I worked at the Hardee’s location in the Woodland Hills Shopping Center when I was in high school. Good times. The Charlotte paper has the Wilbur Hardee obit:
ST. LOUIS –Wilbur Hardee founded the Hardee’s restaurant chain in 1960, but he didn’t stop there. The entrepreneur also launched a host of lesser-known eateries in his home state of North Carolina, such as Biscuit Town, Hot Dog City and Beef and Shake.
But even decades after leaving the franchise that still bears his name, Hardee couldn’t hide his pride when he passed a location and its marquee that bore his name.“He considered Hardee’s his little child,” said Ann Hardee Riggs, Hardee’s 60-year-old daughter.
Hardee died Friday, at the age of 89, in Greenville, N.C., the same town where he opened his first Hardee’s location, giving birth to a hamburger franchise that is now a division of St. Louis-based CKE Restaurants Inc. Hardee’s has grown to include 1,900 locations across the Midwest and Southeast and 200 international locations.
Hardee’s has become a mainstay for CKE, which has seen sales and profits rise in recent years based on a strategy of giving hungry customers what they want – even if that happens to be a patently overindulgent Monster Thickburger with 1,420 calories and 107 grams of fat.
I first saw this story over at BooneWeb.com.