Carrols was a chain of

fast-food restaurant A fast-food restaurant, also known as a quick-service restaurant (QSR) within the industry, is a specific type of restaurant that serves fast food, fast-food cuisine and has minimal Foodservice#Table service, table service. The food served ...

s in various cities in

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

. The company originally came to Finland as a franchise of an international chain named

Carrols Corporation Carrols Restaurant Group is an American franchisee company and is the largest Burger King franchisee in the world; Carrols owns and operates over 1,000+ Burger Kings, and 55 Popeyes restaurants. The company has operated Burger Kings since 1976 i ...

. However, it was eventually completely bought by the Finnish company Tuko (after the company gave up the use of its original restaurant brand and concept) which in turn was acquired by the Finnish chain

Kesko sv, Kesko Abp , logo = Kesko logo.svg , logo_size = 150px , type = Julkinen osakeyhtiö , traded_as = , foundation = , location_city = Helsinki , location_country = Finland , key_people = Mikko Helander (President and CEO), Esa Ki ...

becoming a completely Finnish-owned company. In the process it was renamed from Carrol's to Carrols, losing the

apostrophe The apostrophe ( or ) is a punctuation mark, and sometimes a diacritical mark, in languages that use the Latin alphabet and some other alphabets. In English, the apostrophe is used for two basic purposes: * The marking of the omission of one o ...

. Thus, the original Carrols brand would survive exclusively in Finland. The most famous

hamburger A hamburger, or simply burger, is a food consisting of fillings—usually a patty of ground meat, typically Ground beef, beef—placed inside a sliced bun or bread roll. Hamburgers are often served with cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, pickles ...

in Carrols was the Club Burger, which was similar to the

Big Mac The Big Mac is a hamburger sold by the international fast food restaurant chain McDonald's. It was introduced in the Greater Pittsburgh Region, Greater Pittsburgh area in 1967 and across the United States in 1968. It is one of the company's fl ...

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 ...

. The chain also regularly served limited-time special hamburgers. The chain was eventually bought out by another Finnish fast-food chain,

Hesburger Hesburger (colloquially known in Finland as ''Hese'' and in Estonia as ''Hess'') is a fast food chain based in Turku, Finland. Today, it is the largest hamburger restaurant chain in Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania with a market share ...

, which integrated it to itself almost fully. Almost all Carrols restaurants were converted to Hesburgers. This event caused a minor upset among the residents of

Helsinki Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the Capital city, capital, primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Finland, most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of U ...

, since

is based in a rival city,

Turku Turku ( ; ; sv, Åbo, ) is a city and former capital on the southwest coast of Finland at the mouth of the Aura River, in the region of Finland Proper (''Varsinais-Suomi'') and the former Turku and Pori Province (''Turun ja Porin lääni''; ...

. Since the acquisition by Hesburger, only a few of the most famous Carrols restaurants remained under their original name, all of them located in the

Greater Helsinki Greater Helsinki ( fi, Helsingin seutu, Suur-Helsinki, Swedish: ''Helsingforsregionen'', ''Storhelsingfors'') is the metropolitan area surrounding Helsinki, the capital city of Finland. It includes the smaller Capital Region (''Pääkaupunkiseutu' ...

region (except one in

Janakkala Janakkala () is a municipality of Finland. Its administrative centre is in Turenki, which is often erroneously shown on maps as being "Janakkala". Janakkala is located along the Highway 3 ( E12) in the province of Southern Finland and is part of th ...

and one in

Lahti Lahti (; sv, Lahtis) is a city and municipality in Finland. It is the capital of the region of Päijänne Tavastia (Päijät-Häme) and its growing region is one of the main economic hubs of Finland. Lahti is situated on a bay at the southern e ...

). Although Hesburger serves the Club Burger in its menu, the limited-time special hamburgers have been discontinued. In August 2006 new life was breathed into the Carrols brand when a pilot scheme was launched with Pikoil, an operator of

Neste Neste Oyj (international name: Neste Corporation; former names Neste Oil Corporation and Fortum Oil and Gas Oy) is an oil refining and marketing company located in Espoo, Finland. It produces, refines and markets oil products, provides eng ...

branded service stations across Finland. The pilot programme saw new Carrols restaurants opening at Pikoil sites in

Imatra Imatra is a town and municipality in southeastern Finland. Imatra is dominated by Lake Saimaa, the Vuoksi River and the border with Russia. On the other side of the border, away from the centre of Imatra, lies the Russian town of Svetogorsk. ...

and

Vantaa Vantaa (; sv, Vanda, ) is a city and Municipalities of Finland, municipality in Finland. It is part of the inner core of the Greater Helsinki, Finnish Capital Region along with Helsinki, Espoo, and Kauniainen. With a population of (), Vantaa i ...

. One reason for the Carrols brand being used instead of Hesburger was that Hesburger already operates fast food restaurants under its own name at service stations run by the rival S-Group. Along with the launch of new Carrols restaurants, the Carrols.fi domain no longer pointed to the Hesburger site but instead to a relaunched dedicated Carrols site. In 2012, Hesburger announced that the brand Carrols would be discontinued, and the last location in

Oulunkylä Oulunkylä ( sv, Åggelby, also known as ''Ogeli'') is a suburb and a neighbourhood of Helsinki, the capital of Finland. It is located north from the center of the city. It has been inhabited since the 13th century. Earlier an independent munic ...

was renamed Hesburger on May 29. Since then the only thing remaining of Carrols has been the Clubburger that periodically has been available in Hesburger for a limited period. Carrols also operated a chain of outlets in neighbouring

Estonia Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...

from 1993 to 2001.

External links

* Information about Pikoil project (In Finnish

Regional restaurant chains Fast-food hamburger restaurants Defunct food and drink companies of Finland Fast-food chains of Finland Defunct fast-food chains {{Restaurant-stub

See also

External links