, hold the lettuce, special orders don't upset us. All we ask is that you let us serve it your way. Have it your way, have it your way. Have it your way at Burger King." (ha-ha, or something like that!)
Thanks for making this video. I worked at Burger Chef from 1976 to 1981 first as a back line worker then Assistant Manager then Manager. It was my first real job and it was where I first learned to be a leader. I have fond memories of Burger Chef (and Jeff). I still have some Burger Chef momentous. Thank you for bringing back those great memories.
When we went, it was 63 to 66. If I recall correctly, there were no works. You got a burger and maybe you got cheese but they didn’t have a lot of trimmings. I didn’t like that place but I am reading the comments and everybody else did. I’m wondering if they upped their game when they were purchased in 68.
Zactly!! The “works bar” was the best! Burger King stole the idea with the flame broiling and the “have it your way.” As well as McDs stealing the kids meal idea. Burger Chef started all of that!!
@@johnmcbarron7282 They certainly did “up their game.” In the mid 70s, that was the best burger place to go. They just got too big for their britches too fast and became vulnerable to the corporate crap.
First fast food burger restaurant in Manassas VA back in the mid-60s. Those open flame broiled hamburgers were great! To this day, the Big Chef sandwich still stands as the best burger ever in that class. And the fish sandwich put Micky D's fish sandwich to shame. Hardy's should bring them back. In fact, Hardy's would do well to can their entire menu and identity and convert over to Burger Chef!
I worked at that Burger Chef as an Assistant Manager back in the late '70's. There was another one on the other side of town in front of the mall, but it never did much business.
@@nickhill8612 Nick; speakin' of breakfast, Hardee's has the BEST FUCKIN' "B & G" u'll ever wanna eat. Dammit, Nick; u r makin' me FUCKIN' HUNGRY (& THAT'S A DAMN FUCKIN' GR8 THING).
@@b.j.banditt206 a friend of mine who I worked with in Virginia for BC was an area manager in the Detroit area for awhile. Maybe you know of him. His name was Bob Bryant. A great guy and friend.
That was my first job. Had a big fat manager who always kept you hopping. We washed the broiler racks in the back sink in lye. They didn't give you gloves, you just stuck your hands in a garbage bag and went at it. Also remember breaking up the fat for french fries. You tore the cardboard off a one foot square box, then there was a blue plastic bag around a solid white block of fat, or lard, or shortening, whatever it was. You broke off handfuls of it with your bare hands and threw it in the open cooker after turning it up to something like 500 degrees. The handfuls were so it would melt faster, then of course it became clear and you fried the french fries in it.
I totally remember the blue bags of shortening. Among the worst jobs was running the "rejuvenator" for the fry vats - "rejuvenating" the fry oil with this filtering machine with a hose. They had gone to grills by the time I worked there, so we had to empty these recepticles on the sides that caught all the grease and scrapings from the grill. So nasty.
Then Hardees was bought by Carl's Jr. The worst hamburger that was ever made. All of the Houston locations were open for THREE YEARS. Then went out of business.
I used to go to Burger Chef in Austin, TX when I was a kid in the 70’s. Such good memories with my family! Thanks for the great videos, this is my favorite RU-vid channel! 😊
This takes me back to the early 60s and Saturday nights,in the summertime. Mom and dad would bring my brother and I for burgers,fries,and shakes,and then a night at the drive- in movies. We ate our fill for less than 5 bucks. Good memories.
In high school my best friend worked at the Burger Chef in Lancaster Ohio..I used to pick him up after work and go for a cruise in my car the rest of the night..Fun times
my buddy worked at dairy queen use to pick him up after work and drive backroads drinking beers and him smelling of grease frenchfries on his shoes chocolate and othe dq foodds good ole days
I remember working at a Burger Chef in Brookfield WI, we made everything fresh, including the tarter sauce. Cleaning the grill chain was hard but we had 2 chains. 1 to soak overnight in a cleaning solution while installing the other. The food was great tasting. wonder memories.
Same here. We had those exact restaurants....Red Barn eventually became "The Farm" in my hometown and then went out of business a handful of years later.
Those same resturants were in my home town too and Burger Chef was my families favorite also. Our Red Barn turned into a laundry mat when it closed down. I liked their chicken better than what KFC sells now. Red Barn broasted their chicken. At least in my location. Never tasted as greasy as kfc. But then again, imo, nothing still around today, tastes as good as it did 40+ years ago. Between farming practices and food processing in general, our foods and even choices of food are much different than they used to be. I miss that time long past. Life was easier and tasted better.
I went to a Burger Chef with my friends every Sunday evening when we were in college in the late 70s. The dorms didn't have Sunday night meal service so had to go somewhere where we could stretch the dollar.
Wow... I didn't realize that Burger Chef started here in Indy. I grew up in a small town west of Indianapolis and we had a Burger Chef 🍔 & I loved them as a kid... quality food !!!
What I really liked about Burger Chef was you could fix your burger the way you wanted it from their fixings bar. They were always fresh and just the way you wanted them. Lots of burger places claim "have it your way" but they fail more times than not.
