"Hello Hardee's"
Mid-To-Late 1970s
So that Triumph/Hardee's blog post from a couple of weeks ago sent me on a trip down Hardee's Memory Lane. Weird, as I'm not even that big a fan of the chain. I worked at one for a couple of summers in college and those summers I bet I ate the employee-discounted food two or three times total. (Though to be fair, in the second summer they dropped their signature char-broiled burgers in favor of fried ones in a misguided attempt to save bucks.) But still … I can probably name all the towns that I have ordered Hardee's in: Crookston, Detroit Lakes, Elk River, Grand Forks, Long Prairie, Milaca, Minneapolis (remember the West Bank location off of 35W??), Moorhead, Sauk Centre, St. Cloud, St. Paul, Staples, Wadena. Like I said: Weird memory trip.
This Hardee's thing I have going is likely caused by this commercial, a favorite thirty seconds of TV of mine as a kid, one that has always stuck firmly in my memory. Ten years ago or so while driving to Minneapolis from St. Paul, I stopped at the Hardee's off of I-94 to get lunch and brought it to my afternoon client. Queries were made by the folks there as to where I had scored the Hardee's. As by this time they had brought back their signature char-broiled burgers, I proceeded to riff on this old commercial, pumping my fist and yelling: "CHAR-BROILED BURGERS! CHAR-BROILED BURGERS!" As everyone in the room was quite younger than me and had no recollection of this commercial, things went quiet after my outburst. And the commercial wasn't on the web to show, so I was left looking like a raving madman.
Now it is on YouTube and of course it has brought me much joy in this new year. And this Hardee's nostalgia has me craving Hardee's char-broiled burgers and some fries, we're talking Taco John's-like craving here (blasphemy, I know.) If I had a car, I'd make the trip to St. Paul for that Hardee's right now. But don't be surprised if you're on a Metro Transit commute sometime and you hear a middle-aged man yell: "I WISH THIS BUS WAS GOING TO HARDEE'S!"