• Investment Required
• Investment Level: $ 125 K
• Training and Support: Yes

Franchisees who are interested in opening up new Hardee’s business franchise opportunities will be teaming up with what has become one of the largest and most widely known restaurant franchise companies in the entire world. The parent company for the Hardee’s name, CKE Restaurants Incorporated, is the sixth largest of all quick-service restaurant companies in the entire United States. The Hardee’s restaurant company is looking to give the quick-service restaurant a good shake up, by executing an ambitious plan for worldwide expansion, and sharing all of the most profitable menu items and ideas from restaurant to restaurant in order to ensure that each and every Hardee’s business franchise is as successful as the last.

The first Hardee’s restaurant was opened in 1960, In Greenville, North Carolina. This was a walk-up restaurant that had no wait staff and no dining room, and the menu served was incredibly limited. Still, Wilber Hardee knew he would be successful, and he was. The original net profit for the first Hardee’s restaurant location was $1,000 a week, which at the time happened to be a significant amount of money. The first company-owned red and white Hardee’s was opened on May 5 in 1961 by the Hardee’s Food Systems Incorporated, a company put together by Wilber Hardee, Jim Gardner and Leonard Rawls Jr.

The original menu only featured 15-cent charcoal-broiled hamburgers, 20-cent cheeseburgers, and 10-cent coffee and soft drinks. The first Hardee’s business franchise opened only five months after the first Hardee’s restaurant was opened in 1961. The first franchise was Spartan Food Systems, which was closely followed by Boddie-Noell Enterprises, which is one of the largest privately held U.S. franchises in the entire country’s fast food industry.

Everything is a little bit different in today’s Hardee’s restaurants. More than 2,400 company-owned and franchise owned quick service restaurants can be found within 32 United States and 11 different foreign countries. The Hardee’s Food system company is headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri, and acts as a wholly owned subsidiary of CKE Restaurants Incorporated, a Delaware company that is now based out of Santa Barbara in California. The Hardee’s company works hard to consistently revitalize its image, looking to spread out through the use of franchise opportunities in a number of neighborhoods throughout the United States.

Business Franchise World is not actively submitting franchise applications to this company at this time. Please browse our other top franchises, which are currently accepting new franchising opportunity applications.