Blake's Lotaburger
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| Privately held | |
| Founded | Albuquerque, New Mexico, 1952 |
| Founder | Blake Chanslor |
| Headquarters | Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States |
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Number of locations
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78 |
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Area served
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New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona |
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Key people
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Ronald C. Rule (CEO) |
| Products | Hamburgers, french fries, chili, hot dogs, and soft drinks |
| Website | www |
Blake's Lotaburger (often shortened to either Blake's or Lotaburger) is a fast food chain based in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Blake's has 78 locations. Seventy-three are in New Mexico, three are in Texas and two are in Arizona.
All Lotaburger stores are company-owned. Blake's Lotaburger also owns the majority of the property that its stores are built on, and the stores are built by the company's construction division. Blake's owns and operates its own sheet metal shop, refrigeration shop, cabinet shop, vehicle shop, maintenance fleet, and commissary.
Despite some modernization, the food at Lotaburger is still cooked to order, resulting in what might be considered slow service by fast food standards.
Blake's Lotaburger was founded by Blake Chanslor, who moved from Texas to Albuquerque, New Mexico after World War II. Chanslor opened his first "Lota Burger" stand on July 9, 1952. His initial investment in the business was $5,300, and his stand was 230 square feet (21 m2), on the corner of San Mateo and Southern, in southeast Albuquerque. In 1953, he opened two more stores.
Chanslor expanded Lotaburger to 23 cities in New Mexico, with 35 stores in Albuquerque. Chanslor remained the owner until 2003, when he sold his interest to the father-son team of Ronald C. and Brian Rule. The restaurants are known as Blake’s Lotaburger. As of 2013, the company owned and operated 76 stores.
In the 1990s, the company featured television commercial personality Ernest P. Worrell, played by Jim Varney, in many of its television ads.
According to the Albuquerque Journal in 1994, Lotaburger helped popularize the use of green chiles as a condiment on hamburgers. In 2006, the company was recognized by National Geographic for the “Best Green Chile Cheeseburger in the World". In 2009, the New Mexico Tourism Department listed the restaurants as one of the state's destinations on the Green Chile Cheeseburger Trail.
In June 2013, the company announced it would open its first Texas location would open that fall on El Paso's west side. A second El Paso location opened in June 2014 on the city's east sid. The company announced plans in early 2015 to expand to Tucson, Arizona.
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Wikipedia