I’m feeling old now… nobody’s mentioned Wetson’s, which seemed to be as omnipresent as McDonald’s in the late 60s, when my Dad would take us on lengthy car trips. They all seemed to vanish during the early 70s.
Incidentally, are there any more Nathan’s franchises left, or just the big one in Coney Island?
What’s Winstead’s? I’ve only seem them in KC. From the exterior, they look line new Art Deco style fast food restaurants that are a step up from McDonald’s, but not quite like a Denny’s – something like Steak & Shake here in Florida.
One I’ll miss was the Texas-based chain that lasted about 30 years and exploded in franchises in the 1970’s: Hamburgers By Gourmet.
They had 21 burgers, including the Schnitzelburger and the old reliable #10 (which was the first cheddar and bacon burger I ran upon) as well as the #11 which was the bleu cheese and bacon burger. Scrumptityliumptious!
They started in the late '60s in Houston, and by the late '70s were all over the southwest. Fast fade until they got back down to one, two blocks from my home, that lasted until about a year and a half ago.
Disclosure: I worked for them in the early '70s and lived on Gourmet burgers for a bit.
I know that Big Boys are Kips as far north as Kansas. I haven’t seen one in a while, though.
There are several Steak & Ales in Dallas, I can think of at least 3. We also still have Grandys, which I don’t really care for (their breakfast bar is decent though).
In Dallas we have…
IHOP
Taco Cabana (one of my favorites)
Weinerschnitzels (only a few, but I kinda like 'em)
Sonic
Wendy’s
Jack in the Box
Whataburger (eat there a lot because A. the burgers come with mustard by default B. they are almost all open 24 hours and C. they take credit cards)
Taco Bell
Taco Bueno
Denny’s
Burger King
Pizza Inn
Pizza Hut
Papa Johns
Godfathers (I think)
Panchos
Boston Market
Chick-fil-A (sp?)
A&W (only one I know of is in a mall food court, though)
KFC
Church’s
William’s Chicken
Popeye’s
I know I’m missing some…we have a good variety, though.
We don’t have any Carl’s Jr. or Del Taco, though. I ate at a Carl’s Jr. in Oregon and was unimpressed - and it’s kinda creepy being in a chain restaurant you have never heard of before, surreal almost…
China Coast was discontinued by Darden Restaurants (based in Orlando - home of Olive Garden and Red Lobster) about what, 6 years ago? It’s been replaced by two new chain restaurants - Bahama Breeze (Caribbean-ish food and decor) and Smokey Bones (BBQ).
[Side note - yeah, it’s Americanized Caribbean, but I will vouch that Bahama Breeze is one of my favorite corporate restauants - very yummy, in fact, I think I’ll go there for dinner tonight [Jerk chicken with bowtie pasta and asparagus - mmmm!]
In Orlando, we seem to be losing the Johnny Carraba’s (Italian) and have lost all Ryan’s Steak Houses and Qunicy’s Steak Houses over the past few years.
Has Steak and Ale gone out of business?
Nope, there are several Steak & Ales in Dallas. We also have Ryan’s Steak House, although those are fairly recent, first saw one about 5 or 6 years ago.
Indeed it does! Thanks, brad_d!
Astorian wrote:
Yes. The Nathan’s franchise in Cambridge MA closed, but there’s at least one in Auburn, MA.
Earlier, I confused Nathan’s with Needick’s. I hadn’t seen the latter in years – the stands that had a guy with a big Orange for a head as one symbol.
I’ve heard of a chain named Hamburger Handout, which IMHO is a truly lousy name. Do they give the burgers out for free? Are they meant only for the homeless?
Great story! Founder Bob Farrell opened his first Farrell’s Ice Cream Parlour in Portland in 1963. Focusing on superior service and fun, he built the company to 55 outlets before selling to the Marriott Hotels chain in 1973. One of my earliest dates was a triple date with a buddy who had an older brother (18 at the time) who was trusted by our parents and the parents of the girls to drive the six of us to Portland from 60 miles away after a dance to have a celebratory ice cream and then drive back. It was a Very Big Deal at the time - the late 60’s.
One of the best Farrell’s was near the University of Oregon campus in Eugene, which still exists, only as the Pearl St. Ice Cream Parlour. They still feature the Pig’s Trough and Ice Cream Volcano. Yum!
We have those in the Louisville, KY area, too. Around here you can ONLY find them in malls, like in their food courts. Which freaked me and a friend of mine out last time we went to Atlanta. They have the free-standing restaraunts there, and we had never seen one before…
Chick-Fil-A (“Chick(en) Filet” – get it?) is alive and well. There’s one at Northshore Mall in Peabody, MA and one at Paramus Mall in NJ. They’re always closed on Sundays, so it’s the one dark spot in the Northshore Food Court on Sunday. The owner of the chain does it on religious or persoinal principles. At Christmas time he gave out mini-adaptations from C.S. Lewis’ Narnia series that was pretty well done, and FAR from the usual mall fast-food fare. I have to admire his principles. I like the food, too, although Pepper Mill isn’t fond of it.
