MapMuse - Locate Checker's Drive in Restaurant Near You

...more than 815 Checkers and Rally's restaurants in 28 states and the District of Columbia. They both specialize in hamburgers, hot dogs, French fries, and milkshakes.

History

Originally separate companies serving different geographic areas, Checkers and Rally's Hamburgers, Inc. merged in August 1999. The joint company houses its headquarters in Tampa, Florida. Checkers was founded in 1986 in Mobile, Alabama, and went public in 1991. Rally's was founded in Louisville, Kentucky in 1985, with its first location in Jeffersonville, Indiana. From 1996 to 1999, Rally's was owned by CKE Restaurants, parent company of Carl's Jr. and Hardee's.

Checkers restaurants follow a retro theme with abundant use of chrome flashing, neon tube lighting, and black and white checkered tiling. To reinforce recognizability and minimize costs, Checkers predominantly uses prefabricated restaurant units that consist of a main food preparation building and twin drive-thru windows. As a facet of the unique facility design, many stores do not have inside seating (one exception is the Rally's in Lexington, Kentucky); however, outside dining facilities, such as patio tables with umbrellas, are present. One must either use the drive-in or order at the walk-up window at the front of the restaurant.

Menu

The menus of the two restaurants are nearly identical, differing in that Checkers' menu includes additional hamburgers (including the original Champ hamburger). Over time, the Checkers menu grew in size to include chicken and fish sandwiches, chicken strips, and a wider selection of hamburgers. Checkers has been subject to some criticism due to their lack of nutritional data or information about the ingredients in their food. When asked about their food, they send an email stating that their menu is in the process of undergoing change, and thus no information is available. This response has been used since early 2000. Though some limited nutritional facts are offered for a portion of the menu, much of it is without nutritional information.