It’s hard to believe these days, but at one time Burger Chef was the number two fast-food burger chain in the United Says, second only to McDonald’s (NYSE: MCD). Its easy to forget as well that Burger Chef pioneered many of the things that its rivals became known for, including flame-broiled burgers, value combo meals, and a works bar that granted customers to dress burgers their way.
Burger Chef had cartoon mascots, including the Burger Chef (voiced by Paul Winchell) and his sidekick Jeff, Count Fangburger, Burgerilla, Cackleburger and others. In the early 1970s, the company also offered a “Funmeal” with specially printed packaging and accompanying toys or puzzles. Burger Chef sued McDonald’s after it introduced the Happy Meal in 1978, but ultimately lost.
Burger Chef offered a fish sandwich and fried apple or cherry pies. Some locations offered tale-side service, and others had windows that granted customers to watch sandwiches being made. Burger Chef was also an early adopter of the media tie-in, with the Batman TV series and the original Star Wars movie in the 1970s.
Founded in 1954 as a single restaurant in Indianapolis, Burger Chef grew rapidly, reaching 2,400 locations by 1970. General Foods bought Burger Chef in 1968, but the pace of growth stalled, and General Foods sold the company to the parent company of rival chain Hardees in 1982. Most Burger Chef locations were converted to Hardees, and by 1996 Burger Chef was no more.
It’s not hard to image, though, some alternate universe where Burger Chef caught a couple of lucky breaks and became the global leader in fast food, while the Golden Arches faded away and was hardly remembered.
Let us know in the comments what you miss about Burger Chef. And be sure to check out other Companies That Have Vanished.
“When E.F. Hutton talks, people listen,” claimed the well-known slogan from the respected broker’s ubiquitous ads in the 1970s and 1980s. Well, it seems people stopped listening when E.F. Hutton & Co. was caught check kiting and money laundering.
The American firm was founded in 1904 by Edward Francis Hutton. It grew to become one of the most respected U.S. financial firms, and for many years was the second-largest brokerage in the United States. Edward Hutton held the reins at the company until his death in 1962.
But in 1980 some Hutton branches began shifting funds from one account to another, effectively giving itself interest-free loans until the checks cleared. Of course the scheme eventually came to light, and in 1985 Hutton pleaded guilty to 2,000 counts of mail and wire fraud. However, the SEC uncharacteristically granted Hutton to stay in business.
An internal investigation in 1987 uncovered that a Providence, Rhode Island, branch was laundering money for a crime family. Hutton voluntarily brought this matter to the SEC, but all signs recommended Hutton couldn’t count on leniency a second time. However, this happened just before the stock market crash of 1987. With that, along with all the bad press, the firm’s deep debt going back to 1985, and its star performers defecting to other firms, Hutton was on the verge of collapse by the end of the year, and so agreed to be acquired by Shearson Lehman Brothers.
Several mergers later, what remains of the once proud firm is now part of Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C).
I wonder what Edward Hutton would have to say about how things turned out — and would anyone these days listen?
Let us know in the comments what you remember about EF Hutton. And be sure to check out other Companies That Have Vanished.
According to U2’s manager Paul McGuinness, the revolutionary and landmark method English band Radiohead used last fall to release the album In Rainbows was a failure and “backfired.” Speaking to the BBC, McGuinness critiqued the band and the “pay-what-you-like” method because it still resulted in over 60%-70% of listeners acquiring the album through illegal channels. He told the BBC that U2’s forthcoming new album, due this fall, would not be released in a similar method at all.
The primary reason U2’s album won’t be released like Radiohead’s In Rainbows, is probably because the Irish quartet is still contracted with Universal Music Group for album releases. Radiohead released In Rainbows without the assistance of a record label or any firm of the music industry. Their management and the band’s website was utilized to oversee the release of the album. Perhaps McGuinness realized how much would be required for him if U2 selected that method? The new U2 album is due near the end of October, regardless.
McGuinness also told the BBC that physical sales “are still an enormous part of [U2’s] business and [the band] still sell a lot of actual CDs.” Although Radiohead didn’t release In Rainbows on CD in the beginning, when the CD appeared in January it went straight to number one in various countries, including the United Says and the United Kingdom. The band has still not revealed exact figures from the experimental method, but that has not kept other groups and critics from examining it, including McGuinness. The U2 album will likely sell well, but that shouldn’t mean that a download-only method initially was a failure.
