Don't forget their signature breakfast; the Barnyard Buster. Tasty and a week's worth of calories in one sitting.
For whatever reason Burger Chef has stuck in my head as a place I'd still like to visit although I haven't had one near me since 1979. I did get a glow-in-the-dark Burger Chef Frisbee on eBay a few years ago to compliment the dogeared one that I grew up with. There used to be a restaurant near me called The Ground Round that served peanuts at the table & they would let you throw the shells onto the floor. Every single time my family drove past that place, one of us kids would ask to eat there for that reason. In that same location many incarnations later was a Chinese restaurant that would continually fill your water glass once you dared to set it down.
My best White Castle story involves 3 Dallas fans in my truck after closing down Keegan's after a match in 2007 (I think it was 2007, that was the last Keegan's season right?). We drove down to the Castle at South High and Greenlawn at about 2:30. The drive-thru was wrapped around the building with various "questionable characters" milling about in the parking lot. When we finally got up to order, the Dallas kids (who had never had WC but had only heard about it via film) order 3 crave cases, which is 30 sliders per case for the uninitiated. We sat there and clogged their drive-thru for nearly 15 minutes. I seriously thought (through my probably shouldn't have been driving haze) that there were going to be caps busted by the time we finally got the food and got out of there.
Now that we're telling WC stories, mine was on a trip to Indianapolis. Went to a concert, and left with an insane contact buzz. After the show was over, literally the only place open was a WC (this was before the 'open late night' craze hit the fast food industry. So we had to settle... that and I was out voted 2 to 1, as I'd rather starve. But anyway, it was so bad, even on a contact buzz, that we didn't eat it. So we're just driving down the highway, throwing the burgers at road signs. We missed every single sign until the last burger!
I didn't like either of those at the time, though I've come to like steak n shake quite a bit, so perhaps i'd like their burgers now. Last I knew there was one in the Memphis airport, so it still exist to some extent. I certainly liked them when they were around
By this logic Applebees and Chili's are better than Max and Erma's. Even so, I don't think anyone said better than Wendy's, I certainly said better than Arby's. I'd say being bought out by Hardy's is what killed Rax, though I don't specifically remember food quality tanking, so I could be wrong. Think back when McDonalds bought Donato's and Chipotle. Luckily they sold them both back to their original owners.
McD's was a major investor in Chipotle in 1996 and fully divested itself in 2006. Btw, DnD has a great White Castle story but I'll leave it to him to share.
Similar thing happened with Zantigo vis a vis Taco Bell. I think it was General Mills or Pepsi (maybe?) that bought out Zantigo, and since they owned Taco Bell at the time, they just converted all of the Zantigos. The funny thing is that Taco Bells were mostly complete and utter dumps at that time throughout the mid-80's. So they ended up incorporating the design and layout (faux adobe style appearance) of Zantigos into all of their new locations. They also carried over a few of the menu items, mainly the chilito, but the sauce had less of a kick and seem to use less cheese.
Ground Round was actually a Howard Johnson's spinoff. And I miss Ritzy's too, though Steak n Shake is close.
My mistake, I thought McD's came on later in the ballgame and left fairly quickly. Apparently Chipotle did quite well with McD's as a major investor, so only use Donato's as an example.
Actually it appears I was right about McD's owning Chipotle "Chipotle became a susidiary of McDonald's in 1999 when McDonald's acquired the controlling stake of the company. At one point, McDonald's owned shares accounting for approximately 87% ... Currently, Mcdonald's ... have divested completely from Chipotle. Source: Joe Stupp, General Manager, Chipotle.com" http://www.chipotlefan.com/index.php?id=chipotlemcdonalds
Yeah WHS is right about that, if you're taking it down to majority investor it's really semantics. That's the time McD's and Wendy's were having their taco wars. McD's widely expanded Chipotle while Wendy's did the same with Baja Fresh. Both divested themselves of these properties at about the same time. Chipotle did better afterward because McD's put them in better locations mostly accounting for size. While Wendy's did a horrible job putting Baja Fresh's in large stores that cost too much so they shrunk down quite a bit without Wendy's International muscle behind them.
I'd argue it had a LOT more to do with the overall food, experience, the people, etc. Sure Chipotle made good real estate decisions with the assistance of McD's during their collaboration pre-2006 but since their divestment CMG stock as gone from $60 to over $300 a share - and from 500 stores to almost 1500 stores. Chipotle just had a much strong product and business model...
Yeah but all you have to do is look right here for how Baja Fresh was run for anything but success. The original Sawmill Chipotle is still there and was good size for what it was to be. The Baja Fresh on Sawmill is now a mattress store, that's way too much space. The Baja Fresh on Tremont is a retail store again way too much space. They just couldn't cover their costs for the spaces they bought. They did that all over too not just here.
I had a Papa John's concession pizza at the Jackets game last night. Here is my review. Sauce, cheese, and sausage all clearly Papa John's (by the way, that's good). Crust tasted like Papa John's but not browned enough (the ovens they are cooked in probably don't get hot enough. All in all, a very good pizza and fairly true to the chain's pizzeria pies. At almost any sporting venue, this would be a vast improvement over what they currently have. The problem is that Nationwide (as well as Crew Stadium) used to have Donato's, which was even better and truer to its chain's pizzeria taste. Final Grade: A- (unfortunately, Donato's was an A+, but, hey, it's still at Huntington Park as far as I know).
INBEV (Budweiser) watering down Beer? I would not be suprised by this. http://www.10tv.com/content/stories/2013/02/26/columbus-lawsuit-alleges-budweiser-watered-down.html
Given that light beer is pretty much watered down regular beer and stadium beer is watered down from what is available elsewhere, would that mean that stadium Bud Light is now pretty much colored alcoholic water?