A few from Arkansas:
There used to be lots of Minuteman burger shops all over Arkansas, up until sometime in the late 70s. I know the one in Fayetteville was open at least a while after we moved there in 1976, and the one in Conway was open even longer (though it had been a donut place for a few years by the time I started college in Conway in 1982). Revolutionary-war-themed graphics, a fairly wide selection of different combinations of condiments, each numbered for easy ordering. Being picky about what’s on my burgers, I never cared much for pre-ordained selections, so I avoided it except when in groups.
I don’t recall seeing them anywhere else, but Mr. Burger had stores in several locations around the Fayetteville area. They may still be around, for all I know – I haven’t paid much attention on my recent visits.
I too have fond memories of Shakey’s Pizza, though I’d no doubt be appalled were I to find one still open and eat there today. Still, the one in North Little Rock (at the I-30/I-40 interchange, hard by the National Guard Armory) was my first exposure to pizza as a kid. We used to stop there occasionally on our way home from our regular trips to my little sister’s dentist in Little Rock. I remember watching the cooks spin the pizza crusts, and for some reason I associate them with banjos.
There was also a chicken chain that had several locations around central Arkansas during my college years whose claim to distinction was that they fried their chicken in peanut oil – that, and some distinctive way of cutting up the birds so that the number of undesirable pieces was minimized. While the chicken was acceptable, my chief memory is of the 8-foot-tall fiberglass chicken mounted on a trailer that they used to take around to each of the restaurants and leave parked there for a few days at a time. On at least one visit to Conway, the big bird got “borrowed” by Hendrix students and deposited in the plaza area in front of the library. I’m having trouble calling up the name of the chain, but the phrase “Chicken Country” comes to mind.
I heard recenly that in the area of Atlanta we are going to be loosing all of our Shoney’s resturants. I sure will miss the breakfast bar. We’ve got one Sonic in the city, and I visit it as much as possible. The place that we don’t have anymore that I REALLY miss is Bojangles Chicken they all disapeared after I turned 11 or 12. Another one that disapeared from the area is Pizza Inn they had CiCi’s beat six ways from Sunday in terms of Pizza bar goodness.
On the topic of Big Boys and my own refrence to Shoney’s here’s how it worked: Origionaly Big Boy was created by some add company and sold to several differnt companies as a mascot (Frische’s, Bob’s, even Shoney’s back then, and half a dozen others.) The companies didn’t find this out until later and it started a war of law suits that led to several of the chains closing and some dropping the Big Boy thing alltogether. The remaining resturants eventually resolved the problem, and created the Chains that stand today. This is the Big Boy Story as my Father (a former Frische’s employe.)told it to me; it may be WILDY innaccurate.
Also some that we have that people have mentioned not having are Bonanza Steakhouse and Snappy Tomato Pizza(another place that’s infinitely better than CiCi’s).
Wasn’t Nedick’s with 1 e? Remember their hotdogs…
Nathan’s is ceratinly alive and well in NY. Can think of several in and around the city, and there’s one in the Orlando airport.
White Castle is even expanding. They have one on 5th. They never had one in Manhattan that I could remember. (There was a White Tower on 14th, IIRC…but it’s gone)
Darqangelle, I was a little surprised to hear you mention the Magic Pan as a small Canadian chain - we had three of them (that I recall) here in Southern California, but I never saw them anywhere else. Sounds like the marketing staff put them out of business…
I don’t know how far they ever extended, but there used to be a couple of Sizzlin’ Quick hamburger places in the corner of Houston suburbia that I call home. They were famous for 39 cent hamburgers: meat, bun, ketchup, no substitutions. My mom was addicted to their frozen lemonade. They both closed pretty quickly.
The Magic Pan also used to have places here in Chicago.
For Sunday brunch, crepes Benedict or maple butter crepes. At other times, an appetizer of potage St. Germain with a dollop of sour cream or brandy, followed by crepes St. Jacques (my introduction to scallops), and for dessert strawberry crepes with whipped cream. Sigh.
There was also one in the Hillsdale shopping center in San Mateo, CA in the early 80s.
[slightly OT]
I was just thinking about strange New Mexico burger chains – Burger Time in Las Cruces (something like six or seven outlets in a relatively small city!), and Blake’s Lotsburgerthroughout the state. There aren’t any Blakes’s outlets outside of New Mexico – an urban legend tells that the owner believes “there’s some things that should just be ours,” or something like that, and thus refuses to consider expanding beyone the state line.
Las Cruces also has some chains that are predominantly local to Texas, with just a few outlets across the border in New Mexico – Whataburger and Grandy’s among them. Cruces must be the final resting ground of many chains – there’s still a Long John Silver’s and Weinerschnitzel, and Minnie Pearl’s supposedly survived there into the late '70s.
Anyone elver hear of “Pizza Pro’s” (yes, there really is a misplaced apostrophe in the name), a Domino’s clone from the El Paso area?
For some reason, most old Red Barn outlets I’ve seen throughout the country have been converted to florist’s shops.
What’s the deal with the “stick a maple leaf somewhere in the logo” rule of almost every U.S. based restaurant and retail chain operating in Canada, anyhow? It’s not as if McDonald’s in Russia ever bore a hammer and sickle in the logo, or a Burger King/Hungry Jack’s in Australia pasted kangaroos or koala bears on their signs.
There’s something deliciously ironic about the mental image of a McDonald’s logo with a hammer and sickle on it… 