Not a Super Special Sandwich

I haven’t really eaten at Hardee’s (or Carl’s Jr., if you prefer) before. I did once, back when I was a wee child and it was pretty much the only place around that was available when my mom and I were hungry on a road trip (I do not remember what that experience was like, if you’re curious). But in general my family didn’t like Hardee’s, with my parents saying the place was way too greasy. So I didn’t eat it as a kid, didn’t develop a taste for it at all, and never felt the need to go in and try anything they had on offer as I grew up. When all you hear is that a place is terrible, why would you investigate otherwise?

Now, decades later, I’ve actually given in and tried Hardee’s again. My podcasting co-host, Ghoul Mike, really enjoys doing food reviews, and a trip to Hardee’s to sample their Duke’s Carolina Gold Hand-Breaded Chicken Sandwich was his suggestion for our next podcast review. Naturally, that episode will come out soon enough, but before I discuss the matter with him and see how he feels about that chicken sandwich, and Hardee’s in general, I wanted to get my thoughts sorted out. So here’s my review of my first trip to Hardee’s in over 30 years:

The Main Event

We start with the sandwich Ghoul Mike wanted to try, the Duke’s Carolina Gold Hand-Breaded Chicken Sandwich. Hardee’s advertises this sandwich as an all-white chicken fillet hand dipped in buttermilk, lightly breaded and fried to a golden brown with Duke’s Carolina Gold BBQ sauce, bacon, dill pickles, lettuce, tomato and mayonnaise served on a premium bun. If that sounds like a lot, well it is, and that’s both a good and a bad thing all at once.

I came away from the sandwich with two thoughts. The first was that it was a fairly substantial chicken sandwich. It has a thick chunk of white meat chicken sitting between its two buns. That chunk of chicken might not be as big and hearty as the chicken on Popeye’s famous sandwich, but it’s still a solid and hearty amount. And the white meat is nice, making you feel like you’re actually eating chicken instead of something that’s been processed and formed like so many other fast food joints serve. So, on that front, the sandwich does score a few points.

With that said, there’s also so much going on with the sandwich that it all sort of cancels out. A chicken sandwich with lettuce, tomato, and pickles sounds great. Adding on barbecue sauce and mayo, no matter how tasty they might be, will moisten the breading some, and this chicken breast doesn’t have a very thick, crunchy coat, so the breading really doesn’t have much of a chance to stay crunchy at all. And then when you add bacon on top, which only really adds salt to the mix… well, it just all degrades together. None of it was specifically bad, but it wasn’t really great either.

Honestly, by the last few bites, I was done. My sandwich was mostly just bun and mayo by then and I threw the last scraps away. A better sandwich would have led to me finishing it all off, but this was not that sandwich. I wasn’t grossed out by all of it, but I’d also not get this sandwich again.

The Fries

The fries were better by comparison. Fast food fries can be all over the place, from the “natural” cut of Wendy’s, which are largely just slices of potatoes with a thin bit of coating, to the far more breaded taters of places like Burger King, or the absolutely fake, processed (but totally delicious) fries of McDonald’s. I’d peg Hardee’s fries somewhere between Wendy’s and Burger King, being more natural in their cut and composition, but still with a little more breading to make them crunchy, letting them stand up better to condiments.

They were tasty, that’s for sure. I got a small combo with my chicken sandwich (which also included a soda, and I opted for Cherry Coke because I am both a gentleman and a scholar) and I ended up finishing off my fries long before I dusted the chicken sandwich. They were really quite eatable, even without ketchup, having just the right amount of salt and scrumptiousness. They didn’t seem too greasy, not too thick… honestly, I was kind of impressed.

The Burger

And speaking of being impressed, their burger was also pretty solid. Having not had Hardee’s in decades, I felt it only right for this review to also grab a burger. The place I went to had a special on double cheeseburgers, so I grabbed one of those for myself to try and, yeah, it was really good. Certainly better than I would have ever credited them before.

Like with their fries, I’d peg their burger as somewhere between Wendy’s and Burger King. It has the kind of more natural beef flavor and texture like I associate with a Wendy’s Single, that “fresh, never frozen” quality that Wendy’s is so hyped on. Flavorwise, though, it tasted more like Burger King. That’s partially because Hardee’s doesn’t put mayo on their burger by default, nor a lot of fresh veggies. Instead I got beef, ketchup, mustard, and cheese and… yeah, I liked it. It sits in that solid zone where a good Whataburger sandwich sits, and since there are no Whataburgers around me, when I have that specific craving I might just have to get a Hardee’s with cheese.

And no, it wasn’t too greasy. Much as I was always told Hardee’s burgers were greasy, this double cheese seemed just fine. A lot of cheese was on it, sure, but it wasn’t dripping with grease. Either they cleaned up their act in the last thirty years, or they just were never that greasy and my family led me wrong. I don’t really have enough info either way to know, but that doesn’t matter here. This was a good burger and I was quite honestly shocked by it.

The Ambiance

I will note that I wasn’t super impressed by the ambiance of the restaurant when I was there picking stuff up. Service, while friendly, was slow. I was the only person in line, browsing their menu for a little while, before I finally walked up to get served. I then stood there for close to the minutes after ordering, waiting for my food, and I wasn’t the only one. Two other orders came out right before mine, and those people had to have been waiting even longer, which really isn’t a good look for a fast food restaurant.

Management at the store I went to was also bad, with them being very loud and very confrontational with their servers. I felt bad for the people working, and if I were more of a “big time” food reviewer I probably would have talked to corporate about the attitude their management brings to their store since it just seemed unacceptable for them to be mean and cold to their servers.

The store was clean, but somehow still felt like a greasy spoon in a way. There was a vibe, an energy, that made it feel like I’d wandered into a 1950s diner, and maybe not a very good one. As I said, the burger was great, and if that hadn’t been the case I would have felt really gross about the whole experience. I’m going to chalk a lot of that up to the franchise I was in and not hold it against the chain as a whole, at least for now.

Final Thoughts

End of the day I have to give them credit: Hardee’s made a pretty good meal. While I wasn’t impressed with the chicken sandwich, which was the whole reason I went there, everything else about the experience was decent. The ambiance of the store notwithstanding, the fries and burger were really good, and if I had a road trip to take I could easily see grabbing those from a restaurant along the way again. I’d suggest avoiding the chicken sandwich since it wasn’t that great, but otherwise Hardee’s gets better marks than I ever would have expected.