Hurry on down to Hartee's where the burgers are barbecued!

Growing up in the Canterbury-Bankstown area in the early 1970s, I remember the ads on the TV for "Hartee's", the new burger joint where the catch jingle was "Hurry on down to Hartee's, where the burgers are barbecued" sang by a cowboy. I always thought the burgers tasted better than the latest food chain McDonalds. But they just disappeared overnight and my local Hartees restaurant on Canterbury road, Canterbury was no longer there and was soon replaced by McDonalds.

It has only been the result of the internet that I have finally found the fate of Hartees but more of that later.

I decided to rekindle my youth and model the Hartees that I remembered in the early 1970s.

Above: Finished model of the Hartee;s restaurant

Basis of restaurant
I purchased a Fast Food Restaurant cardboard from Kingsway in the UK which I asked the supplier to reduce to kit from 00 gauge to HO scale. I started to build the kit as per instructions but found the kit a little large and it needed to reduce the kit by a quarter. 

Above: Original size walls of the Kingsway model

Above:cut to size to represent Hartees

Building Roof
I attempted to use the stock roof that was included in the Kingsway kit but it did not represent the roof for Hartees so a custom built roof made of cardboard and paper mache was used.

Retaurant Signage
Restaurant signage examples were sourced from the internet. As Hartees was based on the American Hardees who part owned the Australian operation with Kelloggs, I was able to find some colour Hardees photos as Australian sourced photos were in black and white. I used word to mock up the signs and then pasted them on styrene.

 

The most useful source that I found on the internet was from flickr which had a black and white ad from "The Leader"newspaper advertising the grand opening of the Hartees store in Kogarah 

Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/sydneyneverbuilt/19530497500/

Hardees as they were in the US in the 1970s and still going strong

source: https://www.hemmings.com/blog/2015/07/30/hardees-1970s/

The Final Fate

For those of you who wanted to know a whatever happened to Hartees or like me was too young to be able to know about the news at the time the blog the Past Lives of the Near Future has some interesting reading on Hartee's.

https://pastlivesofthenearfuture.com/2012/04/05/the-hartees-saga-part-iv-the-shocking-conclusion-bankstown-nsw/

https://pastlivesofthenearfuture.com/2012/03/27/the-hartees-saga-part-ii-canterbury-nsw/

 If Hartee's continued today it will probably be Hungry Jacks however instead of having barbecued hamburgers we are getting "The burgers are better at Hungry Jacks.