December 31, 2011, and I just ate at the first Carl’s Jr burger joint in eastern Idaho! Love those Western Bacon Cheeseburgers (been eating them since the early 1980s!), and those luscious teriyaki burgers!

No more finding excuses to travel more than an hour to get Carl’s Jr.  Although I still have to drive 45 minutes to Idaho Falls, but pretty soon, I hope, there’s gonna be Carl’s Jr in the Pocatello area.  That’s according to a 2008 press release.

One of the new east Idaho Carl’s Jr is located in the Grand Teton Mall parking lot, across from the Barnes & Noble.

There is a second Carl’s Jr in Idaho Falls, located at the intersection of Holmes and Northgate mile. I think they were a little overwhelmed; they were out of large size cups, and they just ran out of five dollar bills on the day I tried them out.

According to a 2008 press release eastern and southeastern Idaho will get five more Carl’s Jr by 2014.  The new restaurants will be spread from Pocatello to Idaho Falls.

The new restaurants are part of a huge expansion by California based Carl’s Jr.  In December, 2008, Carl Karcher Enterprises announced they signed franchise deals for 51 new stores!  Those new stores will be concentrated in Nevada and Idaho.

East and southeast Idaho will get a total of six restaurants, southern Idaho (Twin Falls area) will get three, and the Boise area (southwest Idaho) will get three more on top of the stores already there.

I noticed east Idaho’s local media paid no head to the new Carl’s Jr, but was all over the new Chick-fil-A (I’ve eaten at a Chick-fil-A in Georgia, never again).

Mmmm, how many Chick-fil-A stores will open in east Idaho, oh just the one in Ammon? (I checked Chick-fil-A’s list of future store openings) Lets see, Carl’s Jr opening a total of six stores in east and southeast Idaho (as well as new stores in south and southwest Idaho), I can see who’s gonna be helping the local economy more.

(By the way you can print off coupons from the Carl’s Jr website)