Checkers to add different store layouts

[thelakelander]

I guess Checkers is getting ready to start targeting shopping centers and urban pedestrian oriented areas.

Checkers won't just stand alone anymore

Wednesday, July 9, 2008 - 5:00 PM EDT
Tampa Bay Business Journal

Checkers Drive-In Restaurants Inc. is rolling out store formats that allow for placement in shopping malls.

Known for its double drive-thru building, Checkers is adding an end-cap and in-line format, adding flexibility to its stand-alone concept. With the end-cap unit, the store will most likely be at the end of a shopping center, could include a single drive-thru and will have indoor seating.

The in-line unit could be placed anywhere within a shopping center and will include indoor seating, a walk-up component and no drive-thru.

Cuhaci & Peterson, an architecture firm headquartered in Orlando, designed the new building formats. They will be used where the double drive-thru units are not possible.

"We are shifting our development efforts into high gear," Michael Arrowsmith, Checkers senior vice president of development, said in a release. "As a franchisor, we understand the challenges franchisees face with rising real estate costs and limited site opportunities in some parts of the country. By now offering multiple building plans, we are able to access new venues, and many times at lesser costs."

Although most future growth will still come from stand-alone units, the new formats allow the chain to penetrate markets that were once unavailable, the company said in a release.

Based in Tampa, Checkers has more than 820 restaurants located in 29 states and the District of Columbia.

http://tampabay.bizjournals.com/tampabay/stories/2008/07/07/daily46.html?jst=b_ln_hl

[Jason]

I didn't realize Checkers is a Florida based company...

[urbanlibertarian]

Anyone remember when we had a Wendy's downtown?  Or Krystal?

[Duke]

Anyone remember when we had a Wendy's downtown?  Or Krystal?

Yea, and don't forget the Burger King...

[RiversideGator]

The Wendy's was at the corner of Monroe and Main Street where the new library is and the Krystal was at the corner of Forsyth and Newnan where that sub place is.  Burger King is still downtown between State and Union on Market Street.

[Charles Hunter]

Wasn't there a Burger King in the Greyhound station at one time?  Or was it McD's?

And I remember both the Wendy's and Krystal downtown. 

[RiversideGator]

That's right.  I had forgotten.  There was a Burger King in the Greyhound bus terminal at the corner.

[RiversideGator]

BTW, the interesting thing about the old Wendy's is that it was downtown yet they managed to squeeze in a drive-thru lane too.  It seemed incongruous to me even then.

[fsujax]

I am not that old and I remember when there was Krystal at Ocean and Bay, the Wendy's, Popeye's Chicken on Adams and the Burger King.  No McDonalds though, you had to go to Park St and Rosselle for that one.  Now we have one fast food establishment in the core.

[thelakelander]

When did the Wendys close and get torn down?

[RiversideGator]

I think the City acquired the old Wendy's and tore it down about a year before construction began on the new library.

I also was able to visit the old Woolworth's at the corner of Hogan and Monroe Streets downtown just before it was closed and torn down to make way for the new US Courthouse.  That was the site of some of the civil rights era sit ins at the lunch counter.  The lunch counter was still there into the 1990s.