Checking In With Checkers

Tampabay.com:

Founded in 1986 in Mobile, Ala., quirky Checkers Drive-In Restaurants Inc. didn’t become a national player until moving its headquarters to Tampa Bay a few years later and merging with Rally’s. But it has been plagued by sluggish performance.

The chain’s trademark double-drive-through restaurants — down from more than 50 to only 15 in the bay area — are promoted in ads as “little place. BIG TASTE.” Wellspring Capital, a private equity firm that bought Checkers in 2006, installed Rick Silva, a 44-year-old veteran Burger King executive, as chief executive in 2007. After a top-level housecleaning, he set up systems to restore consistency, understand customers and invigorate store growth. Sales are up slightly, but more than the industry average in 2009, at a chain that did $660 million in business in 2008, up $11 million from 2006.

Here are some excerpts from a recent conversation the Times had with Silva.

Q: Did you start out in fast food in high school?

Read full interview here.

Photo: Edmund D. Fountain.

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