Checkers and Rally's

Checkers Drive-In Restaurants, Inc.
Private
Industry Fast Food
Founded 1986 (1986) (as Checker's)
Mobile, Alabama, U.S.
1985 (1985) (as Rally's)
Louisville, Kentucky, U.S.
1999 (1999) (Merger of Checkers and Rally's)
Headquarters Tampa, Florida
Number of locations
 784 (2014)[1]
Products Burgers, hot dogs, chicken, fish, hot wings, french fries, shakes, soft drinks
Owner Sentinel Capital Partners
Website www.checkers.com
www.rallys.com

Checkers Drive-In Restaurants, Inc., is one of the largest chains of double drive-thru restaurants in the United States. The company operates Checkers and Rally's restaurants in 28 states and the District of Columbia. They specialize in hamburgers, hot dogs, french fries, and milkshakes.

History

Originally separate companies serving different geographic areas with Checkers serving the Southeast and Rally's serving the Midwest, Checkers and Rally's merged in August 1999. The merged company is headquartered in Tampa, Florida. Checkers was founded in 1986 in Mobile, Alabama, by Jim Mattei and went public in 1991. Rally's was founded in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1985.[2] In 1991 and 1992, Rally's absorbed Maxie's of America, Snapps Drive-Thru, and Zipps Drive-Thru.[3] In 1996, Rally's was bought by CKE Restaurants, parent company of Carl's Jr. and Hardee's. CKE sold Rally's to Checkers in 1999. In June 2006, the company went private through a merger with Taxi Holdings Corp., an affiliate of Wellspring Capital Management, a private equity firm. In 2014, Wellspring sold Checkers to another private equity firm, Sentinel Capital Partners.[4]

On March 23, 2017, Checkers announced that it would be sold to Oak Hill Capital Partners for $525 million.[5]

Image

An exterior of a Rally's in Metairie, LA

Checkers and Rally's had similar concepts, being almost exclusively drive-thru with very little seating. After the merger, Rally's began redesigning its restaurants to follow the Checkers look. Today, Checkers and Rally's restaurants look nearly identical, the only major difference being the name on the sign.

Checkers Drive-In (originally a Rally's), Taylor, Michigan
The Big Buford burger

Checkers and Rally's nutritional information is available through the company website.[6]

Advertising and promotions

In 1991, a then-unknown Seth Green starred in a Rally's (formerly Snapps) commercial, giving life to the now-famous "cha-ching" interjection.[7]

In the late 1990s, there was a series of teaser commercials that featured a Burger King burger on a rotating interior microwave oven, and it featured old R&B tracks from the 1960s and 1970s in the background following a bleep cue to Rally's advertising. One of the commercials even offered a chance to win a car. It showed a yellow car since the yellow car version of punch buggy was a big fad during this time. A similar advertising strategy for this fad was implemented into a Taco Bell commercial with as many as 20 or 30 yellow taxicabs in one camera shot.

One of the first advertising campaigns by Checkers and Rally's featured the slogan "High Performance Human Fuel" and ran from 1999 to late 2000. The television advertisements for that campaign were animated in a Anime style, and featured a woman named Holly, in pursuit of fast food. The ads were created by Crispin Porter & Bogusky[8] and illustrated by Peter Chung, who was also responsible for the animation of C.O.P.S and Ring Raiders.[9]

In September 2007, ML Rogers, an advertising agency, won the advertising rights for Checkers Restaurants. They completely restructured the advertising campaign. Among one of the many changes is their new slogan, "little place. BIG TASTE." which can be seen in commercials airing since October 2007.[10] In 2007, the chain used a character called Rap Cat, a stuffed animal cat who performs a rap song about the chain. The ad campaign became popular after it was posted on YouTube, becoming a viral video.[11] The company gave away paper bags patterned like a basketball jersey to be worn by cats, with slots to cut out for the legs and tail, and asked customers to post videos of their cat wearing it to a Rap Cat website. This received criticism from animal rights activists, though Checkers stated that the packaging was "intended only as a creative extension of our television campaign."[12][13]

In September 2014, they started to have a character called Mr. Bag, a talking bag who appears in the new commercials for Checkers and Rally's. Checkers Restaurants' in-house marketing team is led by Terri Snyder (Chief Marketing Officer).

In September 2016, rapper and restaurateur Rick Ross announced his plans for a partnership with Checkers and Rally's, including ownership of a few franchises.[14]

References

  1. ↑ "About Checkers and Rally's Restaurants Inc.". Entrepreneur. 2014. Retrieved 19 August 2014.
  2. ↑ "History - Our Story". Rallyscompany.com. Retrieved 19 August 2014.
  3. ↑ http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/rally-s-history/
  4. ↑ "Checkers, Rally's operator to be acquired by Sentinel Capital Partners - Corporate content from Nation's Restaurant News". Retrieved 2015-06-10.
  5. ↑ Jargon, Julie (23 March 2017). "Checkers Drive-In Restaurants Agrees to Be Sold in $525 Million Deal". Wall Street Journal.
  6. ↑ "Checkers and Rally's Nutritional Information" (PDF).
  7. ↑ "Snapps (Now Rally's) Commercial from 1991". YouTube. 2007-12-21. Retrieved 2013-03-03.
  8. ↑ "New Campaign: Hi-Performance, Human Fuel - Restaurant News". QSR magazine. 2000-01-12. Retrieved 2013-03-03.
  9. ↑ T.w. Siebert (2000-01-17). "Checkers, Rally's Given 'Toon Up". Adweek. Retrieved 2013-03-03.
  10. ↑ "New Advertising Campaign".
  11. ↑ Urstadt, Bryan. "How Rap Cat Made It into This Headline". New York Magazine. Retrieved 1 January 2010.
  12. ↑ Varian, Bill (20 February 2007). "Bag the cat? Uh, promo might not be good idea". St Petersburg Times. Retrieved 1 January 2010.
  13. ↑ Cebrzynski, Gregg (5 March 2007). "Checkers' Rapcat raises issue of 'edginess' in online promos". Nation's Restaurant News. Retrieved 1 January 2010.
  14. ↑ Jones, Biz. "RICK ROSS BURGERS UP, GOES FACE-TO-FACE W/ CHECKERS BAAWWWWSE: 'WE GON DO IT DIS BIG'". SOHH.com. Retrieved 22 November 2016.
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