In South Carolina, fried chicken is a way of life, but the Yogi Bear chicken restaurant history is easily the strangest piece of fast-food lore in the Palmetto State. Most people don’t realize that a cartoon bear once fronted a booming regional chain—or that the very last remaining location in the country is still serving customers right here in South Carolina.
More than 50 years after its doors first opened, the story of this iconic brand involves a rejected Hollywood pitch, a million-dollar corporate buyout, and a single town keeping a piece of Americana alive.
Yogi Bear Chicken Timeline at a Glance
- Late 1960s: Gene Broome creates the honey-flavored tenderizer recipe.
- 1968: The first location opens in Myrtle Beach, SC; Hardee’s buys the licensing rights for $1 million later that year.
- 1970s–1990s: Lack of corporate support forces mass closures across the Carolinas.
- Present Day: The Hartsville, SC spot remains the sole surviving location.
The Bizarre Origin: How a Cartoon Bear Became a Fast Food Icon
In the late 1960s, Columbia restaurateur Gene Broome developed a honey-flavored tenderizer for fried chicken. His business partner, Roy Davis, later told The Post and Courier it was “a chemical type thing that tenderized the chicken and had a honey taste.” Broome knew the recipe alone wouldn’t sell the restaurant. Celebrity-branded spots were everywhere in the ’60s, so he went looking for a famous face.
He reportedly pitched Jackie Gleason first and got turned down. He landed on Yogi Bear instead, licensing the cartoon character and his Jellystone Park friends from Hanna-Barbera. The first location opened in Myrtle Beach, and it took off. Locations followed across the Carolinas, each one with a roadside sign of a grinning Yogi holding a drumstick.
The $1 Million Hardee’s Deal That Wiped Out the Chain
The chain’s early success caught the attention of Hardee’s, which paid Broome and his partners $1 million in 1968 (about $9.2 million today) to take over the chain’s licensing and operations. But Hardee’s wanted the honey-flavored recipe, not a fried chicken restaurant business to run. The branded locations received little support afterward, and they began closing one by one throughout the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s…