The Resurrection Of Hardee's And The Demise Of Happy Chef
Growing up in the Upper Midwest in the 1980s, two food franchises that were front and center in my childhood memories were Hardee's and Happy Chef. Throughout the 80s, the franchises were ascendant, with new stores popping up in new towns and replacing closed restaurants in communities that already had Hardee's and Happy Chef franchises. They were on top of the world and even though I enjoyed them both, I took them for granted given how prolific they were. By the second half of the 1990s, both franchises began to fall on hard times that lasted the better part of a decade for Hardee's and followed Happy Chef to its extinction. I'll track the rise and fall of both franchises in the paragraphs ahead and offer some personal anecdotes on my associations with both of them and my opinions on what went wrong.
I'll start with Happy Chef to get the one with the unhappy ending out of the way. The franchise started in 1963 in Mankato, Minnesota, with a single casual dining 24-hour restaurant in the vein of Perkins and Denny's. In the quarter century to come, the franchise boomed to 56 restaurants in the Upper Midwest. While it might seem odd to an outsider why such a restaurant would have such visceral appeal to a young child as I was in the 1980s, anybody who grew up in the area will know exactly why Happy Chef brings back such fond memories for me.......the statues! Larger-than-life ceramic statues of a nicely dressed chef holding a giant wooden spoon over his head dotted the landscape off of freeway exits throughout the region, and millions of children probably have their own memories of tugging on dad's shoulder and requesting he pull off the road and stop for breakfast at the restaurant with the big chef statue. And best of all, he spoke! With the push of a button at the statue's base, the chef would read you the specials for the day and often relayed some quirky prerecorded anecdotes to boot. Was the food as impressive as the presentation? Definitely not. I remember having some good omelets and pancakes over the years at Happy Chef but also remember some greasy, overpriced drivel coming out of that Happy Chef kitchen, particularly in the later years.
And ultimately, Happy Chef's mid-to-late 80s expansion was when it fell victim to hubris. I surmise that the Happy Chef empire up to that point was built on the statue gimmick, but the new Happy Chefs going up all over the region were going up sans the statues. It was blasphemous, and I know I'm not the only young diner who no longer had any use for a roadside Happy Chef restaurant if there wasn't a statue accompanying it. Making matters worse, a lot of existing Happy Chefs started taking their chef statues down, citing maintenance hassles particularly with the audio recordings. It was pure arrogance, and not coincidentally the franchise's decline began shortly thereafter with a slow drip of closures throughout the 1990s that accelerated in the 2000s. Around 2008 there were only seven Happy Chefs left. A few years later they were down to three. And as of September 2015, there's one left....the original Happy Chef in Mankato, Minnesota.....and not coincidentally the only one that kept their giant chef statue up over the years.
Just last winter when going Christmas shopping in Mankato, I stopped by Happy Chef and got a couple of photos of the statue for my own files and to amuse coworkers who also have fond memories of the old Happy Chef statues. Good thing I got the photos when I did because earlier this summer the brother of the original owner announced he's putting the restaurant up for sale. By year's end, the restaurant will likely be under different ownership and the final statue will likely be removed, ideally to be put in some museum. The blame for the extinction of Happy Chef is largely being directed towards "changing consumer tastes", but I'm calling bullshit. Happy Chef had one of the best promotional gimmicks around in their heyday but made the decision to squander that competitive advantage at the peak of their popularity. Consumer tastes didn't change so much as the youngest customers who got families in the front door in the first place no longer had any compelling reason to visit Happy Chef. By such hubris does an empire fall.
But not every story of decline lacks a redemptive follow-up chapter. The fast food franchise Hardee's was about as low as a franchise could go a decade ago but is in the middle stages of an extremely impressive comeback in 2015. I didn't even realize back in the 1980s that Hardee's was a regional chain centered in the Midwest and Southern states. I just assumed it was right in there with other top-tier national fast food chains like McDonald's and Burger King. I always liked the food a lot better than McDonald's and, much like with Happy Chef, was taken in by their promotional gimmicks, which frequently included free stuffed animals with the purchase of a combo meal or, most memorably, the 1983 Smurf' glass sets. But my personal association with Hardee's grew stronger in the summer of 1990 when I accompanied my dad doing vinyl repair work at car lots throughout southwest Minnesota, and we discovered that Hardee's was often times the only fast food option in most of the smaller towns in the region. An order of nine of their Chicken Tenders with barbecue sauce was all I needed to get through most afternoons on the road. Even as an adult, my commutes to college and my weekend road trips have included dozens of visits to the Hardee's drive-thrus and the purchase of one of their always-delicious chicken sandwiches.
