The Real Story of the Carrols Burger Chain from 1960 – 2024

The final chapter in the 60-plus year story of the Carrols Burger chain, headquartered in Syracuse, NY, is about to close. This week, the Carrols Restaurant Group announced it has sold all of its properties to Burger King for a whopping $1 billion.

Carrolls, which once was a major competitor to Burger King, has been serving as the food chain's largest franchisee with more than 1,000 locations (1,022) around the country. Carrols also owns more than 60 Popeyes restaurants around the country.

The company was founded by Herbert N. Slotnik in 1960 as a burger and fries drive-in based out of Syracuse that became incredibly popular as an alternative to McDonalds. The chain was an offshoot of the Tastee-Freeze company, and Carrols was named after the Tastee-Freez co-owner's daughter, Carol Marantz.

The franchise grew around the country through the 1970s, but as competition in the burger category was ramping up, it became difficult to compete. In an interview, Slotnik said wherever a Carrols restaurant would open, Burger King would place one of its stores right next door. According to Wikipedia, Slotnik determined that if he couldn't beat Burgher King and McDonalds, he might as well join them.

So, Slotnik cut a deal with Burger King to purchase hundreds of Carrols restaurants which he would convert into Burger Kings. The last of Slotnik's restaurants that continued to operate as a Carrols, finally closed its doors in the early 1980s in Batavia.

Beginning  the early 1970s, Carrols also owned a movie theatre chain, Cinema National, through the mid 1980s.