Hello Recollection Road, Some history says that Burger Chef started in 1954, but that is not correct. Burger Chef opened it's first store on West 16th Street in Indianapolis Indiana in 1958, not 1954. My mother lived next .door to Frank Thomas in Zionsville Indiana. Her father, my grandfather used to do odd jobs for Mr. Thomas on weekends on his farm. Frank Thomas invented the Sani-Broiler and set up in the county fairs in Indiana to "test" the market, my mother ate some of the first Burger Chef hamburgers off the Sani-Broiler before it was even a restaurant. Once the stores legal work and building designs were ready in 1958, that's when the first store opened. I have a large Burger Chef collection of a lot of items. Thanks for the cool video, I grew up on Burger Chef.
I have boxes of Burger Chef memorabilia. I used to run the Unofficial Burger Chef Homepage in the late 90's. Will sell at a reasonable price. Paul Browning on FB.
@@MrBC2 Gr8 2 hear. Un4tun8ly, I'm gonna have 2 pass bc I have a personal boycott of Facebook due 2 some x-friends who've backstabbed & slandered me on Facebook. Nvrthlss, it's gr8 2 hear how a quality restaurant like Burger Chef positively impacted our lives (I'm 53 myself & luved Burger Chef growing up but I also luv Hardee's whom purchased Burger Chef; then Carl's Jr.'s parent company purchased Hardee's makin' them (Carl's Jr./Hardee's) a very underr8d powerhouse in the restaurant industry).
@@MrBC2 I went on FB to look you up, and found pages of Paul Browning, so I could not find you. I'm not sure at what you have, and if I have some of the same memorabilia. I do have several un-opened original bird houses from 1967.
The Burger Chef that we went to when I was in college in the 70s was next to a movie theater. We had been to McD's one time and had gotten a bag of small burgers. We had some time to kill before the movie started so went into Burger Chef and loaded up the McD's burgers from the BC burger bar. Fun times!
I worked for Burger Chef for quite a few years. We had a salad bar too, and the general public being what it is people would make a salad in their soda cup instead of buying a salad and getting a bowl!
First hamburger joint we ever had. It was 15 miles from our house. My great Aunt would tell my mom she would buy her a hamburger or a milkshake. They were both 15 cents. This was in the 60s.
I always liked Burger Chef. I can still remember how excited we were when they came to our area in the early 1960s! They were the very first fast food type place in the area at that time. Very unique taste.
A Burger Chef was one of the first Fast food places to open on Ford Road in Canton Twp, Michigan. It was my favorite, and I ate there often back in the late '70s-early '80s. They had the "Works Bar", and you could load your burger up with all sorts of salad-type fixin's. Like the video mentions, it became a Hardees, and now a Tim Hortons occupies the spot. Farewell to Burger Chef and Jeff! I miss 'em!
Burger Chef was my very first employer, back in 1969 I was 16. I loved that job, I did the food prep and only worked the front counter once. I loved the fact that my boss told me, when you take your meal break, you can make anything this restaurant has. Who knows, I may have been the first person to make a double meat Big Chef. Wonderful memories of my childhood.
I hear you, I worked there in 1973 while I was still in high school. I worked front counter and I loved that job as well. They were genuinely kind to their employees, none of this just give a discount on food for your break. They let us eat what we wanted no charge. Ahh, those were the days..Wonderful childhood memories made there.
800 burgers an hour? That still seems pretty impressive! Had one in my hometown when I was a kid in the 70s. Remember eating there quite a bit. It closed and became a laundry mat and was eventually torn down. A Bojangles is there now. It’s just amazing to me how chains like this were simply thriving at one time only to fade into oblivion as people move on to the next popular thing.
That's so funny that's what I noticed too. Just like Randall said, I remember that same type from the Brunswick bowling alley in Boulder, Colorado in the late 70's.
My father worked as a Regional Manager for them in the mid 70's, we always had alot of their marketing materials and promotional stuff. They provided company cars to their RMs at the time, he had a 1972 AMC Matador and then a 1975 Pontiac LeMans wagon. Wish I could go back in time!
Yep, and the one I got was the perfect size for my HO model train layout. Between Plasticville model stuctures, Matchbox model cars, and this little cardboard Burger Chef I was able to create a realistic looking little town around a model railroad track.
My parents always talk about Burger Chef and how good their food was. They had lot's of fun stories about the fun that they had with their friends at BC, and how they first met there. My Dad was there with his friends and he went to the counter to get eight shakes for him and his friends. When he got the order, which were in two drink carriers, he turned away from the counter, bumped into my Mom and spilled all of the shakes all over her, from head to toe. Three years latter they got married.
Wow ! you are Stunning .. . anyway.. MY Folks ALSO met at a Burger Chef in a place called Oregon, Ohio, and Decided to move out West To Oregon USA lol ( I am kinda Glad because I prefer the west coast ) CHEERS TO YOU ANGEL
@@TANTRUMGASM Thank you... LOL!LOL!LOL! The one on Navarre by Woodville, is that the one you are talking about? Small world... My parents are from Toledo, Ohio. My parents went to the one on Laskey Rd., In westToledo. There was a roller skating rink in Oregon that they would always go to. I think it was on Starr next to the expressway. Holy cow! What a small world.
