Burger Ranch (Israel)
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- For the Portuguese chain with a similar name, see Burger Ranch (Portugal).
Burger Ranch (Hebrew: 'בורגראנץ) is next to McDonald's and Burger King as one the three largest fast-food restaurant chains in Israel.
As of 2006, the Burger Ranch chain operates 69 restaurants with more than 1500 employees, through franchises or directly, competing primarily with McDonald's Israel, which operates about 80 restaurants as of 2005.
[edit] History
The first Burger Ranch was opened in 1972 on Ben Yehuda Street in Tel Aviv. In 1978, a second restaurant was opened on the Ibn Gevirol Street in Tel Aviv. The chain rapidly expanded and until 1993, when McDonald's entered the Israeli market, was the market leader of Israel, next to the much smaller MacDavid chain (which has only four restaurants left in 2005). From the original South African owners, Burger Ranch moved to the ownership of the Shekem, then a state-owned chain of department stores and canteens that mostly served members of the Israel Defense Forces and their families.
When Burger King tried to enter the Israeli market after McDonald's, it first closed an agreement with the management of Burger Ranch that the Burger Ranch restaurants would be included in the Burger King chain. The deal fell through, however, when the individual franchise owners of the Burger Ranch restaurant did not agree to pay large sums of money for what amounted to a name change. In the end, Burger King opened 60 new restaurants without success. Burger Ranch then tried to take over the failing operation of Burger King in Israel, but was blocked by monopoly laws. Eventually Burger King Israel went bankrupt.
In 1999, 74 percent of Burger Ranch was acquired by the energy company Paz. In late 2001, Paz completed the acquisition, becoming 100 percent owners of the chain. New branches of Burger Ranch were opened at Paz gas stations.
[edit] Kashrut
Although the separate ingredients of the hamburgers are kosher, only some of the Burger Ranch restaurants are certified as kosher. The lack of certification is probably only attributed to operation on Shabbat. Burger Ranch does not sell cheeseburgers, non kosher meats (such as bacon) or seafood, as a matter of franchise policy.
Two Burger Ranch restaurants are certified as being even more strictly kosher (Glatt Kosher), as of 2006. One is in Bnei Brak and one is in Jerusalem, both are under Bet Yosef supervision.
Some of the restaurants offer hamburgers in gluten-free buns. During Passover, all of the restaurants offer bread that is kosher for Passover instead of the regular buns. These unleavened buns are available also in non-kosher-certified restaurants.
