Sizzler. I saw the Sizzler champs once. Sat down, ordered nice (for Sizzler’s) steak dinners, free buffet came with! 4 or 5 trips to the buffet, it was a pretty good one as they go, when their steak dinners came, they asked for go-boxes, wrapped it all up and left. 2 meals for the price of 1.
Their iconic carousel now lives on the Epic campus, and the owners of Ella’s just released a cookbook of their recipes. Three years after closing, Ella’s Deli owners release cookbook
There is website that has uploaded old Radio Shack catalogs to browse:
https://www.bridgemans.com/parlor/location/hours.html
You can still get the ice cream. None of the restaurants are left.
I used to go to the one in Dinkytown in Minneapolis, and at Randolph and Snelling in St Paul. There was one on East Lake Street in Minneapolis too.
Holy crap, was that almost fifty years ago?!? 
The Snelling one I went to in college a few times. Last one I was in was the one by Minnehaha Falls, but that was 20 years ago.
Did you go to Macalester or St Kate’s?
Nope
Hamline
I took a course in US Foreign Policy at Hamline to meet the American History requirement for my BA. Nice place! I hung out a lot in the cafeteria and TV lounge there too. IIRC, this was in the fall of 1987.
Small world. I was there then. Worked in the student center cafeteria, too.
I remember one girl who was really nice. She worked behind the desk opposite the TV in the lounge and was fun to talk to.
One afternoon, I accidentally left a green folder in the cafeteria. It was full of the short essays I wrote for USFP, all of which were100% (the highest possible grade). I never got it back. 
I have a cousin who went to Hamline. She would have been there in the late eighties.
This just triggered my PTSD
Go to Thailand. They’re everywhere, and very popular too. Or at least they were before Covid. Now with everything closed and locked down, who knows. But it was a great place to go. Definitely the US chain, not a local knockoff.
Speaking of chains, Matt Stone and Trey Parker of South Park fame have purchased Casa Bonita restaurants which used to have several locations but is now down to one location in Lakewood, Colorado.
When this topic was first posted I wanted to name the chain that I used to go to as a kid and eat endless peel-n-eat shrimp. I remembered today. It was called Steak & Brew. The chain eventually renamed itself Beefsteak Charlie’s and became better known with that name but I will always remember sooooo happy when my abuelo decided it was a Steak & Brew day. Baby me didn’t care that it was a steak place-- just supply me with MOAR shrimp please. You promised endless!!!
They got a pepper bar. Quizno's - YouTube
I don’t think it came with an award for finishing it, but I remember getting a large chocolate malt there served in a glass that looked like a goldfish bowl.
The father of one of my girlfriends (in Madison, WI) ate an entire Pig Trough and got a medal that said “I made a pig of myself at Farrell’s.”
I suspect Brent (whose story can be found above) got such a medal too, but I was too busy feeling nauseous to notice.
I miss fresh & easy grocery stores.