Carl's Jr.

Carl's Jr. is an American fast-food restaurant chain which predominantly operates in the Western and Southwestern states. The company is currently in the process of expanding to Dominican Republic, Brazil, Puerto Rico, Malaysia, Denmark, Costa Rica, New Zealand, Australia, Singapore, Russia, Vietnam, Turkey and China. It was founded in 1941 by Carl N. Karcher, and is owned by CKE Restaurants, Inc. Carl Karcher's business was jump-started with the opening of his first restaurant, a sit-down full service location called Carl’s Drive-In Barbeque. As this grew wildly successful, he decided to open up a chain of smaller restaurants called Carl's, with more limited menus. In 1954, the chain was renamed Carl's Jr. and the fast-food chain took off. Along with its sibling restaurant chain Hardee's, Carl's Jr. is the fifth largest fast food chain in the United States after Subway (33,000+ locations), McDonald's (32,000+ locations), Burger King (11,500+ locations) and Wendy's (6,700+ locations).