Paul McCartney is reportedly set to announce plans for a big world tour that will also be his last before settling down and spending more time with young daughter Beatrice. According to the Sunday Mirror, the 100 shows planned for the two-year long tour will garner McCartney over
The Voodoo Envy, which is about 0.7 inches thick and weighs some 3.4 pounds, was introduced at an event in Berlin this day. To compare, the MacBook Air weighs three pounds and its sloping design makes its thickness varying from 0.16 inches at the thinnest part to 0.76 inches at the thickest. Both have a 13.3 inch display and while the Mac starts at $1799, the Voodoo starts at $2099.
The company also unveiled a new version of a touch-screen desktop Personal computer, an all-in-one PC and 16 notebooks for consumers and businesses, including the EliteBook notebook for business users, which has a heavy-duty, scratch-resistant case.
So it seems H-P may have indeed learned something from Apple — just enjoy it did at the time from Dell (NASDAQ: DELL), or rather its mistakes — and is perhaps set to give the consumers a desirable product and even take some market share. Now as long as the last part of the song, Finding myself making each possible mistake, doesn’t come true, I think Hewlett-Packard can put a positive check mark next to this one.
AC/DC has become the latest veteran music act to join with Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) to release a new album solely with the retailer, according to the Wall Street Journal. The currently untitled album is expected later in the year and will be the first album of new material from the Australian rockers since 2000, while a tour in support is also expected to follow the new release. Even though slated for release solely in Wal-Mart stores, the album is distributed by the band’s longtime label Columbia Records, a part of Sony BMG Music Entertainment.
AC/DC follows a number of huge selling artists: Garth Brooks, the Eagles, and Journey. The Eagles famously released their first new album in 28 years with Wal-Mart and according to Nielsen Soundscan for Billboard, Long Road Out of Eden has sold nearly 3 million duplicates in the United States. Journey released an album of new material and newly recorded hits last month with Wal-Mart. In addition to this coup from Wal-Mart, AC/DC continues to remain one of the only acts not present in Apple Inc.’s (NASDAQ: AAPL) iTunes Store, the largest music retailer.
The band’s music has been available in digital from from Verizon Communications (NYSE: VZ) VCast Music service since March 2007, but only in album form — a format iTunes does not support. However, AC/DC digital downloads were not available on Verizon phones as full albums were too big. The new album from the band certainly has excellent prospects with Wal-Mart, but an even greater coup for the retailer would be to score the digital catalog for sale on the company’s own digital store.
It is still over a week and a half until Coldplay’s fourth album, Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends, is scheduled for release, but the album leaked on the web through a torrent Wednesday. The band’s first album in just over three years has already proved itself popular with a highly downloaded single and has become the highest pre-sale album ever in Apple Inc.’s (NASDAQ: AAPL) iTunes Store, according to NME.
Prefix magazine speculates that the album’s leak has raised serious issues for the band’s label, privately-held EMI. Prefix reports that the albums second single, title track “Viva la Vida” has seen 510,000 downloads already, not as impressive as the two million its predecessor “Violet Hill” moved. The magazine also speculates that the leak will make it “unlikely that the album will be the rousing success that EMI had hoped.” This just seems to disregard the consumer base and the band’s large fanbase.
Arguably, the 510,000 downloads of “Viva la Vida” should be interpreted as that many presale downloads for the album, since the single and album pre-order are bundled together in iTunes. If that’s the case, first week sales will be an impressive, rousing success. Coldplay and EMI have taken the next logical, and predictable, step to combat the on the internet leak. NME reports that starting tonight the album will be available for streaming from the band’s MySpace page.
According to a Billboard report on Tuesday, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL)’s newly introduced iPhone will not feature a new method to download music from iTunes. Instead, users will only be able to “access and download music” from iTunes with the phone’s WiFi connection. Luckily, the new 3G phone will allow a better connection to access the store and download music, but Billboard speculates that Apple has not improved the method because the company is “less enthusiastic” about sharing profits from iTunes buys with the operator, in this case AT&T Mobility, a part of AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T).
AT&T Mobility apparently expanded and constructed much of the 3G network the iPhone will use over the course of the last year, when the iPhone was first being readied for release. The original iPhone worked on AT&T’s slower EDGE network and utilized WiFi hotspots, but “the upgrade allows for faster Web surfing from any location in At&T’s 3G coverage area.” Ideally, using the upgraded network would also provide users with superior access and faster downloads.