There was a definite Hardee's boom in the second half of the 80s with new restaurants popping up everywhere, but the boom stopped abruptly in the first half of the 90s and was followed by a precipitous decline that may have been very close to becoming fatal. I first began to notice the closure of some Hardee's around 1997, along with rumors of wider problems within the franchise. By 2001, the store closures really began to ramp up and just kept coming until around 2007 when the bleeding finally began to stop, with the state of Minnesota getting hit particularly hard. At its peak, there were more than 150 Hardee's locations in Minnesota alone, but by 2008 they were down to 24. Somehow, the Hardee's in the south side ghetto of my hometown of Albert Lea was one of the 24 to persevere even through the worst years. Hardee's acknowledged its problems around 2000 and changed its marketing and its menu. I remember a wide array of clever advertising from Hardee's going back to when I was a little kid but it became edgier in the new millennium. Ultimately though, the food itself was what made the comeback stick....
Hardee's was never thought to have had very good burgers in its 80s heyday, and having a few over the years I can see where its critics are coming from, but since I primarily feasted on their chicken or roast beef I didn't really notice. But they made a conscious effort to serve thicker patties of higher quality beef along with some additional menu upgrades. Contrary to my dad's clueless assertion that "they're never gonna make a comeback by raising their prices", Hardee's appears to have done just that as they are definitely resurgent again and have been since around 2010. They were down to one restaurant in the Des Moines area but now have four. All of the Hardee's in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, closed more than a decade ago but now there are at least two new ones. Smaller cities in Minnesota where Hardee's had previously closed--such as Fairmont and Austin--are now reopening Hardee's stores. And I couldn't be happier about it as it's always been one of my favorite--and most storied--fast food options. I'm not sure we're likely to see the return of the small-town Hardee's stores I remembered as a boy that were some of the first to close, which is unfortunate, but then again their comeback options seem rather limitless at this stage with as much turf as they've already reclaimed.
Next week I'll be driving home from Duluth on Minnesota State Highway 23 after a weekend on the North Shore of Lake Superior and I already know my lunch choice will be Hardee's. And I'll have five options to boot as Highway 23 has Hardee's in Hinckley, Mora, Milaca, Cold Spring, and Granite Falls.....assuming they haven't reopened one in another town on the highway as well!
I'll start with Happy Chef to get the one with the unhappy ending out of the way. The franchise started in 1963 in Mankato, Minnesota, with a single casual dining 24-hour restaurant in the vein of Perkins and Denny's. In the quarter century to come, the franchise boomed to 56 restaurants in the Upper Midwest. While it might seem odd to an outsider why such a restaurant would have such visceral appeal to a young child as I was in the 1980s, anybody who grew up in the area will know exactly why Happy Chef brings back such fond memories for me.......the statues! Larger-than-life ceramic statues of a nicely dressed chef holding a giant wooden spoon over his head dotted the landscape off of freeway exits throughout the region, and millions of children probably have their own memories of tugging on dad's shoulder and requesting he pull off the road and stop for breakfast at the restaurant with the big chef statue. And best of all, he spoke! With the push of a button at the statue's base, the chef would read you the specials for the day and often relayed some quirky prerecorded anecdotes to boot. Was the food as impressive as the presentation? Definitely not. I remember having some good omelets and pancakes over the years at Happy Chef but also remember some greasy, overpriced drivel coming out of that Happy Chef kitchen, particularly in the later years.
And ultimately, Happy Chef's mid-to-late 80s expansion was when it fell victim to hubris. I surmise that the Happy Chef empire up to that point was built on the statue gimmick, but the new Happy Chefs going up all over the region were going up sans the statues. It was blasphemous, and I know I'm not the only young diner who no longer had any use for a roadside Happy Chef restaurant if there wasn't a statue accompanying it. Making matters worse, a lot of existing Happy Chefs started taking their chef statues down, citing maintenance hassles particularly with the audio recordings. It was pure arrogance, and not coincidentally the franchise's decline began shortly thereafter with a slow drip of closures throughout the 1990s that accelerated in the 2000s. Around 2008 there were only seven Happy Chefs left. A few years later they were down to three. And as of September 2015, there's one left....the original Happy Chef in Mankato, Minnesota.....and not coincidentally the only one that kept their giant chef statue up over the years.
