Editor Pick
Hungry Jack's
- May 2, 2006
- Rated 1 of 5 by
stomps from Houston, Texas
Hungry Jack's confused me when I first saw it. I saw its sign from far away, and assumed it said Burger King, since it had red lettering between two buns. As I got closer to its location on Campbell Parade, I noticed that the name was wrong, yet when I peeked inside, I saw that the menu had Whoppers on it. This had to be either extreme plagiarism or a change of name for some unknown reason--Burger King had been Burger King in New Zealand.
I found out later that the reason Burger King is Hungry Jack's in Australia is because when the chain first attempted to expand to Australia in the 1970s, there was already a burger joint in Perth that had trademarked the name. Therefore, the man that owned the Australian Burger King franchises named the restaurants after himself instead, and they became Hungry Jack's. You do find a Burger King every now and then, since the Perth man's trademark has since lapsed, but I seemed to only see BKs in random places in Sydney and airports.
I decided to eat at the Bondi Beach Hungry Jack's one night, partly to test out whether it tasted the same as Burger King and partly because I was feeling rather cheap. The restaurant wasn't exactly the cleanest of places, and my table didn't look like it had been wiped down in quite some time (yet, it was better than many of the tables I had passed by). The burger had a bit of a strange taste that Burger King burgers certainly didn't have, but I attributed it to them being different restaurants.
Needless to say, the strange taste must not have been from a difference in the restaurants. I started feeling extremely poorly soon after my meal and had to call it quits for the night, which is obviously no fun when you are on vacation and want to take it all in. This experience put me off Hungry Jack's for nearly the rest of my stay in Australia. When I finally took the chance on eating there again, in Brisbane, my burger was fine. I'm not sure if it was just a fluke, but I would still recommend choosing a different dinner option to Hungry Jack's if you are on Bondi Beach.
From journal Bondi: What's the Fuss About?