Uke:
I remember the Horn and Hardart automats! I loved 'em when I went into the city. I still can’t see how they made any economic sense, but it was fun to buy the food out of all those little coin-operated swinging doors.
As long as you’re on the subject of New York City-based eateries (a subgenre in itself), are Tad’s Steaks still around? David Letterman used to make fun of them, but the founder of Kyocera loved them when he lived in NYC.
What sort of bums me out is that fast food restaurants used to all have a signature design, and they no longer do. Pizza Huts always used to look a certain way, Long John Silvers used to look a certain way, Taco Bells used to look a certain way. Now the bulidings are designed to complement their surroundings, or else have some sort of minimalist Photomat-type design. Every so often I’ll drive through a section of a town that was bulit-up in the 50s or 60s and you can still see some of the buildings from that design period: the “old-school” Taco Bell with the Mission-style design and the Spanish tile roof, the LJS with the entrance on the left, the exit on the right, and the “dock” with those big ropes around it, etc. The most depressing thing is that some of these businesses are no longer around but the buildings still are, and you can’t drive by that real-estate office without thinking “that used to be a Pizza Hut.”
To my knowledge, there are NO LJS restaurants in new England. However, in wareham, MA (on cape Cod), there is a Long John Silver’s “seafood lab”. I had driven by it many times-it is rumored that inside, autopsies take place on the bodies of those who have died from eating at LJS restaurants!
There’s a Farrell’s Ice Cream Parlor in San Diego! It claims to be the last one.
I fondly remember going to the one in St. Petersburg FL as a kid. I won several ribbons for singlehandedly consuming their “Pig’s Trough” sundaes.
Who remebers their “Zoo Sundaes?” It’s a multi-gallon bowl of assorted flavors of ice cream and toppings… enough to serve 10 people… and when they served one, they’d crank the siren and ring the bells and cart the sundae around the store past every table on a stretcher hauled by two waiters.
Once, I got to see a Zoo catapulted into the middle of a table of unsuspecting guests. Halfway around the store, something caused the waiter at the front of the stretcher to slip and fall, but the guy in back failed to stop, causing the stretcher to lift at the rear, casting the sundae airborne. It landed in the middle of a table of unsuspecting diners and splattered like an Ice Cream Explosion! For a radius of three tables in all directions, folks were covered with ice cream, syrup, nuts and whipped cream. The people at ground zero were NOT pleased. It was awesome! 
I think I’m going to have to stock up on some insulin and take a Farrell’s road trip to San Diego!
good morning friends,
three blocks from here (omaha, nebraska) is the national headquarters for godfather’s pizza. willie theisen, the founder, sold the chain ten years ago for a rumored eight hundred million dollars. at that time there were about a thousand restaurants.
we had 18 hardees here until five years ago. 16 of them were owned by a holding company that was bought out by the holding company that owned 24 burger kings. they converted 6 of the hardees to burger kings and closed the rest. of the remaining two (corporately owned)1 just closed due to an inability to attract customers. the other is on shaky ground. the burger king holding company opens a new location about every 18 months.
a sonic opened here last fall, and serves possibly the worst fast food i have ever eaten. we had car hop service, and we were unable to finish the food. we disposed of it and drove off. the odor lingered in the car for days
long john silvers is thriving here with 11 locations.
friend philster posted:
years ago, our town had a great burger place. it was called mac’s drive in. they served a wonderful burger, called the “big mac”
when macdonalds introduced their big mac, the proprieter of mac’s drive in sued, and got a huge out of court settlement. mac used the money to expand his place into a new building, with table service. the food was still pretty good.
mac passed away when i was in high school, and his children ran the place out of business in less than a year.
Canadian entry:
The Magic Pan it was a small chain of crepe joints…
duh-rooooooooooool!
I remember Dog 'n Suds. We had on in Indiana (near Purdue University). IIRC, one could buy a gallon of root beer or something like that. I’m not sure what happened to it; we moved away 3 years ago.
We always went to Rax when I was young. I would always get lemonade in an alligator-shaped cup. We have about 9 of those cups. I’m going to go fish one out of the cupboard; I’m feeling all nostalgic now.
Here in Paris:
Sonic
KFC
Long John Silver’s
No longer have:
Grandy’s - closed just two months ago
Wendys
Jack in the Box
Who remembers when Whataburger stores were A-frames,
and they served BIG square burgers?
Thankx for the sig handy!
I’m new at this…forgot something!!
I haven’t been in Seattle long enough. But I do know that one of the major fast-food chains in Saudi Arabia, of all places, is also called Herfy’s. Their logo is a goat’s head. Their hamburgers (and I’m fairly sure they were beef, not goat) were actually pretty good.
Where I live in Connecticut, not far away from me there are 2 Ground Rounds, a few IHOPs (with more being built), a HoJo’s and a Jersey Mikes. The only Bob’s Big Boy I know of is on the New Jersey Turnpike.
Anyone know where a Bonanza is? They put out steaks like the fast food joints put out hamburgers
More from northern VA:
Rustler Steak House, which became Sizzler circa 1982, then vanished several years later.
Mick’s, which had locations in Fair Oaks and Springfield Malls. (The Fair Oaks space was later occupied by Miaro Bistro, which lasted about three months.)
Chicagoland area checking in. IHOP is alive and well, Shoneys has dropped off the face of the earth, Dog N Suds is still around, Tastee Freeze I have seen once or twice. I think Checkers is still here too.
You’d better still have White Castles!
Without White Castles, there’s really no reason to live.
Probably just a West coast thang, but there used to be these “Giant Orange” burger shacks along the freeway. Their trademark was the large orange ball shaped structure with covered outdoor seating around it. Mark’s in San Jose, CA is one of the few operational sites left.
ok,
I live in kansas city, kansas and i know big boy exists. there is one near my school, though i can’t tell if it is open. i fear grease, and dont eat much fast food… but i CAN confirm the existance of white castle, one is across from my bank. they make pretty good fruit smoothies. in fact, white castle actually has ads on sattilite TV- a large guy gets out of a car, and an avalance of little containers follow him. then the Voice says somthing about their “30 burger for 10 bucks Big Sack meal”. it… doesn’t look very palatable to me, IMHO.
orange julius exists too- six or so of them in the “great mall of the great plains” (it’s actual name). they make pretty good fruit smoothies.
Local chains in Buffalo, New York that are no more – Henry’s Hamburgers, Your Host, Lums, Carroll’s, Deco, and White Tower. Locals still talk about Deco, whose last restaurant closed in 1980, as if it is still around today.
In Buffalo, chains tend to make their appearance about five to ten years after they’ve saturated the rest of the country, if they even show up. Chili’s just opened their first outlet in the Buffalo area last year, and Taco Bell made their appearance in 1995. Don Pablo’s is supposedly gone, as is Perkin’s, and there are few Pizza Huts left. There aren’t even any Church’s Chicken outlets left in predominantly minority neighborhoods. There are lots of chain restaurants that are “EBB” – Everywhere But Buffalo – there’s no China Coast, no Macaroni Grill, no Papa John’s, no Hops; none of the “just one outlet in each major metro” chains like P.F. Chang’s; and only a couple of Domino’s; for just a few examples.
ignore the “they make good fruit smoothies” after the white castle comment. i was copy-pasting my ideas into coherent order and forgot to delete that when i moved it. sorry.