Worked there in 1980 when they came out with the chicken club sandwich at the same time McDonalds came out with the McChicken. I remember us joking about McD’s sandwich and wondering if they were going to call it The Big Cluck. It was a good place to work.
Before that dining out involved hanging dinner on the station wagon (Dodge) window. Got to sit on the orange stools looking out the windows, damn that was exciting when you're 5!
When I was a kid in Florida in the late 60's, we used to ride our bikes to Burger Chef. It was a hangout of those kids too young to drive. We always bought something though....I recall that they were pretty good. We went there WAY more than McDonalds.
Yep in Gainesville FL there was Burger Chef and another burger joint directly across the street on 13th Street. Good memories from the early 60's. Back when life was cool in America.
between 1972 and 1976 I was in high school in Evansville, IN. We had open campus at the time and Burger Chef was just across the street from school... always packed at lunch, after school and on game nights
i grew up in Portsmouth OH from 62 until 77, and there was a Burger Chef on Scioto Trail where I learned to love fast food burgers. It was there long before McDonal's or Wendy's was in town. The picture on the video at the 7:30 mark with the parade appears to be our Burger Chef in Portsmouth. Great memories, thanks for the look back.
I worked at Burger Chef in 1969. We had better food than McD's in my opinion. They still had the hot Ham 'n Cheese then which I adapted by attaching it to a Big Chef to make a quadruple Ham 'n Cheeseburger! All the employees ate them, but I ate 4 in one sitting! The owner went home at 2:00 pm after which we had great fun making potato chips and doughnuts in the deep fryers! We kept a clean restaurant and always made good food for the customers despite the fun. "Those customers are our paycheck", the owner used to say.
Reminds me of my brother and I going to the one while, during summer break, roaming around on our bicycles and pigging out on less than a dollar. As long as we got home by dark we could go anywhere and that we did. I bet we would ride 20 miles a day. Sometimes going to swimming pool to cool off. Just wear our trunks under out jeans. While riding we would pick up soda bottles.Two cent a piece or five cent for the quart bottles. From that and mowing a few neighbors lawns We always had plenty of pocket money. Man life was good in the early and mid 60s.
I miss their fish sandwiches so much. The fact that Burger Chef went away, while McDonald's prospered, is the perfect example of superior marketing beating out a superior product.
i'm 58. i can remember almost every friday our daddy would take us to burger chef for supper if momma had to work. i can still remember the smell and taste of the food.
I was born in 1971. I was born just in time to remember America like this starting about 1974 when my memories kick in. I still remember 1975 to 1979 the most from the 70s. I dont remember my local Burger Chef. But I know where it used to be.
Such a big part of my childhood was going to Burger Chef. Everything McDonald's has done, Burger Chef did it first....it stills hurts today that it is gone.
WOW! Memories! WE ate there every Friday. Being Catholic we had to eat fish on Fridays. My parents picked us up from school every Friday stopped by Burger Chef, and then we would head up to our weekend place in the country. They had the best fish sandwich, and they were cheap. McDonalds reminds me a lot of their fish sandwich. Great times.
Thanks for the memories. For a while there I thought I was the only one who remembered Burger Chef. There use to be one in my hometown Harlingen, Texas.
It was my cruising spot in 75 thru 77 in Gainesville, Ga. Met my wife there, she worked there. Been married 42 years, miss those days they were great...
I remember Burger Chef, they were great, I particularly liked the "Big Chef" burger, it's like the Gino Giant and Big Mac, so tasty. They had one in Philadelphia in the late 60s.
I grew up in Indianapolis and Burger Chef was growing like crazy when I was a kid. Really was surprised when I found out how much it was like McDonald's because I never went to one until I was about 12. The secret of Burger Chef was the conveyor grill and the factory that made those grills along with all the other kitchen equipment that was a required part of a Burger Chef. The main profit item was selling the equipment and the prefabricated building to new restaurants. After General Foods bought the company I think they were disappointed to find that they had to keep expanding to maintain their profits and they decided give up and not to fight it out with McD's. They closed about half the locations and concentrate on only their most profitable restaurants. They went up market with roast beef sandwiches and the "Works Bar" to allow people to condiment their burger as they liked. The kid's meal was the one thing they really did well on but McD's copied them and was able to promote more aggressively. The owner's of Burger Chef didn't see it as their main business and were not willing to loose profits to go head to head to McD's and that was about the time they were sold to Hardee's who also used the same type conveyor grill, by the way.
My memories...we had one in the 70s The “Fixins’ Bar Burger Chef & Jeff Those orange seats that swiveled out from the table and if you were lightweight you kind of hand to hold on LOL The burgers were sold in little plastic baggies that helped steam the buns So good!!
Burger Chef was my favorite place for burgers growing up as a kid! So many fun happy Family memories associated with them. Loved Burger Chef and Jeff! Great shakes! Yum!
