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By Ron Donoho
(page 1 of 4)
Fifty Years of Jack
The first Jack in the Box bears little physical resemblance to the restaurant’s current-day design.In 1951—when a hamburger cost 18 cents—Robert O. Peterson opened his first store at 6270 El Cajon Boulevard. Today, with 50 years of fast-food service under its belt, Jack in the Box is still America’s oldest major drive-through chain. And in half a century, the company—branded by a giant, clown-headed CEO in its TV commercials—has sold enough burgers to circle the globe 12 times.
The San Diego–headquartered company is thriving. In fiscal year 2000, more than 1,600 restaurants in 15 states netted $2 billion in sales. That’s a lot of Sourdough Jacks.
In reaching its current level of prosperity, Jack in the Box had to overcome one major public-relations nightmare. In 1993, an E. coli virus, spread through tainted hamburger meat, killed four patrons and sickened hundreds.
“It was the most tragic event in the company’s history,” says Jack in the Box spokesperson Brian Luscom. “Young children died, and the safety of Jack in the Box was questioned.” The company’s response was a comprehensive food-safety program called Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points. The United States Department of Agriculture refers to HACCP, developed by NASA, as the gold standard in fast-food safety. “Our customers have regained complete confidence in us,” says Luscom.
To help celebrate its golden anniversary, Jack in the Box is creating an exhibition that will run from August 1 to September 2 at the Automotive Museum in Balboa Park. “People are nostalgic,” says museum spokesperson Dina Madruga. “They love to look back and do the memory thing.” The exhibit will feature a reconstructed drive-through window, complete with speaker box and a vintage, 5-foot clown head.
To help celebrate, here are a few fun facts about Jack in the Box:
# Before Easy Rider, Dennis Hopper worked at a Jack in the Box in La Mesa.
# Six hundred Jack in the Box tacos are consumed every minute, totaling 315,360,000 tacos each year.
# From 1963 to 1982, all of the chain’s tacos and onion rings were produced in manufacturing facilities in San Diego.
# In 1969, the chain introduced the first breakfast sandwich; in ’82, the first portable salad.
# Several menu items have come and gone over the years. Two that won’t be back soon are the Moby Jack fish sandwich and Frings, a combination of French fries and onion rings.
# The corporate icon, Jack, was blown up in a 1980 TV commercial. He was resurrected in 1995 as the chain’s fictional CEO.
# Since the reintroduction of Jack, the company has sold more than 17 million antenna balls bearing his likeness.
# The company’s TV ad send-up of boy bands featured the Meaty Cheesy Boys, who postured their way into a performance of their spoof hit “Ultimate Cheeseburger” on the 1999 Billboard Music Awards show.
—Leah Morris
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