Place: Hardee's
Lunch: Big Roast Beef, 1/3 lb Original Thickburger (no lettuce, no tomato), orange Hi-C
Years ago, Hardee's was sold to CKE Restaurants, the parent company of Carl's Jr. CKE's plan was to use the highly damaged chain to springboard the Carl's Jr brand from regional to national. To convert Hardee's to Carl's Jr, not unlike how Hardee's did the same to Sandy's and Burger Chef. They were going to keep the Hardee's breakfast line, because that was actually working, but adopt the Carl's Jr lunch/dinner menu. Seemed like a good idea at the time, because Hardee's had little going on past 10:30am. Credit the employees and customers of Peoria, one of the initial two test markets, for sabotaging this.
Plan B was what was known as "Star Hardee's", which was basically the same plan but with the Hardee's brand name and curly fries and the Hot Ham & Cheese returning to the menu. The Carl's Jr burgers stuck around.
Not returning to the menu was the Big Roast Beef. The popular option featured pressed roast beef much like Arby's, but piled higher on a buttery sesame seed bun. It's one of the few menu items anyone can remember of pre-CKE Hardee's, and easily the most missed.
Fast forward two decades and change later, and Hardee's has rolled out the Big Roast Beef once again systemwide, and it's return has been...polarizing. The comments in social media ads have been anywhere from joy to the idea that it's back to anger that it's allegedly not the same as it was to debates about what it used to be in the first place. A lot of people claimed it was taken from the Roy Rogers menu after Hardee's parent company acquired that chain (it wasn't...Hardee's offered it years before the acquisition and the sandwich bore no resemblance at all to Roy's roast beef). One guy insisted the original came dressed with mayo, lettuce, and tomato, and no amount of replies telling him that was never true (and it wasn't) will change his mind. Others complained that the original was shaved from a roast on site (debatable) and was piled way higher (true) and tasted different (also true).
Something else that's true? It never really completely disappeared. Some rural market stores have been selling it all along or at least in recent years. But even that version wasn't comparable to the 80's Hardee's. It was still delicious. The bun...more recently the Fresh Baked Bun used on the Thickburgers...was saturated in a buttery sauce that made the whole thing magical. If I was near a Hardee's that had it, I was getting it. So I assumed this wuld be what they were rolling out systemwide when I saw the ads.
So is it? Or is it a true throwback to the original?
It's neither.
The "new" roast beef is soaked in an au jus prior to serving that you can taste in the beef. And the buttery sauce doesn't exist. And the combination makes for a vastly different and altogether inferior sandwich.
Highly disappointing.
So I need to go back to one of those rural Hardee's to see if they're now making the sandwich this new way.
If they are, everything is ruined here.
