Carl's Jr. and Hardee's Remodeling

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Alpha8472
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Carl's Jr. and Hardee's Remodeling

Post by Alpha8472 »

The parent company of these two restaurants is investing $500 million in renovations among other things: new signs, interior and exterior digital menu boards, upgraded lighting, bathrooms, subway tiling, etc.

Columbia, South Carolina already transformed 2 years ago and the restaurants look very nice. The old restaurants on the West Coast look really rundown. It is like a time capsule to the 90s or earlier.

https://chainstoreage.com/carls-hardees ... formations
Last edited by Alpha8472 on May 12th, 2022, 10:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
storewanderer
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Re: Carl's Jr. and Hardess Remodeling

Post by storewanderer »

Alpha8472 wrote: May 12th, 2022, 10:26 pm The parent company of these two restaurants is investing $500 million in renovations among other things: new signs, interior and exterior digital menu boards, upgraded lighting, bathrooms, subway tiling, etc.

Columbia, South Carolina already transformed 2 years ago and the restaurants look very nice. The old restaurants on the West Coast look really rundown. It is like a time capsule to the 90s or earlier.

https://chainstoreage.com/carls-hardees ... formations
What is strange about this is I thought they had sort of separated the two brands...

They hardly have any corporate locations left.

Given they just got app-based ordering going a few weeks ago, you could say they are just a little behind the industry (years behind).
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Re: Carl's Jr. and Hardee's Remodeling

Post by ClownLoach »

They were using a new design that was almost entirely black exterior on a recent remodel right next to Disneyland and it looked very sharp and contemporary. The signage was white and gold and it really popped against the black paint. The rest was a dark gray for accent.

These pictures look dull and dated already with the part modern, part retro design. Looks like a big waste of money. If they want to spend half a billion maybe they can go back to cooking the food to order instead of microwaving stale dried out burger patties from God knows how long ago. If they served edible food again then I could care less how dated the interior is. These guys are clueless.
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Re: Carl's Jr. and Hardee's Remodeling

Post by storewanderer »

ClownLoach wrote: May 13th, 2022, 8:00 am They were using a new design that was almost entirely black exterior on a recent remodel right next to Disneyland and it looked very sharp and contemporary. The signage was white and gold and it really popped against the black paint. The rest was a dark gray for accent.

These pictures look dull and dated already with the part modern, part retro design. Looks like a big waste of money. If they want to spend half a billion maybe they can go back to cooking the food to order instead of microwaving stale dried out burger patties from God knows how long ago. If they served edible food again then I could care less how dated the interior is. These guys are clueless.
What locations are using microwaves? That is against their policy for any burgers. They usually have a single microwave somewhere in the facility and are allowed to microwave some breakfast and Green Burrito items. Hardees in the 90's had a program where they microwaved the meat patty on the bottom bun and then put the lettuce, etc. on the top bun on the prep counter (top bun never got microwaved) and assembled it that way and the units that kept using that process were actually threatened with de-franchising and there should not to this day even be a microwave on the burger prep line at any of the Hardees or Carls units.

The "Thickburgers" used to come as a par-cooked patty that went through the char broiler but my understanding some time ago was that they moved away from that par-cooked patty and went to something frozen/raw then in store it was fully char grilled on that product. That is why they aren't as "thick" anymore.

I do agree their food does not taste the same as it used to and is way too overpriced for what it is.
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Re: Carl's Jr. and Hardee's Remodeling

Post by ClownLoach »

storewanderer wrote: May 14th, 2022, 12:42 am
ClownLoach wrote: May 13th, 2022, 8:00 am They were using a new design that was almost entirely black exterior on a recent remodel right next to Disneyland and it looked very sharp and contemporary. The signage was white and gold and it really popped against the black paint. The rest was a dark gray for accent.

