AHC: Save Burger Chef

FieldMarshal

FieldMarshal

Banned
Burger Chef was an American fast food chain that lasted from 1954 to 1996. At it's peak in the 1970s it was the #2 fast food chain in America, surpassed only by McDonalds. Despite good performace, General Foods Corporation, who owned Burger Chef, sold the brand to Imasco Ltd. (the then-owner of Hardee's) in the 1980s. Imasco proceeded to kill the brand by converting nearly all the Burger Chef restaurants into Hardee's locations. To this day Hardee's still owns the rights to the Burger Chef name and has on occasion brought back the flagship burger of the dead chain, the Big Shef.

So, the challenge here is to keep Burger Chef around in the present day, preferably maintaining or surpassing it's position as second-biggest American fast-food chain. The main way would be to somehow prevent General Foods from selling it to Imasco.

Another way might be to somehow (don't ask me how) have Burger Chef win the Happy Meal lawsuit. Burger Chef was the first major fast food chain to include toys with their kid's meal (dubbed the Fun Meal), and sued McDonald's when they came out with the Happy Meal. Burger Chef lost; perhaps if they had won they might be in a more advantageous position.
 

Carl Schwamberger

Neither General Foods nor Imasco saw the Burger Chef franchise as providing a revenue stream superior to their other fast food enterprises. Best chance is for management that does not have to choose. That is keep BC out of companies that own other FF franchises or chains.

A few years ago one of my neighbors still had a Burger Chef bird house on their front lawn. Unfortunatly they failed to keep it in repair & it eventual rotted away.
 

Seandineen

Let them cash in further on Star Wars. They had New hope tie ins but dropped the ball. Field Marshall you might want to read flameout the bio of bc founder.
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
Interesting that it was the 2nd biggest (by number of stores) chain. I literally never heard of them. They must have had little or no presence on the west Coast (which makes sense since Hardee's was in 40 states but not the West Coast (particularly California).
 

joho6411

CalBear said:
Interesting that it was the 2nd biggest (by number of stores) chain. I literally never heard of them. They must have had little or no presence on the west Coast (which makes sense since Hardee's was in 40 states but not the West Coast (particularly California).
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Burger Chef was an East Coast chain. They were in NJ, NY, Penna, Del, & Md. to my recollection. It was Burger Chef & Jeff (the mascot).

Joho :)

Merry Christmas!
 
Gunner's_Quadrant

Gunner's_Quadrant

They were big in the Midwest as well. I don't think they did much to differentiate themselves from Mickey D's and Burger King and just got lost in the flood of fast food chains that came out.
From what I remember they kind of focused on the children's market and as a teen-ager it wasn't cool to be sent at a burger joint that focused on kids.
 

Apollo 20

Gunner's_Quadrant said:
They were big in the Midwest as well. I don't think they did much to differentiate themselves from Mickey D's and Burger King and just got lost in the flood of fast food chains that came out.
From what I remember they kind of focused on the children's market and as a teen-ager it wasn't cool to be sent at a burger joint that focused on kids.
Click to expand...

They had their headquarters in Indianapolis and were very strong in that part of the country. I ate at Burger Chef quite a bit growing up. One way to help BC along might be to kill off a competitor or two. Wendy's, out of Columbus, hit Burger Chef pretty hard in the Midwest as a competitor. I believe they started around 1970 and they expanded fast, becoming a huge Midwest presence over perhaps 4 years. Similarly, around the same time period, Burger King came on pretty strong with expansion.
 

Roches

Imasco owned much more than Hardee's. They also owned (and originated from?) Imperial Tobacco Canada, manufacturers of du Maurier, Player's (two big Canadian cigarette brands) as well as Marlboro in Canada, and for a time they owned Shoppers Drug Mart, a major pharmacy chain that sold tobacco until IIRC the early 90s. Yet Canada never had delicious Burger Chef, and I have never sampled their now-forever-unattainable delights.

I don't think it's necessary to kill off a competitor for Burger Chef to survive. There's room for at least one more burger chain, even if it has to be regional, which Hardee's is and BC did not want to be. Averting the Imasco sale, or changing Imasco's strategy post-buyout, would probably save BC.

Now, BC's signature sandwich was the Big Shef, which was two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun. IIRC they had it first (relative to McDonald's, but perhaps not to the Big Boy chains that also had double-decker sandwiches). Market that differently, or come up with something different, or aggressively promote the Big Shef as "the original", and BC has an important point of difference it never really had IOTL. I'm no BC expert, but I think BC really needed a point of difference versus the other hamburger chains of the time, and their salad bars and fixin' bars wouldn't cut it. They needed something just a little bigger than what they had. OTOH, if the franchise model was "too generous" to the franchisees and made minimal profits for Corporate, then there was a simple yet tragic flaw in the BC business model.

It's Incrediburgable!
 

gladiator8085

CalBear said:
Interesting that it was the 2nd biggest (by number of stores) chain. I literally never heard of them. They must have had little or no presence on the west Coast (which makes sense since Hardee's was in 40 states but not the West Coast (particularly California).
Click to expand...

I was born in 1962 and I grew up in SE Wisconsin. I can remember Burger Chef from when I was a kid in the 1970's
 

nbcman

Donor
Apollo 20 said:
They had their headquarters in Indianapolis and were very strong in that part of the country. I ate at Burger Chef quite a bit growing up. One way to help BC along might be to kill off a competitor or two. Wendy's, out of Columbus, hit Burger Chef pretty hard in the Midwest as a competitor. I believe they started around 1970 and they expanded fast, becoming a huge Midwest presence over perhaps 4 years. Similarly, around the same time period, Burger King came on pretty strong with expansion.
Click to expand...

There were a few in Central OH but Wendys and McDonalds pushed them out. The location that I remember growing up was in a poor location and was poorly managed. They never changed to a Hardees to my knowledge.
 
FieldMarshal

FieldMarshal

Banned
CalBear said:
Interesting that it was the 2nd biggest (by number of stores) chain. I literally never heard of them. They must have had little or no presence on the west Coast (which makes sense since Hardee's was in 40 states but not the West Coast (particularly California).
Click to expand...

There were a couple Burger Chefs in NC but that was before my time, really. I only learned that Burger Chef existed because of another thread on this site earlier in the year.
 
Simon

Simon

Carl Schwamberger said:
Neither General Foods nor Imasco saw the Burger Chef franchise as providing a revenue stream superior to their other fast food enterprises. Best chance is for management that does not have to choose. That is keep BUrger Chef out of companies that own other fast food franchises or chains.
Click to expand...
Management buyout perhaps?


Inferus said:
According to what a former exec said, the main reason Burger Chef was sold to Hardee's was due to the profits being so small (franchisees were becoming millionaires while corporate got small royalty payments). Increase the royalties and Burger Chef is never sold.
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Well that sounds like a solution right there - have them not bugger up the royalty fee levels as heavily and it potentially heads off the cause of the sale. General Foods still owned a couple of other fast food chains though so if you wanted to make doubly sure perhaps combine it with a later management buyout.
 
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