Move over J. Lo! Beginning today, Carl's Jr.® and Hardee's® celebrate flat buns with a new TV commercial to promote a hot new burger made with flat buns: the Patty Melt Burger?. To help bring attention to the unheralded allure of flatness, Carl's Jr. and Hardee's conducted an internet survey of 2,000 Americans to rank the flattest female and male celebrity buns. At the top of the flattest female buns list were Nicole Richie and former Carl's Jr. and Hardee's commercial star, Paris Hilton. Ryan Seacrest and David Letterman rounded out (or should we say ?flattened out?) the top of the male category. Other contenders for the flattest bun crown included Kate Moss, Kiera Knightley, Jackie Chan and Johnny Depp.

The complete list of the top ten male and female celebrities ranked as having the flattest buns in the survey includes:

Top 10 Flattest Female Celebrity Buns         Top 10 Flattest Male Celebrity Buns
 
Nicole Richie Ryan Seacrest
Paris Hilton David Letterman
Kate Moss Jackie Chan
Kiera Knightley Johnny Depp
Mischa Barton Tobey Maguire
Cameron Diaz Leonardo DiCaprio
Hillary Clinton Rudy Giuliani
Lindsay Lohan Ashton Kutcher
Victoria Beckham Orlando Bloom
Natalie Portman Barack Obama

The new Carl's Jr. and Hardee's Patty Melt Burger is made the old-fashioned way, with a charbroiled beef patty that is smothered with grilled onions and melting American cheese, all piled between two slices of flat, grilled rye bread.

?The Patty Melt is an American classic but the burger has been around for almost 60 years and, thus, it needed an image make-over to become more relevant for today's fast-food consumers,? said Brad Haley, executive vice president of marketing for Carl's Jr. restaurants. ?So, our advertising agency developed a rap song to emphasize one of the unique aspects of the burger: the use of flat, grilled rye bread as opposed to the traditional round-top bun. That rap song, which originally ran as a radio spot for our Hardee's chain, became so popular with the public ? even spawning related websites and YouTube spoofs ? that we decided to make it into a music video TV commercial for the burger to run at both chains. Who knows? This may help give flat buns the respect and admiration they have been missing for all these years.?

The new commercial carries on a decade-long strategy at Carl's Jr. to utilize innovative advertising intended to appeal to young, hungry guys. The ad was created by Los Angeles-based advertising agency, Mendelsohn|Zien, the masterminds behind many iconic Carl's Jr. and Hardee's ads including the 2005 Paris Hilton commercial, ?That's Hot,? last year's hip spot starring Sacramento Kings and Palms Casino Resort owners the Maloof brothers, and the memorable ?If it doesn't get all over the place, it doesn't belong in your face? Carl's Jr. campaign from the 1990's.

The new Patty Melt Burger is available at participating Carl's Jr. and Hardee's restaurants now. Pricing varies regionally.

As of the first fiscal quarter ended May 21, 2007, CKE Restaurants, Inc. (NYSE:CKR), through its subsidiaries, had a total of 3,022 franchised or company-operated restaurants in 43 states and in 13 countries, including 1,101 Carl's Jr. restaurants, and 1,905 Hardee's restaurants. For more information, or to find a Carl's Jr. near you, go to www.ckr.com, www.carlsjr.com, or www.hardees.com.

Hardee's
Jeff Mochal, 314-259-6277
jmochal@ckr.com
or
Weber|Shandwick
Laura Stanford, 714-662-5119
lstanford@webershandwick.com