Fast food chains are ubiquitous in towns and along roadways throughout the United States. It’s where we go to grab a quick burger, some fries, and a shake. But there’s one place no longer in operation today that created and invented so much of what exists in our fast food restaurants today: Burger Chef. At its peak in 1972, it had 1200 locations in the US, a close second only to McDonald’s. Let’s take a look back at this little slice of Americana.
History of Burger Chef
Brothers and founders Frank and Donald Thomas loved to tinker. Their father started the General Equipment Company in the 1930s, which made machinery for fast food restaurants. The brothers followed suit. They made a flame broiler for hamburgers that would flame broil the patty. They sold the machine to a small group of restaurants in Florida, later to be called Burger King.
Burger King
But the brothers kept tinkering, and they improved that flame broiler. It was now faster, capable of producing 2,000 burgers per hour. They decided to test their restaurant prowess out and opened a little burger stand in Indianapolis, Indiana. Happy with their success, they then opened the first Burger Chef restaurant in 1954. Their char-grilled burger was just 15 cents.
Five years later, in 1961, Burger Chef opened its 75th store. In 1965, there were 450 Burger Chefs in 34 different states. That number tripled again over the next six years. The rate of growth was, quite frankly, staggering.
Fun Meal
What’s fascinating to remember about Burger Chef is how innovative they were. For example, they were the first fast food chain to offer a kid’s meal. That’s right, McDonald’s Happy Meal wasn’t around until 1979, but Burger Chef introduced their Fun Meal in 1973. It was the pioneer of building a kids’ meal with a dessert and a toy.
The Fun Meal featured the Burger Chef mascots Chef and Jeff, as well as a host of other colorful characters: Burgurini, Count Fangburger, Burgerilla, and Cackleburger. Each box included lots of puzzles, riddles, and a toy. Burger Chef joined forces with Star Wars to market some kids’ meals in 1978. Burger Chef actually sued McDonald’s when they launched their Happy Meal, but they were unsuccessful, proving an appropriation of ideas.
Triple Threat
Burger Chef was also the first to offer a meal combo called the Triple Threat for just 45 cents. It included a flame-broiled burger, fries, and a shake. In 1965, Burger Chef welcomed the Big Chef, a double-decker hamburger with a tangy cheese sauce and lettuce on a toasted bun, the precursor again to McDonald’s Big Mac two years later.
Works Bar
Burger Chef introduced the Works Bar, which was essentially a topping station for your burger. Customers could enhance their burger with an unlimited supply of pickles, relish, tomatoes, onions, lettuce, and other traditional condiments. They also had a salad bar in their restaurants.
Santa Serve
In addition, the Thomas brothers manufactured a soft-serve ice cream machine called the Santa Serve. They renamed their General Equipment Company the Santa Serve division of Burger Chef Systems. In 1968, after a remarkable 14 years in the business, the brothers sold Burger Chef and Santa Serve to General Foods Corporation for nearly 20 million dollars.
What went wrong for Burger Chef?
It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what went wrong for Burger Chef. Changes in leadership can shift focus, and competition was fierce. Wendy’s started up in 1969 in neighboring Ohio and found immediate success. And the bad press from a horrible crime didn’t help matters either. In November of 1978, four young workers were abducted at closing from an Indiana restaurant, three of them teenagers. It was assumed to be just a robbery when the open back door was discovered in the morning, along with some missing money.
One theory was actually that the employees stole the money and then took off. The police instructed the cleaning crew to proceed and gave the green light for the restaurant to open up. The bodies of the missing employees were found the next day in a wooded area, but by then, the evidence was gone. The entire thing was mishandled; the crime has never been officially solved, and it remains a dark cloud in Burger Chef history.
In 1982, Burger Chef was purchased by Hardee’s for 44 million dollars. Most were quickly converted to become Hardee’s themselves. The last Burger Chef franchise, located in Tennessee, closed in 1996. And while Burger Chef is now just another nostalgic place in our memory banks, the legacy of the Thomas brothers’ tinkering lives on in the form of flame-broiled burgers, meal combos, and kids’ meals.
