Karcher Sells Its Restaurants in San Antonio

Retreating from one of its newest markets to refocus on its home turf in Southern California, Carl Karcher Enterprises Inc. of Anaheim said Friday that it has sold all 15 of its company-owned Carl’s Jr. fast-food restaurants in the San Antonio, Tex., area to Burger King Corp.

A Karcher spokesman said both companies had agreed not to divulge the price of the transaction. But restaurant industry analyst Ward P. Lindenmayer estimated that Burger King, a Miami-based subsidiary of Pillsbury Corp, paid about $1.3 million for the 15 locations, all of which Karcher opened only within the last year.

The properties had not been on the market, but Karcher decided to sell when Burger King “all of a sudden” said it wanted to buy all 15 to get a foothold in the San Antonio area, according to Karcher spokesman Larry Charles.

The Burger King offer was “true serendipity,” Charles said, because the extra-large San Antonio restaurants, with their expanded menus, no longer fit Karcher’s new back-to-basics business strategy of offering low-priced hamburgers and fries.