Sandy's
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Formerly | Sandy's Drive-In (1956–1981) |
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Company type | Private |
Industry | Fast-food restaurants |
Founded | June 1958Peoria, Illinois | as Sandy's Drive-In in
Founders |
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Defunct | 1979 |
Fate | Company became a Hardee's franchisee |
Successor | Hardee's |
Headquarters | Kewanee, Illinois, U.S |
Number of locations | Over 120 |
Area served |
|
Key people | Gust "Brick" Lundberg, W.K.Davidson |
Products | Hamburgers |
Sandy's was a chain of American fast-food restaurants begun in 1956 by four entrepreneurs from Kewanee, Illinois: Gus "Brick" Lundberg, Robert C. Wenger, Paul White and W. K. Davidson. Sandy's was the ancestor of the midwestern franchises of the Hardee's restaurant chain.
History
Beginnings
In 1956, the four men set out to start one of the first
However, Ray Kroc notified them that Peoria and Decatur were not included in the central Illinois territory, and furthermore, that changes to the terms of the franchise meant they would owe a higher percentage of their profits to McDonald's. Having invested heavily in the Peoria location, including erecting the building, Lundberg and his partners decided instead to open their own restaurant, and settled on the name Sandy's. The chain adopted a Scottish-based theme to combat the Scottish-rooted McDonald's, even though the latter was not based on a cultural theme of any kind. Lundberg was named president.[1]
Early success
The menu of the first Sandy's restaurant included a 15¢ hamburger, a 20¢ milkshake, and a 10¢ bag of french fries, much like McDonald's. However, none of the four founders were interested in expanding their local chain. Lundberg, in particular, viewed the enterprise as a chance to build a "people-oriented organization whose members worked hard but also had some fun while earning a legitimate profit."[1]
Sandy's was different in a number of ways from other fast food chains of the time:[1]
- Operators of most restaurants owned their stores and did not lease from the corporation.
- Operators were not required to buy supplies from the corporation, instead being permitted to "shop around" as long as the supplies met company standards.
- Lundberg visited every store periodically and became personally acquainted with every employee.
Ray Kroc did not act indifferently. He filed an ongoing series of lawsuits which finally ended with an
Bill Schelly in his memoir Sense of Wonder reminisced about visits in the mid-1960s when in downtown Pittsburgh he made to "a handy hamburger joint named Sandy's (a McDonald's imitator) for greasy cheeseburgers, mounds of salty fries, and massive sodas".[2] In 2009 Schelly posted further comments on a Sandy's fan website:
"The Sandy's we went to was an inner-city variety, sandwiched (so to speak) between two other stores, it was small and if it had tables at all, these were circular with small diameters, like 18". The decor, as I recall, had a lot of orange & yellow, but my memory could be playing tricks on me. We'd buy 3 burgers and 2 orders of fries a piece, because the burgers weren't very big, and huge Cokes, and take all the food back to my Dad's office downtown. ... "[3]
Takeover by Hardee's
By the end of the 1960s, Sandy's, though still successful, was short of cash, a major handicap with the pricey new
Originally, Sandy's was only to merge with Hardee's and maintain its own identity, but in 1973, ninety percent of the locations agreed to switch to Hardee's; the other ten percent remained Sandy's. In 1979, the last Sandy's location in
See also
References
- ^ a b c d Frazer, Timothy & Frazer, June (Fall 1988). "Gust E. "Brick" Lundberg". Journal of Business Leadership. 1 (2). Archived from the original on November 7, 2014 – via American Business Hall of Fame. Note: a new version of the reprint appears at http://anbhf.org/laureates/gust-e-brick-lundberg-2/ .
- ISBN 9781893905122 – via Google Books.
- ^ "Sandy's Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania". Captain Ernie's Showboat (fan site). Archived from the original on 2011-04-29. Retrieved 14 May 2009.
- ProQuest 133560375.
- ProQuest 170227289.
- ^ Rector, Rick (March 8, 2016). "McDonald's is our kind of place". Quad-City Times.