Carl’s Jr

The food here was so so. I ordered the bacon egg and cheese burrito and it was pretty flavorless. There aren’t many options in the SJU airport so you pretty much have no choice but to eat here.

I can’t say much about this place other than I was shocked to see a Carl’s Jr. in San Juan. I had heard of the degrading commercials they air in the land of California. As far as fast food goes, it’s got a decent taste but it is considerably more expensive than other fast food restaurants. They just opened up in the past few months so it seemed like they were trying to figure things out. Get a combo if you want fries and a drink. They gave me this ginormous cup because they ran out of the normal sized one. And you wonder why the US has a fast food problem.
With respect to the other places you can eat at in the SJU airport… not a bad option.

I had the worst burger that I’ve ever had in my entire life at this Carl’s location at the San Juan airport. I ordered their so called «thick» burger and paid $ 10.99 just for the burger – no drink or fries. When I got the burger, I thought they made a mistake. The slice of «meat» in the burger was no thicker than any regular patty you’d find at any other fast food burger place. I returned to the counter and they assured me that I got the «thick» patty. I asked the guy to show me what their regular patty looked like because I couldn’t believe that anything could be thinner than what we got without being see through. He claimed that they ran out of the regular patties and refused to show me.
In addition to the meat being too thin, it was also dry and salty as hell. I could not eat more than two bites. It tasted like cardboard. It was horrendous.
Their fries were decent so it wasn’t all bad. Hubby ordered a burger with fries. He claims his sandwich was ok. He has lower standards of edibility. He ate the rest of my burger and I’m writing this review on an empty stomach. Sigh. Buyer beware.

SUMMATION: Their Lettuce Wrap Burger was very good, quick, and convenient.
GENERAL: All Carl’s Jr. and Hardee“s Restaurants are pretty much the same and are well known. Therefore, I will not review this place in much detail.
NAME: Carl’s Jr. [1]
CHAIN: CKE Restaurants, Inc. (Carl Karcher Enterprises)
LOGO: Happy Star [2]
MY RATING: Very Good
TITLE: «A Marvelous Innovation» [Yelp, my review #101, 13 February 2015 (TripAdvisor, submitted 10 September 2014, but not listed)]
INDIA TRIP REVIEW NUMBER: 1
WEB PAGE:
OWNERS: CKE Restaurants
LOCALITY: Terminal A, Departure Level, Luis Munoz Marin International Airport (SJU), Carolina, Puerto Rico 979
DIFFICULTY LOCATING: easy
DIRECTIONS: Only available to airline passengers in Puerto Rico. [3]
OCCASION: We were trying to find something in the airport without too much sugar, starch, and calories. We were traveling to a mystical land where we would have no salad or beef.
AMBIANCE: Sheer, simple food stand.
DRINKS: No Sprite Zero or diet 7up
WATER: bottled
CUISINE: American Fast Fat
MENU FORMAT: on wall over counter
MENU ITEMS: Burgers, chicken
ENTRÉE: We had their «Low Carb Six Dollar Burger Lettuce Wrap» [4] with 2 whole leaves of iceberg lettuce; 2 slices each of American cheese, red onion, and tomato; slices dill pickle; and mayonnaise, ketchup, and mustard. Very Good, but somewhat drippy at the end (as their slogan promises). This was also listed as a «Thick Burger,» but the meat did not seem very thick.
CONDIMENTS: ketchup packets
CLEANESS: Excellent
PROBLEMS: The Lettuce Wrap is in a paper half wrap (sleeve). The paper becomes soggy and small pieces break off. If you do not remove all of the pieces, they become stuck in your teeth.
HEALTH: The lettuce Wrap is the only semi-​healthy item on their menu at SJU.
AWARDS: These Six Dollar Burgers won the Silver Skillet Award for product innovation (2002, Restaurant Business Magazine).
REVIEWS: rated Less Than Average, 2.2÷5, 4 reviews (Tripadvisor); Good, 3.5 out of 5, 1 review (Foursquare, in another review)
HISTORY: These Six Dollar Burgers were introduced in July 2001. The Low Carb Burger in this series was first served 30 December 2013. We had never been to this restaurant or seen a Lettuce Wrap Burger. The airport facility opened November 2013.
This Chain began as a hotdog stand opened by Carl N. and Margaret Karcher in Anahiem, California, in 1941. In 1945, they opened «Carl’s Drive-​in Barbeque.» In 1946, they added hamburgers. In 1954, they began creating a series of smaller restaurants called «Carl’s» and in 1956 changed the names to «Carl’s Jr.» «Hardee’s» is a sibling restaurant chain of Carl’s Jr. obtained in 1997. Together they are the 10^th largest fast food chain in the USA. The company went public in 1981, its Board fired Carl as CEO in 1993, although he remained with his company.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] More than 3400 restaurants (1418 Carl’s Jr. & 1981 Hardee’s) [numbers do not jive] in 42 USA states and Puerto Rico, but also in 30 other countries. Carl’s Jr. was mostly in the western and southwestern USA and Hardee’s in the east and southeast USA.
[2] A bright yellow, five-​pointed star. Also used by Hardees now.
[3] 8 – 10 more are scheduled to open in Puerto Rico
[4] They call some of their offerings «Six Dollar Burgers» because that is what you would pay for it in a regular restaurant. It has 560 calories.