Carl’s Jr. Scores Hit With Its 1st Fast-Food Store in Japan
The Famous Star has met the rising sun.
The result, gauged over the first three days of sales at the newest Carl’s Jr. restaurant, is that the Japanese like the Anaheim company’s brand of fast food.
Friday’s opening of the first Carl’s Jr. outside the continental United States “was one of our highest opening-day sales volumes ever,” said Patty Beckman, a spokeswoman for Carl Karcher Enterprises. “I can’t release the actual figures, but sales were in five digits.”
The restaurant is in the Minoo, a suburb north of Osaka, and was built by Friendly Corp. of Osaka. Friendly became Carl Karcher Enterprises’ first international licensee 13 months ago when Carl Karcher, founder, chairman and chief executive of the hamburger chain, and Zenshiro Shigesato, Friendly’s president, signed a 25-year exclusive licensing agreement.
Friendly, which operates more than 100 Western-style coffee shops in the Osaka area, will open at least 30 more Carl’s Jr. restaurants in Japan by 1993.
Karcher’s international franchising staff reportedly is negotiating similar deals in several other Pacific Basin nations.
Other than the Japanese characters on the menu boards and a popular melon-flavored soda in the soft drinks dispenser, the Minoo Carl’s is no different from the Carl’s in the Broadway Plaza in downtown Los Angeles.
“We have a lot of visitation from Japan in California, so many people from there have visited a Carl’s Jr. We believe the Carl’s Jr. concept will be well accepted,” said Steve Kishi, Carl’s Jr.’s director of international development.
