The final days of McDonald's?

Our early fast food was Red Barn, an eastern chain owned by former Baltimore Colts lineman Glenn Ressler. Great chicken. Solid burgers.

Then at 16, a Burger Chef was built on the square in our town. That was my crack. Still miss Burger Chef.

Town now has a McD's which is a regular violator on the restaurant inspection reports that run in the newspaper/website. I avoid that place now, but I also make a point to avoid those articles because, frankly, I don't want to see a gross report on a food place I like.

 

The chain preceding McDonald's in Wilmington, Delaware when I grew up was Gino's, owned (at least partly) by Colts Hall of Famer Gino Marchetti. Food was, uh, not so good. People treated the first McDonald's like a three-star Michelin restaurant had opened.

 

I haven't seen a Burger Chef in at least 35 years.

 

I went to junior high school next to what proved to be the last Burger Chef. It was ok food, but not very memorable.

 

Is Rax still a thing, anywhere?

And what is the natural rival for Fazoli's -- Sbarros in malls and airports?

 

About 10 years ago, a Krystal closed down in our town and was replaced -- for about three weeks -- by a Bo Jackson Burger.
Yes, that Bo Jackson.
One of the restaurant's PR people called and asked if we wanted to do an interview, but made it clear there were to be no questions about sports. You might as well not ask Neil Armstrong about walking on the moon. Our SE politely told her no thanks.
I did manage to eat there once before the place closed. It was awful.

 

My wife, on our trips to see family in New Jersey, has fallen in love with what she calls "flappy pizza" -- the long, thin, New York style slices common in local pizza shops up there, but not at any of the major chains that populate our area.
Sbarro has it, so she enjoys getting a slice or two in the airport when we travel.

 

They were the competition for McDonald's here before the existence of Burger King, Hardee's, Wendy's, etc. As a kid, I absolutely loved the McDonald's fish sandwich, and the Burger Chef fish sandwich just did not compare.

When I was in high school, a friend worked at the local McDonald's, and right about that time was when I thought the Filet-o-Fish went downhill. The tartar sauce was different. He told me that they went from a tartar sauce that came in two cans that had to be combined and went to a tartar sauce that came in a single can and didn't have to be mixed. To my 17-year-old taste buds, the old tartar sauce was much, much better. Before that happened, the Burger Chef fish sandwich fell well short. It didn't get better, but the McDonald's one got worse.

According to Wikipedia, Burger Chefs began disappearing in 1982, with the last one closing in 1996. The impetus for them closing was that they were bought by -- and mostly converted to -- Hardee's.

Burger Chef - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

There's one a couple of counties away from me. I was there once a decade ago. It was no different than Arby's to me.

 

Arby's jamocha shakes are great. In high school we used to go to Arby's for lunch, get a jamocha shake and mix it with some blackberry brandy or southern comfort. We had a driver's ed teacher who would let us bring drinks and snacks to class as long as we didn't make a mess and were quiet. He said he wouldn't say anything if we didn't say anything about him smoking cigs in class. Guy was NYPD, old school good dude, looked like one of the cops from the Beastie Boys Sabotage video.

 

I heard the same thing happened at Bronco Burger.

Ever since they started with the chicken nuggets, everything went downhill. You have to fry all their greasy food, and you have to polish things. And the manager's an asshole.

 

In Cleveland, we used to go to Burger Chef all the time after grocery shopping with my mom. And Red Barn was a real treat to ride our bikes to. I remember they had chicken. Don't remember much about the food.