I’ve always liked cafeterias. IIRC Wyatts, Bowens and Furrs were regional chains. We also had a local family run cafeteria. Little Rock had 8 cafeterias when I moved here in the early 1980’s.
Cafeterias are getting harder and harder to find. We only have one in the entire Little Rock area.
Its really a shame because they’re perfect for families. There’s always a few things that your kids will eat.
We do have several buffets. They’re OK.
There are close to 100 Sizzlers still open.
Lum’s was a favorite! We used to go to the one on the corner of Dixie Hwy and Hollywood Blvd, I remember their bright red bouncy banquet booths. Also the Stagecoach Inn on Hallandale Bch Blvd. good steaks and cheap drinks. But went downhill and it became the roach coach.
Are there any Farm Stores left, an original drive through grocery store for eggs, butter, milk and ice cream. We’d stop there after picking up cartons of cheap cigs on the Seminole Rez.
Lums - they had food? (I kid). I remember, sort of, the tall schooners of beer. One at lunch made the afternoon at work speed by.
Friendly’s - In summer, it was hand packed pints every other day to feed our 6,000 calorie/day lifestyle, packed by the cute summer girl hirees. We’d alway pick out a flavor way in back. Short uniforms and gaily colored panties. We were despicable college students (RPI) engineers with stunted social lives. Yes they knew we were watching.
Shakey’s pizza - also saved my life - in Hokkaido, Japan during the ice festival. My undiscovered shellfish allergy struck over a pile of scallops, sick for 3 days, no food until some pizza spurred a recovery.
Any Marylanders remember Gino’s? Their version of the Big Boy/Big Mac was the Giant. They operated from 1957-82, and were revived in 2010. They were much better than McDonalds, IMO.
Maryland also had Ameche’s, a drive-in in the tradition of the famous Mel’s. I forget the name of their double-decker burger, but it was better than the Giant.
Both these places were founded by Baltimore Colts: Gino Marchetti and Alan Ameche, who was also one of the founders of Gino’s.
Ah man, I loved Shoney’s. They had me at all you can eat bacon.
You’re free to your opinion, I personally wish to be buried with a copy of the bible and a Cicis macaroni and cheese pizza so I have a bribe for saint peter if I can’t gain access to heaven.
I remember Gino’s from when I used to live in the Philadelphia area.
When I was internet dating a guy took me to CiCi’s for dinner.
My guy (clearly not the same guy) and I spotted a Weinerschnizel in Long Beach. Dinner!!
Went to a toddler’s birthday party at Farrell’s. With a hangover. Damn that bass drum.
Everyone in Indiana knew the Big Boy (Frisch’s Big Boy there) was the original, but they also realized the Big Mac was also a lame copy of the Big Shef from Burger Chef. The Big Shef was around years before the Big Mac! The Happy Meal was also a copy of burger Chef’s Funmeal.
I’m from Ne Jersey, and we had a Gino’s just across the border in the next town. It’s the first place I encountered Kentucky Fried Chicken (Gino’s had a deal with KFC, and sold both burgers and chicken), nd for years I didn’t realize that there were places besides Ginos that sold it.
The Ginos was taken over by a Roy Rogers for years. Now it’s a Wendy’s.
I was going to ask @DrDeth for a cite on this claim, since as you pointed out, there were lots of similar double-decker burgers with some kind of “special sauce” in the 1960s. But I just looked it up myself, and he’s absolutely right, and by a margin I wouldn’t have expected: it was invented in 1937.
The signature Big Boy hamburger is the original double deck hamburger.[68] The novel hamburger started as a joke. In February 1937, some local big band musicians, who were regular customers of Bob’s Pantry, visited the restaurant. When ordering, bass player Stewie Strange asked, “How about something different, something special?”[69] [emphasis added].[note 10] Bob Wian improvised, creating the first (then unnamed) Big Boy, intending the thing “look ridiculous, like a leaning tower”.[69] Demand for “the special” soared but Wian sought a “snappy” name, which became Big Boy.[69][note 11] In 1938, the Big Boy hamburger cost 15¢[8]:156[73] (equivalent to $2.68 in 2018).
So all of the 1960s double-deckers were copies of the Big Boy.
IIRC, the Ameche’s restaurant near us in Towson, MD, eventually became a Big Boy (or it might just have been nearby), but I don’t remember ever eating a Big Boy sandwich.
Pumpernicks Deli, another chain in S Fla. first place I ever had a Patty Melt.
A number of these chains I knew, others I had only read about or recently saw featured on the rather neat YouTube channel Recollection Road like Lum’s or Shakey’s.
On Long Island we lost many cool food chains over the years, such as Roy Rogers (great Double R Burger) and for that matter Kenny Rogers Roasters, Mr. Philly’s (they retreated back to Ohio as Mr. Hero), Jack’s (they retreated back west after some outbreak - yeah, their tacos were super greasy at the time) Quizno’s (their turkey & beef were pretty decent in my opion) and others over the years. We’re sort of stuck with the Federally approved trinity of McDonald’s, Burger King, and Wendy’s, along with some Taco Bells and KFCs and some brands I really wish would get on with their expansion such as Arby’s and Nathans (Nathans had a really convenient location for me, used to stop by there for Sunday lunch and get 2 hot dogs, fries and corn-on-the-cob. So Chick-Fil-a took over the location, despite there being an Chcik-Fil-A in the mall about 9 blocks away. Nathan’s has responded to the gap in their retail coverage by running away and crying it seems).
As for retail outlets, forget it, so many known names came and went…
Yep. My favorite was the Queenburger from Mr. Fifteen (later Burger Man when the prices went up). They had a small playground and a drive-through years before McD did. Their Kingburger was a big 1/4 pounder/Whopper type burger.
Burger Man evolved into Mac’s. Some of those are still around, I think.
In some other thread here I’ve found others who remember the Woody’s Smorgasburger chain, from Southern California. It’s not that it was my favorite, but I did like the self-serve condiment bar:
A SoCal chain I (and my family) loved even more than Woody’s: Red Onion. Mexican food “Sonora style”; I couldn’t say how authentic it really was, but we did love it!
http://blogs.dailybreeze.com/history/2016/11/12/peeling-back-the-layers-of-the-red-onions-history/
Summer trips through the Midwest often brought us to a King’s Food Host: a diner-like chain in which the gimmick was a telephone at each booth, through which you place your order. Irresistible to a child of the pre-cell-phone age. We always got the BBQ pork sandwiches, though that was not the King’s specialty:
Three years ago on our way around the country we stopped in at a Shoney’s and did the buffet. It was indeed good. Great fried chicken. If there were one near me I’d go again, but this was in Tennessee somewhere I think.
I worked (very briefly) at a Shakey’s Pizza Parlor. Later, the building partially burnt down, and was rebuilt into a motorcycle shop which I also worked in (briefly).
I do not miss either of those places. Or is that just one place???
The Friendly’s in the mall here some years ago had the best patty melts and fries (that came out red hot in tiny shopping carts). Gone, along with the mall.
I didn’t realize until years later that Spudnut Donuts was a restaurant chain. My little hometown in West Texas was just such a franchise but Ias a kid I reckoned it was a one-of-a-kind small, town business. I also didn’t realize that donuts made from potato flour rather than wheat were superior in every way. I thought all donuts were made like this until on a family trip where we had “regular” donuts… the difference was amazing… in an abysmal kinda way. The owner of our local Spudnut passed away shortly after I graduated high school and I never had a breakfast pastry as good as that.
According to Google tho, one can order the ingredients to make Spudnut at home but with my history of frying things in hot oil is dollars to donuts a recipe for disaster…