Since I’m posting old photos of high-school hangouts (such as Beal’s Dixie Kream, below) I thought I’d share an ad for Burger Chef that I found in a 1968 yearbook for Immaculate Conception High School.
The food at these places was pretty good, I recall, but what was more memorable was the bizarre architecture, with that weird segmented arch erected over most, if not all, the Burger Chefs in town.
The address shown in the ad is wrong, since that would place it across the street from the Children’s Museum. According to old city directories, in the late 1960s, the Burger Chefs in Memphis were located at:
3562 Walker (since demolished)
4382 Highway 51 South (building still standing and used as another restaurant)
682 N. Mendenhall (demolished)
3701 Lamar (demolished)
2450 Central (demolished; a Dollar General stands on the site)
153 North Cleveland (the building is still standing, but vacant).
Burger Chef was founded in Indianapolis in 1954 and the chain spread quickly throughout the country. It eventually became purchased by Hardee’s, I believe, and the last Burger Chef closed in 1996.
Does anybody remember the girls (or the Burger Chef employee) shown in this ad?
