In this #YouTube #Shorts episode, we share our adventures going to the original Burger King located in Mattoon, Illinois.
Sometimes, you just get in a rut when it comes time to lunches, and working where I do, there’s not much around me to really eat. There’s a Dairy Queen, a McDonalds, Monical’s Pizza, and Casey’s gas station pizza, but overall that’s just blah. On a recent trip to check out a local Goodwill to see if there were any games to pick up, I decided to head to a different sort of place for lunch. See, in Mattoon, Illinois is a restaurant that is unlike any other, and that is The Burger King.
Founded by Gene and Betty Hoots, they bought an ice cream shop called the Frigid Queen Ice Cream Shop in 1952. In 1954, Gene decided to expand the business to include hamburgers, cheeseburgers, French fries, and other grilled items to their offerings. While Gene wanted to call the expansion “The Hot Dames”, it was Betty who decided on “Burger King”, after stating that “Every queen needs a king”.
In 1959, the Hoots family registered the name “Burger King” in the state of Illinois, and they were the only Burger King in operation in the state. The Hoots family retired in 2015 and sold the business to a local businessman, Cory Sanders. Sanders promised to continue to operate the restaurant, but also updated and remodeled the building, refreshed the menu, and lowered prices. In 2017, long-time manager Ernie Drummond purchased the company and continues to operate it to this day.
While they opened in Illinois before the now National Chain, in 1961 that company had begun to expand into the state. Within 6 years they had over 50 stores in the state, which lead the Hoots family to seek legal action to protect their trademark. Due to the fact that the Hoots family only filed the trademark on a state level, the national Burger King chain actually had legal rights to the usage of the name nationwide, which included Illinois. However, it was decided that the Hoots family owned exclusive rights to the trademark in the Mattoon area. This means that The original Burger King from Mattoon cannot use the trademark outside of Mattoon, and the national chain can use the trademark everywhere EXCEPT within the Mattoon area. In the past, The national chain has offered to pay for the right to have a chain within the Mattoon area, but their offers have not been accepted at this time.
source
