Burger King was a

fast food Fast food is a type of mass-produced food designed for commercial resale, with a strong priority placed on speed of service. It is a commercial term, limited to food sold in a restaurant or store with frozen, preheated or precooked ingredien ...

restaurant chain A chain store or retail chain is a retail outlet in which several locations share a brand, central management and standardized business practices. They have come to dominate the retail and dining markets and many service categories, in many pa ...

Edmonton Edmonton ( ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Alberta. Edmonton is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Alberta's central region. The city ancho ...

Alberta Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...

, Canada. Also known as Burger King Drive-Inn, it was founded by former

Imperial Oil Imperial Oil Limited (French: ''Compagnie Pétrolière Impériale Ltée'') is a Canadian petroleum company. It is Canada's second-biggest integrated oil company. It is majority owned by American oil company ExxonMobil with around 69.6 percent ...

executives William R. Jarvis (1926-21 July 2014) and James Duncan Rae (3 September 1923 - 17 December 2014) in 1956. Among the first American-style fast food restaurants in Edmonton, it was not related to the worldwide

Burger King Burger King (BK) is an American-based multinational chain store, chain of hamburger fast food restaurants. Headquartered in Miami-Dade County, Florida, the company was founded in 1953 as Insta-Burger King, a Jacksonville, Florida–based res ...

chain. Company headquarters were in offices above one of the restaurants, at 9501 111 Avenue. Its signature items included a

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burger and a "Canadian Burger". The restaurant was inspired by a visit Jarvis paid to

Great Falls, Montana Great Falls is the third most populous city in the U.S. state of Montana and the county seat of Cascade County. The population was 60,442 according to the 2020 census. The city covers an area of and is the principal city of the Great Falls, M ...

in 1953, when he stayed next to a

Dairy Queen Dairy Queen (DQ) is an American chain of soft serve ice cream and fast food restaurants owned by International Dairy Queen, Inc. (a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway since 1998) which also owns Orange Julius, and formerly owned Karmelkorn and G ...

drive-in. After the chain turned down his request for a franchise, he and Rae formed their own ''Dairy Drive-In'' at 8705 118 Avenue. Two years later, when their lease expired, they hauled the building to a site at 112 Avenue, where it would become the first Burger King. It opened one year before the first outlet of what would become its main rival, A&W. Jarvis and Rae acquired the rights to sell the then little-known

Kentucky Fried Chicken KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken) is an American fast food restaurant chain headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky, that specializes in fried chicken. It is the world's second-largest restaurant chain (as measured by sales) after McDonald's, with 2 ...

in 1959. Many of their Burger King restaurants were dual-branded as "Burger King/Kentucky Fried Chicken". Chicken sales were slow at first, but by the mid-1960s, Edmonton had KFC's highest per capita sales in Canada. In the mid-1960s, the US Burger King chain planned to expand to Canada, where Jarvis and Rae had copyrighted the name. In 1965-66, they reached an agreement that granted their rival the rights to the "Burger King" name for all of Canada except Alberta north of the 52nd parallel, passing through Innisfail, which was reserved in perpetuity for the local chain. The US chain entered the Canadian market in 1969 with a store in

Windsor, Ontario Windsor is a city in southwestern Ontario, Canada, on the south bank of the Detroit River directly across from Detroit, Michigan, United States. Geographically located within but administratively independent of Essex County, it is the souther ...

. By 1975, when

McDonald's McDonald's Corporation is an American Multinational corporation, multinational fast food chain store, chain, founded in 1940 as a restaurant operated by Richard and Maurice McDonald, in San Bernardino, California, United States. They rechri ...

opened its first Edmonton restaurant near

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, Burger King had 12 outlets. As the market became more competitive, the relationship between Burger King and Kentucky Fried Chicken deteriorated, with KFC attempting legal action to end the partnership. The matter was ultimately resolved in 1990, when KFC, by then under the ownership of

PepsiCo PepsiCo, Inc. is an American multinational food, snack, and beverage corporation headquartered in Harrison, New York, in the hamlet of Purchase. PepsiCo's business encompasses all aspects of the food and beverage market. It oversees the manuf ...

, refused to extend the franchise, and Jarvis and Rae instead sold their remaining dual-branded restaurants to them. In August 1995, when two non-KFC Burger King restaurants were still in operation, they sold the naming rights for northern Alberta for $1 million to the US company. It immediately announced its intention to enter the market, the last region of

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

where it had been unable to operate, other than

Mattoon, Illinois Mattoon ( ) is a city in Coles County, Illinois, United States. The population was 16,870 as of the 2020 census. The city is home to Lake Land College and has close ties with its neighbor, Charleston. Both are principal cities of the Charleston� ...

, where another restaurant uses the name. Several Burger King restaurants became

Burger Baron The Burger Baron name is used by several fast-food restaurants in western Canada. History Founded in 1957 in either Calgary or Lethbridge, Alberta (the location and ownership of the first site is disputed), Burger Baron was the first drive-in ...

References

{{Reflist 1956 establishments in Alberta 1995 disestablishments in Alberta Restaurants established in 1956 Restaurants disestablished in 1995 Defunct restaurant chains in Canada Restaurants in Alberta Organizations based in Edmonton Drive-in restaurants Fast-food chains of Canada Fast-food hamburger restaurants Burger King

See also

References