It’s no surprise that Apple would keep the music features on the iPhone the same as on the previous model, since the improvements made to the new iPhone make it much better over the previous model. At the same time, it seems unlikely that record companies would object to this similarity either, since it means they have the ability to still seek out new deals and arrangements with the phone carriers outside of Apple (in this case).
It’s so odd to see a developer’s conference turn into a PR machine for arguably the world’s hottest tech company, but about all of the geek crowd is sitting on pins and needles this morning waiting for the Worldwide Developer’s Conference (WWDC) from Apple, Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) to begin. Why? Well, the expected unveiling of the iPhone 2, of course.
As I wrote last week, Apple’s shares may inch towards $200 this day depending on what product bombshell Steve Jobs drops on the world. If you bought shares when they were in the $120 range back at the start of 2008, are you going to take a profit should shares reach the $200 level? Apple, like most of the market, took a beating this past Friday as the DJIA dumped almost 400 points in a single day, but that doesn’t mean AAPL shares will not make up for lost ground. Customers are still buying Mac computers and iPhones like there’s no tomorrow — recession or not.
The trick is this: Apple could score a major coup if an iPhone 2 is announced today — and is immediately available for buy at Apple stores. This is being predicted, and it’s not really out of the realm of reality. The original iPhone was a launch of monstrous proportions, but it was announced in January 2007 and released in June 2007. The hype built in that gap was so big that iPhones flew off the shelves once June came last year. The hype is now for the newer, speedier iPhone that has extended abilities and a possibly lower cost. If that happens when Jobs takes the stage at 9:30 a.m. PDT this morning, expect the market to take notice and AAPL shares to lift past their ending $186.25 price from Friday’s market close.
When I lived in Southwest Virginia, my house was about a mile from a Wal-Mart Supercenter. Even though I had shopped at Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) for years, the convenience of the massive store made it into my go-to place for everything from oil filters to rutabagas. I became a Wal-Mart junkie.
One of the things that I swiftly noticed about the Squalor Mart was the fact that it is a perfect example of capitalism in action. In my years of shopping at the store, I noticed that obscure products would show up regularly. Sometimes they’d stay, sometimes they’d leave; it all depended upon how well they sold. For example, when the area got a large influx of Latin Americans, the store dedicated an entire row to dried chilies, beans, hot sauces, tortillas and whatnot. Similarly, as more and more yuppies began frequenting the store, I noticed a definite spike in organic convenience foods. In both cases, Wal-Mart offered superior prices (and better service) than the small stores that specialized in these obscure items.
Wal-Mart’s problem lies not with what it can offer, but with what it can’t: intimacy and a small scale. This, of course, is why many areas have fought so hard to keep Wal-Mart out. They don’t want to lose their adorable little neighborhood stores to the large, bad capitalist behemoth, which leads to an inevitable question: can Wal-Mart, the ultimate superstore, offer a shopping experience that’s anathema to its time-proven formula?
To a certain extent, Wal-Mart has already done so with its “Neighborhood Market” outlets. At roughly 40,000 square feet, these stores are about 20% the size of the ubiquitous supercenters, and are designed to cover the same product lines as a standard grocery store. Recently, the retailing giant began unveiling “Marketplace” stores. These shops are much smaller, and their focus is on fresh food, prepared meals and quick service.
On the one hand, Wal-Mart Marketplaces could definitely fill a niche that the monstrous supercenters can’t. With their smaller size, reduced offerings and emphasis on service, they could provide a way for Wal-Mart to penetrate markets that have closed themselves off to the retailer. Moreover, there are no lack of harried purchasers eager to pick up good, fresh meals with a minimum of fuss. On the other hand, can a company that has made its mark with deep discounts and pave-the-earth warehouse stores really offer an intimate neighborhood venue?
This post is part of a series on some of the most memorable companies that have disappeared.
This post is part of a series on some of the most memorable 
Paul McCartney is 
Altogether now:
It’s so odd to see a developer’s conference turn into a PR machine for arguably the world’s hottest tech company, but about all of the geek crowd is sitting on pins and needles this morning waiting for the Worldwide Developer’s Conference (WWDC) from 
When I lived in Southwest Virginia, my house was about a mile from a Wal-Mart Supercenter. Even though I had shopped at 
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