Carrols Restaurant Group

Carrols Restaurant Group is an American franchisee company and is the largest Burger King franchisee in the world; Carrols owns and operates over 1,000+ Burger Kings, and 55 Popeyes restaurants. The company has operated Burger Kings since 1976 in locations across 23 U.S. states. The company formerly owned the restaurant chains Pollo Tropical, Taco Cabana, and Carrols. The original Carrols chain ceased operations in the United States in the mid-1970s. The last unaffiliated Carrols Restaurants existed in Finland. The chain was eventually bought out by another Finnish fast-food chain, Hesburger. In 2012, Hesburger announced that the brand Carrols would be discontinued, and on the 29th of May, 2012, the last Carrols (in Oulunkylä) was renamed Hesburger. History An offshoot of the Tastee-Freez company, Carrols was named after the Tastee-Freez co-owner Leo Marantz's daughter, Carol. Herb Slotnick bought the franchise rights for the New York area and started opening restaurants in the Syracuse, New York, area in the early 1960s. They expanded over the years throughout New York State. During the 1960s, a yellow slug character served as Carrols' first mascot, replaced in 1974 by a young blonde boy wearing a tweed suit and a Fedora hat. Most Carrols restaurant locations were converted to Burger King franchises in 1975, with less profitable stores shuttered. After the conversion, the Carrols brand was only found overseas in Finland, Sweden, Estonia, Latvia and Russia -- except for two stores: one on Roosevelt Avenue in Carteret, New Jersey, which closed in the late 1970s; and a single franchisee-owned store in Batavia, New York. Both of these latter two stores operated under the Carrols name into the 1980s, before closing.