24 Business View - November 2015
left Marriott in 1979, and in 1980, became a Roy Rogers
franchisee and independent entrepreneur. He opened his
first restaurant here in Frederick, Maryland, where we’re
headquartered to this day.”
As Plamondon continues the story, Nellybelle begins
to shift into runaway speed: “In 1990, Marriott sold the
brand and the franchise system to Hardee’s Restaurants.
Hardee’s bought them for the real estate. They didn’t buy
them for the brand; they wanted to convert all these Roy
Rogers locations over to Hardee’s Restaurants. That was
the purpose of their acquisition. Well, that failed, quickly.”
Plamondon is being kind. In fact, Hardee’s conversion of
220 Roy Rogers locations to Hardee’s Restaurants was
a commercial disaster. Loyal customers revolted and the
new owners had to convert all of the former Roy Rogers
locations back to Roy Rogers restaurants, again. Whoa
Nelly!
Within a few years, Hardee’s began selling what it had just
recently acquired, unloading hundreds of company-owned
Roy Rogers restaurants to the competition: “In the ‘90s,
they ended up selling off the real estate again to other
competitors – Boston Market, Wendy’s, and Burger King,”
says Plamondon. “And then, in 1996, they sold off the last
of the corporate restaurants – 184 – to McDonalds in the
Baltimore/Washington region.”
Plamondon and brother Pete, themselves, had bought out
their dad’s franchises in the late ‘90s, and then, in 2002,
FRANCHISE
