Heap Big Beef Terre Haute Indiana
The 1960s was the decade when franchising frenzy began. Franchising was hailed as a chance to be your own boss and make a comfortable income with a moderate investment.
Fast food drive-ins and other low-priced eateries with limited menus were in the forefront of the franchised businesses springing upward everywhere. As is typical with franchised restaurants, owners needed no particular experience, or even interest, in nutrient or food preparation. Considering, in a sense, someone might just as well choose a franchise in wigs or roto-rooters as chicken or hamburgers.
I of the interesting franchising business careers was that of the originator of Bonanza and Heap Big Beefiness. The main creator of both was an ambitious homo named Don Pruess. He was a truthful believer in a franchising formula that paired a celebrity proper noun with a concatenation of small businesses run past people who put up the capital. In 1956 he signed upward Esther Williams to lend her fame as a movie star and champion swimmer to the auction of backyard in-ground, vinyl-lined pools. Nonetheless, as has often been true of businesses with celebrity figureheads, the company was soon in bankruptcy.
A few years later, in 1963, Pruess began licensing local distributors to sell franchises for Bonanza Sirloin Pit Steak Houses. An advertizement for franchise applicants proclaimed, "Information technology'south America'south hottest food franchise," proverb net profits ranged from $2,500 up to $seven,000 a month with a $20,000 cash investment. The following year the beginning restaurant in the chain opened in Westport CT with Dan Blocker, who played 'Hoss' Cartwright on the Television set show Bonanza, enlisted as the chain'due south celebrity mascot.
Every bit information technology developed, Preuss' business was more than than simply a franchisor of restaurants. As a 1973 constabulary brief put it, his corporation, Franchises International (F. I.), "was the ultimate in franchising" because it "franchised the right to sell franchises."
Serious expansion of the Bonanza concatenation actually did not happen until its conquering by a Texas company in 1965. The following year F. I. began seeking franchisors and franchisees for Heap Large Beefiness. The showtime units in the HBB concatenation opened in 1967, with a card of "giant" beef sandwiches for 59 and 99 cents.
In addition to franchising for Heap Big Beefiness, F. I. did the same for a beauty salon concatenation named Edie Adams' Cut & Curlicue and Mary's Drive-Thru Dairies. At one bespeak F. I. revealed plans to move into franchising for more than 50 other types of businesses including nursing homes and nutrition centers.
At the same time, F. I. was seeking uppercase from a large investing company called City Investing Co. Starting in 1967, Heap Big Beef franchising advertisements identified F. I. equally a subsidiary of Metropolis Investing. But the relationship was fraught from solar day i. The president of Urban center Investing did not corroborate of F. I.'s sales tactics, including misrepresenting how many units had been opened. For instance, Metropolis Investing objected to the false implications of F. I.'s claim that Heap Big Beef #32 had opened, suggesting that the number was not in fact a tally of how many had been opened. City's subsequent failure to supply F. I. with enough capital led to the resignation of Pruess and the other officers of his corporation.
Showtime in 1969 there was a dice-off of Heap Big Beef outlets. Though it had been advertised as the hottest thing going, it turned out the chain had never exceeded sixty units nationwide. The latest date I could find one in operation was 1971.
Maybe there are fans out there that even so sorely miss Heap Big Beefiness, but I uncertainty it. Given its theme, it was a chain that could not exist today. The American Indian theme had no relevance, having been adopted solely because of the popularity of western Tv set shows at the fourth dimension. The A-frame buildings were meant to suggest tepees, although they were used by other chains, including Der Wienerschnitzel. There was piffling about the menu that differed from 19th-century lunchroom fare except for the paucity of items and the offensive "Hollywood Injun English" used. Consider: "You'll let out a state of war whoop" when you eat a Heap Big Beef (or Ham, Fish, or Corned Beef) sandwich. How nearly a Warrior Burger, a Shawnee Shake, or a Pawnee Pie?
File Heap Big Beef nether failed restaurant chains.
© Jan Whitaker, 2019
Source: https://restaurant-ingthroughhistory.com/2019/09/29/franchising-heap-big-beef/
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