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A History of Burger Chef Systems, Inc.
During the mid 1950's, the Burger King fast food chain needed someone to build a broiler one of their franchisees designed. They turned to General Restaurant Equipment, owned by brothers Frank and Donald Thomas. Up until this time, General Equipment was well known for thier Sani-Serv soft ice cream machines and Sani-Shake milk shake machines. The Thomas brothers involvement with Burger King made them realize the potential of starting thier own franchised fast food chain-competing with Burger King seemed better than supplying them. The brothers opened several prototype units in Indianapolis, Indiana in 1956 to test thier concept. During this start-up period of Burger Chef another key player along with the Thomas brothers was Robert Wildman, who was deeply involved with the original design and development of the concept of the chain. By 1958, the concept had been refined and the first unit under the Burger Chef name was opened at 1300 W. 16th Street in Indianapolis. By the end of 1958, there were eight stores in three states as franchising got underway. At this time, Burger Chef featured a "complete meal for 45c"- hamburgers, french fries and drinks were 15c each. The Burger Chef system utilized an open-flame broiler developed by the Thomas brothers and built by their Sani-Serv Division which gave the burgers a unique flavor. The original model turned out 1,000 burgers an hour, in the mid 1960's a model was introduced with a 2,000 burger per hour capacity.
During the 1960's, Burger Chef reached into 38 states as the chain grew steadily. In 1968, General Equipment sold Burger Chef Systems to General Foods for $20 million. General Foods began a major expansion program opening 300 new units a year. In 1969, the 1000th Burger Chef was opened. The chain was at this time the 2nd biggest fast food chain in the USA, only a few hundred stores behind No. 1 McDonalds.
However, this was not to last. In 1971, Burger Chef -which peaked at 1,200 stores-went into a tailspin, with General Foods taking a $75 million write-off on the chain. The expansion program came to an abrupt halt. General Foods figured the fast food buisness would be an easy way to make money, but they were more adept to manufacturing pacakaged foods and selling them to supermarkets. Later in the 70's, Burger Chef was mainly concentrated in the Midwest and Southwestern states, still one of the nation's largest fast food chains with 800 stores. A large number of locations in the Southern states broke off from the Burger Chef chain to form a new chain called Mr. Cook Restaurants.
General Foods sold Burger Chef to Hardee's in 1982. It was at this time most Burger Chefs were converted to Hardee's outlets, many were closed or sold-especially those with a Hardee's location nearby. Less than 100 Burger Chef locations were left.
The last known Burger Chef from the chain was closed in 1996, located in Cookville, TN. There are a few restaurants operating today under the name Burger Chef, but have no connection with the original chain.
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This 1968 photo was taken in White Plans, New York, on the occasion of the formal
signing of papers making Burger Chef Systems a wholly-owned subsidiary of General
Foods Corporation.
Seated left to right is Frank P. Thomas, President Burger Chef;
A.E. Larkin, President General Foods. Standing left to right: Robert Wildman,
Executive VP, Burger Chef; George Perry, Chairman of the Board, Burger Chef and
Donald J. Thomas, Vice President Burger Chef.
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Refrences:
Love, John;"McDonald's: Behind The Arches"; 1986, Bantam
Langdon, Phillip; "Orange Roofs, Golden Arches"; 1986, Knopf
Tennyson, Jeffrey; "Hamburger Heaven"; 1993, Hyperon
Jakle & Sculle; "Fast Food"; 1999, Johns Hopkins
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