Two local Hardee's stores shuttered suddenly

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By Tory Brecht | Tuesday, June 03, 2008 |

Two Hardee’s restaurants — one in west Davenport and one in Aledo, Ill. — were closed abruptly Monday, apparently as part of a corporate refranchising effort.

According to employees at the Davenport location, 2202 Rockingham Road, there was little to no notice.

“I spoke to my manager and she said she was in there working around 10:30 when (managers from other area stores) came in and told her it was being closed,” said Steve Schutters, a cook and cashier. “They started throwing all the food away and were pulling things down and packing them up.”

Employees from the Aledo store could not be reached.

Jenna Petroff, a public relations manager from Hardee’s corporate office in St. Louis, said the stores were closed as “a business decision.”

Both the Rockingham Road and Aledo stores were corporate-run, rather than franchised operations, she confirmed.

Nationally, 70 percent of Hardee’s stores are franchises and the company is hoping to increase that number, Petroff said.

“We do have a refranchising effort under way,” she said. “We are trying trying to increase the percentage of stores that are franchises rather than corporate owned, to help control costs.”

Jeff Reddig, who owns and operates all the Hardee’s stores in the Illinois Quad-City area and will run a store under construction in Bettendorf, speculated that the closing of the Rockingham Road and Aledo stores is related to a forthcoming sale of corporate-run stores.

“I know there are some other stores being purchased by another franchisee in the Quad-Cities,” he said. “These may have been under-performing stores that they didn’t want.”

Reddig said he is prohibited from revealing who the new franchisee is or which stores are being sold.

Schutters, a junior at Davenport West High School, said he is scrambling to find a new summer job now that Hardee’s has closed.

“I just got a new car and I have a $3,000 loan and I don’t know how I’m going to pay that off,” he said.

Among other employees suddenly severed was a senior citizen who lives near the store who came in each morning to make fresh biscuits, Schutters said.

“We were busy, I don’t see why they’d come in and say ‘you’re done. Clock out and leave,’” he said. “We had just hired people a week before that were supposed to start on Tuesday and they just came in and closed everything down.”

Tory Brecht can be contacted at (563) 383-2329 or tbrecht@qctimes.com.