- October 7, 2026
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For nearly 40 years, Checkers has beckoned to hungry drivers along Florida’s commercial corridors with a look almost impossible to miss: red trim and chrome fixtures, black-and-white checkerboards and a compact kitchen wedged between dual drive-thru lanes.
But times have changed, the company’s leadership says, and those retro roadside restaurants are beginning to show their age.
That’s why Checkers and sister brand Rally’s are readying for an all-out modern makeover starting with 20 of its longest-standing locations. The $811 million Tampa-based burger chain won’t be abandoning its signature checkered look, but going even deeper with red checked walls, bright lighting, modernized logos and signage, contemporary architecture and colorful murals, the company announced this week.
A dozen of the restaurants earmarked for a remodel are in Florida, including seven in the Tampa Bay area. Those local locations are in Tampa, Temple Terrace, St. Petersburg, Holiday, Hudson and Port Richey. The company expects to remodel 33 locations by the end of the year across Florida, Ohio, and Indiana.
The company declined to disclose how much of an investment will be made in the new store rebranding efforts — though a 2023 recapitalization agreement with its new ownership group included some $25 million for store remodeling.
"We’ve made a significant investment in the program, and that investment continues as we work through the portfolio," says Stephanie Grant, director of real estate and market growth at Checkers & Rally’s. "Rather than focusing on one systemwide dollar figure, we’ve taken a disciplined, restaurant-by-restaurant approach to ensure the level of investment makes sense for each individual asset and market and can generate an appropriate return."
Updated exteriors are just one piece of a broader turnaround strategy for the company meant to not only appeal to a new generation of customers, but also reinvent its operations for the digital age. Spearheaded by CEO Chris Tebben, Checkers & Rally’s is reworking its advertising, restaurant operations and digital technology after several years of lagging revenues and turnaround attempts.
“Every restaurant we reimagine brings our vision for Checkers & Rally’s to life and strengthens the experience we deliver to our guests,” Tebben says in a statement. “We’re investing in our restaurants because we believe every guest deserves a bold, memorable experience from the moment they pull into the drive-thru.”
The chain’s distinctive roadside restaurants were built for speed long before the days of mobile ordering. But after decades of wear, many of the brand’s restaurants, kitchens and ordering systems have struggled to keep up with customer expectations, the company says.
Checkers first began developing a plan for a new generation of restaurants under former CEO Frances Allen, who took over in early 2020. An internal study conducted in 2021 found inefficient layouts inside the compact kitchens — many of which had not been updated with new equipment since the 1980s — required employees to walk as much as 1.5 miles every hour as they continuously crossed paths and moved between workstations.
The company’s response was to outfit its restaurants with what it calls a “fit kitchen” — reorganizing prep areas and kitchen equipment to improve speed, food temperature and order accuracy. Some Checkers and Rally’s restaurants also began converting one of the two drive-thru lanes into a dedicated lane for mobile and delivery orders.
The first Checkers outfitted with a “fit kitchen” opened in 2021 in Lakeland. By 2023, the company was rolling out restaurant designs that maintained familiar elements — like chrome accents and a fragmented version of the checkerboard pattern — with updated designs, like clearer traffic patterns for drive-thru, walk-up and digital customers.
Also in 2023, a trio of investment partners acquired majority ownership of the parent company, Checkers Drive-in Restaurants, in a recapitalization deal designed to avoid further long-term debt issues. In that deal, private equity firm Oak Hill Capital Partners, which acquired the business in 2017 for $525 million, sold majority ownership of the company to its top lenders: Arbour Lane Capital Management LP; Garnett Station Partners; and Guggenheim Investments.
The deal with its lenders reduced Checkers' long-term debt from $300 million to $75 million and also, according to a June 2023 statement, provided an "additional $25 million in new debt financing commitments to fund store remodeling programs and other growth initiatives.”
And by September 2024, Tebben, with previous leadership stints at Starbucks, Pizza Hut and P.F. Chang’s, was brought in as its new president and CEO.
In April 2025, under Tebben’s leadership, the company unveiled a new marketing platform — “This Eats Different” — along with a refreshed logo, visual identity and advertising voice. The campaign appeared on television, streaming services, TikTok and other digital platforms, emphasizing the chain’s bold flavors and irreverent personality, as well as a $4 "Unbeatable Meal Deal."
The company posted $811 million in revenue in 2025, down -8.7% from $889 million in 2024.
Which is partially why Tebben says turning the company around will have to go beyond catchy slogans and flashy restaurants, adding in the email that "our transformation doesn't stop with new restaurants or new ideas."
The current design coming to Checkers restaurants across the region is the result of extensive research into customer behavior, traffic flow and ordering habits, according to Imagine Group, which worked with the chain to revamp its restaurant environment. The changes include more visible menu boards, a more prominent walk-up window, clearer directions through the drive-thru and bright red lighting wrapping the building to improve visibility after dark.
"There was some trial and error involved as we developed the program," Grant says. "Initially, we looked at restaurants individually, but we learned that reimagining a market, or a meaningful concentration of restaurants within a market, creates a much greater impact than remodeling isolated locations. It allows customers to see that the brand is evolving across their community rather than at just one restaurant."
