Crew Member

Checkers Drive-In Restaurants, Inc., is a major U.S. hamburger chain. Checkers, and sister brand Rally's Hamburgers, feature retro-styled, double drive-thru restaurants in the South and Midwest. In 2005, Checkers had 509 company owned or franchised restaurants under its own brand and about 364 under the name of Rally's Hamburgers. Both operated "double drive-thru" restaurants; Checkers was centered in the Southeast, while Rally's stronghold was the Midwest. With its distinctive black and white checkerboard squares surrounded by bright red and chrome, Checkers and Rally's took the fast food hamburger market by storm in the early 1990s. Quickly building hundreds of unique, vibrantly colored modular restaurants throughout the southeastern United States, their high volume double drive-through windows and low overhead allowed them to dominate the burger market, shocking the complacent Big Four (McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's and Hardee's) and smaller regional hamburger chains. Checkers offered a simple menu with low-priced burgers and combination meals, and by 1993 the entire fast food industry was engaged in a ferocious price war with many fatalities. The consumer was the clear winner as burger chains and other fast food franchises opted to offer their own versions of "value"-priced items. The mid-1990s brought a slowdown and losses for Checkers and Rally's, and the two fumbled for new products and concepts as same-store sales slipped. Excessive growth led to a debt crisis, which was not resolved until both came under the influence of CKE Restaurants, which infused money and ideas into them and merged the two in 1999. Though the company came close to bankruptcy, it still had believers among franchisees, observers, and customers. New management restored an emphasis on the basics, initiated a popular new "You Gotta Eat" advertising campaign, and returned the company to a growth track.