by Theresa Carter

Mattoon, IL, is home to the original Burger King. When we saw this tidbit of information in our research, we assumed that it was the first one of the chain. It isn’t; in fact, the home of the Whopper can’t be anywhere near the home of the Hooter.

This Burger King was originally a Frigid Queen ice cream shop. After adding burgers, fries, and a counter they changed the name to Burger King. Unfortunately there was another Burger King in Florida, and this one was ravenous. With 50 restaurants in Illinois by 1957, they really wanted to have it their way.

Since the Hootses were there first, they decided to put a stop to their counterpart’s quick expansion into their territory and took them to court. The case went all the way to a federal appellate court before it was decided in the Florida chain’s favor. Since they had a federal trademark and the Mattoon location was only registered in Illinois, Florida won out. The one small victory: there can be no other Burger Kings within a radius of 20 miles.

I suppose we should have guessed as soon as we saw the sign that there was no connection. David comments in the video about how impressed he is that the place doesn’t have that corporate feel. When we walked inside I was even reminded of my grandma’s old diner in Terre Haute. It also had video games and works from local artists for sale. A jukebox sits in the corner and instead of a drive-through speaker, a lady wearing a Santa hat would walk outside and take each car’s order.

It was all very charming and very un-corporate. We loved the place when we thought it was part of large corporation; learning that it’s a mom and pop endeared “the” Burger King to us even more.