Just last winter when going Christmas shopping in Mankato, I stopped by Happy Chef and got a couple of photos of the statue for my own files and to amuse coworkers who also have fond memories of the old Happy Chef statues. Good thing I got the photos when I did because earlier this summer the brother of the original owner announced he's putting the restaurant up for sale. By year's end, the restaurant will likely be under different ownership and the final statue will likely be removed, ideally to be put in some museum. The blame for the extinction of Happy Chef is largely being directed towards "changing consumer tastes", but I'm calling bullshit. Happy Chef had one of the best promotional gimmicks around in their heyday but made the decision to squander that competitive advantage at the peak of their popularity. Consumer tastes didn't change so much as the youngest customers who got families in the front door in the first place no longer had any compelling reason to visit Happy Chef. By such hubris does an empire fall.
But not every story of decline lacks a redemptive follow-up chapter. The fast food franchise Hardee's was about as low as a franchise could go a decade ago but is in the middle stages of an extremely impressive comeback in 2015. I didn't even realize back in the 1980s that Hardee's was a regional chain centered in the Midwest and Southern states. I just assumed it was right in there with other top-tier national fast food chains like McDonald's and Burger King. I always liked the food a lot better than McDonald's and, much like with Happy Chef, was taken in by their promotional gimmicks, which frequently included free stuffed animals with the purchase of a combo meal or, most memorably, the 1983 Smurf' glass sets. But my personal association with Hardee's grew stronger in the summer of 1990 when I accompanied my dad doing vinyl repair work at car lots throughout southwest Minnesota, and we discovered that Hardee's was often times the only fast food option in most of the smaller towns in the region. An order of nine of their Chicken Tenders with barbecue sauce was all I needed to get through most afternoons on the road. Even as an adult, my commutes to college and my weekend road trips have included dozens of visits to the Hardee's drive-thrus and the purchase of one of their always-delicious chicken sandwiches.
There was a definite Hardee's boom in the second half of the 80s with new restaurants popping up everywhere, but the boom stopped abruptly in the first half of the 90s and was followed by a precipitous decline that may have been very close to becoming fatal. I first began to notice the closure of some Hardee's around 1997, along with rumors of wider problems within the franchise. By 2001, the store closures really began to ramp up and just kept coming until around 2007 when the bleeding finally began to stop, with the state of Minnesota getting hit particularly hard. At its peak, there were more than 150 Hardee's locations in Minnesota alone, but by 2008 they were down to 24. Somehow, the Hardee's in the south side ghetto of my hometown of Albert Lea was one of the 24 to persevere even through the worst years. Hardee's acknowledged its problems around 2000 and changed its marketing and its menu. I remember a wide array of clever advertising from Hardee's going back to when I was a little kid but it became edgier in the new millennium. Ultimately though, the food itself was what made the comeback stick....
Hardee's was never thought to have had very good burgers in its 80s heyday, and having a few over the years I can see where its critics are coming from, but since I primarily feasted on their chicken or roast beef I didn't really notice. But they made a conscious effort to serve thicker patties of higher quality beef along with some additional menu upgrades. Contrary to my dad's clueless assertion that "they're never gonna make a comeback by raising their prices", Hardee's appears to have done just that as they are definitely resurgent again and have been since around 2010. They were down to one restaurant in the Des Moines area but now have four. All of the Hardee's in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, closed more than a decade ago but now there are at least two new ones. Smaller cities in Minnesota where Hardee's had previously closed--such as Fairmont and Austin--are now reopening Hardee's stores. And I couldn't be happier about it as it's always been one of my favorite--and most storied--fast food options. I'm not sure we're likely to see the return of the small-town Hardee's stores I remembered as a boy that were some of the first to close, which is unfortunate, but then again their comeback options seem rather limitless at this stage with as much turf as they've already reclaimed.
Next week I'll be driving home from Duluth on Minnesota State Highway 23 after a weekend on the North Shore of Lake Superior and I already know my lunch choice will be Hardee's. And I'll have five options to boot as Highway 23 has Hardee's in Hinckley, Mora, Milaca, Cold Spring, and Granite Falls.....assuming they haven't reopened one in another town on the highway as well!
posted by Mark at 12:19 PM
2 Comments:
I couldn't be happier to see Hardees on the mend.we have one in our town of Warsaw Indiana which we frequent often.they also put in a new Hardees 25 miles west of us in Plymouth Indiana. Hurray for the comeback kid!!
I couldn't be happier to see Hardees on the mend.we have one in our town of Warsaw Indiana which we frequent often.they also put in a new Hardees 25 miles west of us in Plymouth Indiana. Hurray for the comeback kid!!
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