Fast Food from your childhood

[TheFugitive]

Got to thinking about this recently when an episode of Mad Men focused on the former Burger Chef chain.

They did an extremely accurate job of recreating a Burger Chef store interior circa 1969.
It was giving me flashbacks to when I was a young child and my grandparents would take my
brother and I to a local Burger Chef location as a treat.  Particularly those oddly shaped multi-colored
lighting globes.

Perhaps strangely, at the time there was not a McDonalds location anywhere too convenient to where
we lived.  Even though they dominated the TV airwaves with their advertising, it was a bit of a chore
to get to their nearest store until they opened a couple of new ones in the late 70's.

So the fast food I remember most from my early childhood was Burger Chef, Roy Rogers (because they
had a nearby location where my friend's dad would arrange to host a kid birthday party every year) and
Winky's (a then-ubiquitous Pittsburgh chain that existed from the 50's up into the early 80's).  None of
those exist anymore (aside from some Roy Rogers locations at turnpike rest stops).

What was the fast food lay-of-the-land that you remember as a kid?

[Retail Fan+ (Justin Hill)]

I remember going to Hardee's a lot during my childhood. They were not just found in the big cities in Northeast Wisconsin, but also small towns as well. Long before McDonald's and Burger King started opening up shop in these towns, Hardee's was the only option for a good breakfast sandwich or char-broiled fast-food hamburger in town. I remember having the Texas Toast burger at a Hardee's location in Oconto Falls, Wisconsin back in 1995. This was also back when Hardee's was its own restaurant and not a division of Carl Karcher Enterprises, owner of Carl's Jr., who acquired Hardee's in the late 1990s, and started making Hardee's menu, logo, and everything else look a whole lot like Carl's Jr.'s, and then adding char-broiled Thickburgers to the menu in the 2000s. I also remember the Hardee's Funmeals with the toy inside, like the Nickelodeon toys based on early 1990s Nicktoons, like Rocko's Modern Life and Rugrats, and the 1995 Marvel Comics X-Men Funmeal featuring X-Men figurines and mini comic books (I got the Rogue vs. Avalanche toy with an X-Men comic book), as well as the Eek! the Cat Funmeal (I had Eek's pet sharkdog, Sharky). I also remember the Hardee's playgrounds with ballpits (one location in my city has a Hardee's "Giant" Playground, which includes a slide in addition to the aforementioned ballpit. Somehow, they had to compete with the McDonald's PlayPlace next door, and Hardee's is doing a great job of it.). Some Hardee's indoor playgrounds were also called "Hardee's Giant Funland". Some locations even had outdoor playgrounds, complete with a slide.

[Pikapower]

Burger King used to have good toys in their Kids Club Meals like the Pokemon toys that came in a Pokeball which BK recalled because of a suffocation hazard to little kids (around under 3 years old). Burger King also had Nickelodeon (including SpongeBob and Rugrats) Kids Club Meal toys. I used to be a member of the Burger King Kids Club. 

[Retail Fan+ (Justin Hill)]

Here's a run-down of all the kids meals in the United States containing SpongeBob SquarePants from oldest to most recent:

* SpongeBob SquarePants (2001, Burger King)
* SpongeBob SquarePants House Party (2002, Wendy's)
* SpongeBob SquarePants: Bikini Bottom Bunch (2003, Burger King)
* The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (2004, Burger King)
* SpongeBob SquarePants: Lost in Time (2006, Burger King)
* SpongeBob SquarePants: Friend or Foe? (2006, Burger King)
* SpongeBob's Atlantis SquarePantis (2007, Burger King)
* SpongeBob vs. The Big One (2008, Burger King)
* SpongeBob SquarePants: Truth or Square (2009, Burger King)
* SpongeBob SquarePants: Legends of Bikini Bottom (2010, Burger King)
* SpongeBob SquarePants Happy Meal (2012, McDonald's)

[MikeRa]

When I was growing up, would always go to either McDonald's, Kentucky Fried Chicken, or Burger King.  I was able to walk to the Burger King and the KFC (in the Parkwood Manor section of Philadelphia, PA) from my house.  Today, the Burger King in Parkwood is now a Dunkin' Donuts, and the KFC in Parkwood is now Trumark Credit Union, before that, Beneficial Savings Bank.

[Retail Fan+ (Justin Hill)]

I remember eating at Taco Bell quite a bit when I was younger. Back in 1999, I remember getting a Matchbox car in their Kids' Meals.
A few years earlier, McDonald's included Hot Wheels cars in their Happy Meals, which I also remember getting. I also remember when McDonald's and Disney promoted the animated film "Hercules" in 1997, that you could get collectible dinnner plates with characters from the film, as well as the toys in the Happy Meal. Burger King promoted the Disney film "Toy Story" in 1995, by offering hand puppets based on each of the characters in their Kids' Club meals. In the following year, when "Toy Story" was released on video cassette, Burger King promoted the film again, with some new wind-up toys based on the film's fictional toys. They also had three larger "premium" toys as well that could be purchased separately or with a value meal, including Woody (the talking ragdoll cowboy), Buzz Lightyear (the talking space ranger actoin figure), and R.C. (the radio-controlled racecar). 

[TheFugitive]

I was addicted to Taco Bell as a young adult in the late 1980's.
I was in Michigan where there was a Taco Bell drive-thru located between
the interstate exit where I got off returning from work and my apartment.
Could never resist going through it on my way home from a late night at Ames.