Burger In A Hurry
Along with Jack's, Dairy Snack, and the other homegrown Birmingham fast food restaurants of days gone by, there was Burger In A Hurry ... or, as it was officially known, "Mr. Good's Burger In A Hurry" ... named after the restaurant's mascot, Mr. Realee Good.

One of BIAH's locations was a favorite of Birmingham Southern students; it was across the street from the campus.  Another of the stores was in the shadow of Vulcan on what used to be US 31.  The Webmaster is barely old enough to remember their burgers ... and that tall, busy signage with the huge boomerang. 

That boomerang was a dominant motif for its building architecture, the wrappers, napkins, you name it!  Their buildings were truly distinctive, incorporating the boomerang shape along the roofline. 

BIAH had called it a day by the mid '70s.  Today, there is just one visible sign of this chain's existence ... the Hoover location, now housing a Golden Rule BBQ, still maintains much of the old Burger In A Hurry facade.

'Hurry Headgear -- if you ever worked at Burger In A Hurry, you more than likely had one of these cardboard hats on your head while on the clock.

Back in those days, paper hats were a big part of the uniform, whether it was BIAH or Jack's ... or the big names like McDonald's, Burger King or Burger Chef.
Y'want fries with that? -- After parting with your 12 cents, the potato slices came in a paper pouch like this. 

Seeing this gave me chills.  One of my earliest  childhood memories is sitting at the table at my grandparents', eating a BIAH meal ... strange, I truly did not remember Mr. Realee Good; the only two things etched onto my brain were the boomerang, and the red-and-green color scheme.
Burger blow-up - Specimen of a BIAH balloon.
Smile when you say that -- Here, in all its mimeographed glory (sorry, but there's no way of smelling it!) is a brief outline of what BIAH called "Counter Intelligence" ... your basic cheat-sheet of what was expected of you when you worked the front counter. 

None of these rules (unless you count the line in red after #8!) were proprietary to Burger In A Hurry; these are simple, basic rules of fast food customer service that seem to have gone the way of ... Burger In A Hurry!    Smile ... pleasant greeting ... thank the customer "and really mean it" -- how quaint!
Fast food managers today would be wise to consider adopting "Counter Intelligence" for their own stores.

 On the house -- Several "freebie" cards given out as promos by BIAH.  Clockwise, starting with top right: Free hamburger, french fries and drink; Free Hamburger; Free "Big Burger"; $1.00 in trade. 

The 5s on the trade card could be punched out for each nickel spent.  Yes, $1.00 went pretty durned far at a fast food place in the '60s.  Today, $1.00 would get you just one item on a so-called "value menu."
Prelude to a Shake -- It's amazing what some people consider worthy of saving for posterity.  This is the design BIAH used for ... their straw wrappers!  Far be it from me to knock it; I wish more people had thought of saving the most trivial of momentos pertaining to now-gone entities.
LISTEN TO THE ORIGINAL "BURGER IN A HURRY" JINGLE
(MP3 file, 128 kbps, 44.1 kHz., approx. 200 MB)

Thanks to Tim Hollis for providing these "realee goodies."


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Updated 06/18/2006 -- 530 PM EDT