The Lebanon Hardee’s location faces an uncertain future amid speculation that it would close this Saturday. Another local news source reported Tuesday that Hardee’s said the location was closing and that Saturday was the last day it would be open.
The Record discovered what it could about the future of the location, but could not independently verify that the location was permanently closing.
A person familiar with the situation said on background that the independent franchisee ARC Burger owned the Lebanon location and had been unable to reach a resolution with Hardee’s on curing their default after months of negotiations.
Curing the default, according to the US Legal Forms website, means fulfilling contract-outlined obligations after receiving an intent to forfeit notice – basically allowing a buyer to correct their default and keep the rights they have under the contract.
The person familiar with the situation said further that the situation was fluid. They said that Hardee’s did not have a definitive answer on whether the franchise would close and was working to discover a resolution to keep the location open.
A Restaurant Business article by Jonanthan Maze from Dec. 8, 2025 outlined a lawsuit Hardee’s had brought against ARC Burger in November over what it said in its lawsuit was an owed amount of over $6.5 million on 28 of its locations. The article noted that some of ARC Burger’s restaurants are in Missouri.
That article had noted that the ARC Burger dispute was one that threatened more closures amid others since October along with the Hardee’s chain long-term decline.
The Record did not receive an official response from Hardee’s about the potential closure after contacting their media inquiries email found on their website.
On Wednesday, the Record called a phone number that identified itself as being connected with ARC Burger to get more information and attempted to leave a message.
The Record later sent an email to an email address named as a contact email for ARC Burger for comment and context on the Lebanon location’s status. That email returned undelivered, so the Record tried fixing the email address and sending it again. There was no response by press time.
The Record later called ARC Burger phone number again, left a message asking for comment on the potential closure and any context and received no response by press time.
Correction/Update: While the Record thought that it did not receive a response from the email by press time, a email saying that the second sent message could not be forwarded had arrived in the spam section of the Record's inbox yesterday. The Record did not see that email until after Saturday's issue was uploaded. We will note the correction/update in Wednesday's issue as well.
Updated with breakout box shortly after publication.
