If you’re anything like I was (and unless you’re over 50 I doubt you are) there was a period in your life when hamburgers, hot dogs, fried chicken, barbecue, pizza, and whatever ethnic foods like Chinese, Mexican, Mediterranean or whatever, were only available at cafes, grills, restaurants, etc. Only later on did specialty chains have branded burgers and such.
Krystal was one of the first burger places where I lived. Then KFC chicken. Later on, McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King, Pizza Hut, Popeye’s and dozens to hundreds of specialty places for fast food popped up on virtually every block and at every major intersection. Nowadays there are specialty gyros and fish and taco and sushi shops all over.
Think back to your first such “brand name” eatery. What was it? Is it still around? Was it any good?
I read today that the original Wendy’s in Ohio is closing with some measure of fanfare. It got me thinking how relatively recent the whole chain concept has been around.
Had it all happened before you got here? Can you remember days before it happened?
The original Waffle House was in the little suburb of Atlanta I grew up in: Avondale Estates, GA. I believe it opened in 1955. And, like Zeldar, I don’t remember life without Krystal. The other franchises came later to our area. I’m pretty sure the first was a Burger King, opening around 1964.
Do you remember Toddle House? About the size of a semi truck body. No booths. Everybody sat at the counter. Later became Huddle House around here or just went away.
Before McDonald’s there was Shoney’s Big Boy in these parts, but they were more of a restaurant concept with all sorts of offerings. The Big Boy burger had all the trimmings that Big Mac did, but was at least five years ahead of the curve.
I think my very first fast-food experience was at a now-expired chain called Gino’s. I don’t know exactly when they died, but they were still in business long-abouts 20 years ago or so.
Just FTR, I’m 45, and grew up in a suburb of Baltimore, MD
Not the Gino’s pizza rolls outfit by any chance? What were there main items? I can’t recall any Gino’s (in a chain sort of way) in the South. No doubt there were Gino’s Italian restaurants all over, but not what I’d call a “fast food” place.
No, not the pizza rolls. This was a chain started by some football player or something (I’m not a sport’s fan). They sold burgers, fries, Coke. Sometime in the mid-70s or so, they decided to try and salvage a sinking ship by getting “hip”, which meant everything they sold had the name of said item/object emblazoned on it. Hence, the paper wrapper around your straw, actually said “STRAW”. It was completely surreal.
Foster’s Freeze. My dad used to take us there for soft ice cream with that chocolate coating. MMmmmm. They knew him there and called him Mac for unfathomable reasons.
Burger King and McDonalds existed, of course, but not on my radar so much. My parents considered it far too expensive to take 4 kids out for fast food. Once when the power went out all day, my mom finally caved and took us to Burger King, only to discover that the entire city was out and the place was closed. Oh, and when I was 5, I went to a birthday party at McDonalds, and squeezed a ketchup packet too hard, and it exploded into my eye. Ow.
The mayor owned the local diner in the town where I grew up so we didn’t have any fast food places, not until he left office. I remember a Burger King in Journal Square in Jersey City around 1973, it was the first fast food place I went to, great fries, great shakes. I used to pass the White Castle on the way to the square.
I’m curious if anyone remembers Zum Zums? They had German style fast food that was around in the mid '70s too. There was one somewhere in Greenwich Village and one in the Willowbrook Mall in NJ. I miss their mustards, they had sweet and hot.
Does Howard Johnson’s count as “fast food”? If so that’s one of the early places I remember. How about the lunch counters at places like Woolworth’s or Kresge’s?
I’m pretty sure the first burger franchise to hit our area was Howdy Beef Burger in the sixties with two locations nearby. Our town had an A&W before it ever had a McDonald’s.
norinew, you may be interested in this site. Gino’s was named for Baltimore Colt captain Gino Marchetti. The chain was bought up by Marriott’s in 1982, and most sites converted to Roy Rogers or KFC. So it’s been more like 25 years since the last Gino’s closed.
Do you remember Ameche’s? There weren’t anywhere near as many Ameche’s as Gino’s. My family lived in Towson, and the one nearest to us was at Loch Raven Blvd. and Hillen Ave. It was a drive-in, where they served you in your car with a tray that hung on the window, like in American Grafitti.
It wasn’t until I saw the Web site in my link above that I realized that founder Alan Ameche was involved in Gino’s, too. I had thought they were competitors.
Both chains had a double-deck hamburger like the Big Mac, but both were much better than today’s Big Mac. Ameche’s was called the Powerhouse, and Gino’s was the Giant.
Before my personal kiddie world had McDonalds or Burger King, it had Burger Chef. The Burger Chef and Jeff! Even now when I hear the words “happy meal”, I think of Burger Chef before McDonalds.
McDonalds opened in the next town over circa 1983 (I remember my aunt got “food poisoning” there, which turned out to be morning sickness and so I know it was around in early 1984). We got our own McDonalds in my town around 1987, when the plaza (shopping mall) opened.
I have dim and distant memories of a place called Ollie’s Trolley which must date back to around the same time as the first local McDonalds. I think they were on the site now occupied by KFC in another nearby town.
Definitely McDonald’s. There was one fairly close to home, and my grandparents used to take me there for a happy meal now and then. I don’t remember what my first ever happy meal toy was, though. I seem to remember a plastic baggie with some Legos in it, and a picture telling me what I could make with them, but that was at least twenty years ago.
I’m 26, grew up in a suburb of Montreal. We had a Dunkin’ Donuts nearby too, and a “La Belle Province” hot dog place (a Quebec thing), but I don’t think many other fast food places existed in my little patch of suburbia until a little later, maybe early 90’s.
It may have been just a local chain, but we had a bunch of fast food burger stands called “Henry’s” We also had a neighborhood place called “Mac’s” that predated the Macdonald’s empire. Mac had a big burger called the Big Mac, and he had teh forsight to trademark it. When Macdonalds started selling their Big Mac, Mac sued them and won. With the cash settlement, he remodled his burger stand into a bigger place with tables inside, then retired and turned it over to his kids. The quality took a dive in a year or so, and the place went bust a few years later.
I remember a hamburger-type place opening not far from my home when I was child. It was called Hardies, or possibly Hardy’s. A forerunner of McDonald’s I suppose. It’s long since bitten the dust.
There is a picture of me when I was about 3 years old sitting at the kitchen table eating a McDonalds hamburger and a small fries. Not a Happy Meal though, those weren’t introduced until 1979 and this picture was taken in approximately 1977.
Burger King didn’t arrive in town until about 1980…my first memory of them were Empire Strikes Back trading cards.
A “forgotten” chain that was in my town in the 70s was called Mars. Their building eventually became the local Hardee’s in the 80s. The chain has pretty much been lost to history. I brought up the chain in this thread back in 2004 and only a fellow northeastern Wisconsin person remembered it.
