Burger King

Financing

Burger King proves that heavy discounts aren’t always necessary

The Bottom Line: The fast-food chain generated a strong first quarter, despite a tough environment, largely by focusing on its operations and its food.

Financing

Tom Curtis talked with 1,500 customers. The conversations should show up in Burger King restaurants for years

The fast-food chain has taken 64,000 calls and texts from customers about a variety of issues. The calls are providing crucial information on product innovation, operational improvements and even some broken signs.

The Bottom Line: The two chains have long been rivals, but it has been entirely one-sided in recent years. Here’s what it would take for the smaller chain to accomplish this lofty goal.

The Bottom Line: The fast-food chain has struggled on and off for years. But years of investment, refranchising, operations improvements and marketing have the company confident. And then its president went viral.

The fast-food chain admits mistakes of the past, and fires The King, in an ambitious new marketing campaign featuring the brand’s president, Tom Curtis, and plenty of nostalgia for the chain’s heyday.

The fast-food chain received a spike in visits last week after the brand’s president went viral for taking a bite of the Whopper, according to data from the food traffic tracking firm Placer.ai.

McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski was roasted online for taking a small bite of the chain’s new Big Arch Burger on video. Burger King, which just upgraded its Whopper, did not let it pass.

The Bottom Line: The executive chairman of the owner of Burger King, Tim Hortons, Popeyes and Firehouse Subs made the case to investors as the company gets back to franchising.

The Bottom Line: The fast-food chain has been improving per-store profitability in recent years as it works to solidify its performance. But beef prices had something to say about that.

The fast-food chain, which just hired the former head chef of Popeyes, is improving the Whopper for the first time in a decade. It is the first in a series of improvements to the menu slated for this year.

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