These pictures look dull and dated already with the part modern, part retro design. Looks like a big waste of money. If they want to spend half a billion maybe they can go back to cooking the food to order instead of microwaving stale dried out burger patties from God knows how long ago. If they served edible food again then I could care less how dated the interior is. These guys are clueless.
What locations are using microwaves? That is against their policy for any burgers. They usually have a single microwave somewhere in the facility and are allowed to microwave some breakfast and Green Burrito items. Hardees in the 90's had a program where they microwaved the meat patty on the bottom bun and then put the lettuce, etc. on the top bun on the prep counter (top bun never got microwaved) and assembled it that way and the units that kept using that process were actually threatened with de-franchising and there should not to this day even be a microwave on the burger prep line at any of the Hardees or Carls units.

The "Thickburgers" used to come as a par-cooked patty that went through the char broiler but my understanding some time ago was that they moved away from that par-cooked patty and went to something frozen/raw then in store it was fully char grilled on that product. That is why they aren't as "thick" anymore.

I do agree their food does not taste the same as it used to and is way too overpriced for what it is.
The absolute last time I ate at Carl's Jr. was a co-branded location and the mayo and ketchup on the Super Star bun were so hot they burned my lip. The lettuce was practically liquid. And the coldest part was the meat. No way to pull that off without a microwave. It went right in the trash and I haven't been back. Too much disappointment. Probably the above mentioned scenario of unauthorized microwave use.
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Re: Carl's Jr. and Hardee's Remodeling

Post by jamcool »

storewanderer wrote: May 14th, 2022, 12:42 am
ClownLoach wrote: May 13th, 2022, 8:00 am They were using a new design that was almost entirely black exterior on a recent remodel right next to Disneyland and it looked very sharp and contemporary. The signage was white and gold and it really popped against the black paint. The rest was a dark gray for accent.

These pictures look dull and dated already with the part modern, part retro design. Looks like a big waste of money. If they want to spend half a billion maybe they can go back to cooking the food to order instead of microwaving stale dried out burger patties from God knows how long ago. If they served edible food again then I could care less how dated the interior is. These guys are clueless.
What locations are using microwaves? That is against their policy for any burgers. They usually have a single microwave somewhere in the facility and are allowed to microwave some breakfast and Green Burrito items. Hardees in the 90's had a program where they microwaved the meat patty on the bottom bun and then put the lettuce, etc. on the top bun on the prep counter (top bun never got microwaved) and assembled it that way and the units that kept using that process were actually threatened with de-franchising and there should not to this day even be a microwave on the burger prep line at any of the Hardees or Carls units.

The "Thickburgers" used to come as a par-cooked patty that went through the char broiler but my understanding some time ago was that they moved away from that par-cooked patty and went to something frozen/raw then in store it was fully char grilled on that product. That is why they aren't as "thick" anymore.

I do agree their food does not taste the same as it used to and is way too overpriced for what it is.
Carl’s hasn’t been the same since Carl Karcher was booted out of the company.
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Re: Carl's Jr. and Hardee's Remodeling

Post by storewanderer »

ClownLoach wrote: May 15th, 2022, 8:01 pm
The absolute last time I ate at Carl's Jr. was a co-branded location and the mayo and ketchup on the Super Star bun were so hot they burned my lip. The lettuce was practically liquid. And the coldest part was the meat. No way to pull that off without a microwave. It went right in the trash and I haven't been back. Too much disappointment. Probably the above mentioned scenario of unauthorized microwave use.
I had a similar outcome with a Burger King Rodeo Cheeseburger 20+ years ago late at night. When I took it out of the bag it felt like a hot potato (it was a cold night) but I didn't process the situation and I quickly ate into the thing and the BBQ sauce on it was steaming hot.

The only way to get condiments so hot and lettuce as liquid is a microwave. And that is pretty pathetic you have a location using one but can't figure out that the only component that they should warm is the meat. Though I hate any microwaved meat, as far as I am concerned if you microwave meat, it is destroyed. My guess is their holding bin was broken and they had nowhere to put meat after cooking it so this was someone's idea. Here's another idea: if your holding bin is broken cook the burgers to order and serve the meat directly out of the char broiler. The newer char broilers take less than 2 minutes to put through a burger (older ones are over 3 minutes).
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