Best Defunct Restaurant Chain

What is your favorite extinct restaurant?

I found it when I was cleaning out my grandparents house.

I had really forgotten Burger Chef. Wiki said they were converted to Hardees

And lots of Hardees here in WV. They appear to be identical twins to Carl's Jr in CA.

She used to work for the power company in Beaumont, and she received it as a service award.

It's just the coolest thing.



I always throw out old fridge magnets after I get tired of looking at them. I'll save them from now on. I'd love to have a Burger Chef magnet...that's too cool!

Got it on ebay!

I also loved Farrell's Ice Cream Parlour. I know there are a couple of other chains I enjoyed as a kid, but at the moment, I can't think of what they were.

:(

Somewhere in my collection of toy from childhood is a Burger Chef and Jeff frisbee.

:)

Some of the best burgers I have ever had.....

Siiiiiiiigh...

My first experience with it was at a Po' Boys.

http://www.pofolks.com/locations.htm

But there's only 14 left. Bummer.

What is the world coming to.

Seriously my brother worked at Sambos during his high school days so maybe I should say them outta respect.

at HoJo's Friday night fish fry and the place was packed.

There is hope yet. A 'white knight' company has leased the rights and is planning to try and bring the chain back.

But in California, there was a nice restaurant chain called the Velvet Turtle.....

They had the BEST Green Goddess salad dressing!

I miss them.......:cry:

I voted "other" BTW......

I grew up in the East Bay area (Contra Costa County) and I remember going to the Velvet Turtle in, I think, Pleasant Hill (or maybe Concord?) as a kid/teen. I always seemed so "Elegant" then ... Wonder if I'd have the same impression if they still existed. :shrug:

nt

I grew up in SoCal and my grandparents used to take me to the Velvet Turtle in Long Beach (right next to the 405)!! :9

nt

I was sorry they went out of business.

I miss the BBC. :(

but don't quote me on it. I liked them too, I was sad to see them go.

It's decorate in old cars and they play music from the '50s and '60s. It's fun!

:hi:

A British joint, typically found on the motorway in the middle of long areas with nowhere else to go.

It could still be very much in business, but Happy Eater, you're dead to me

Or did Denny's acquire Sambo's?

:shrug:

They've always been separate.

:)

On June 17, 1957 the first of Sambo's nationwide chain of family restaurants was opened in this very location, right across the street from the beach. The name derived from a combination of the original owners Sam Battistone and Newell Bonette who commonly were referred to as Sam and Bo. When they discovered the book "Little Black Sambo" written by Hellen Bartrum in 1899, they thought it was the perfect match. Today, this original Sambo's is the only one remaining in America.

Loved the au gratin potatoes and the chocolate cake.

:)

according to my grandpa, the one in Battle Creek is back down the toilet again. Sad, that...I grew up eating there (and Speed's Koffee Shops, a Battle Creek institution...not much of that left). At least the Golden Dragon out on NE Capital is still around, I pig out at the buffet every time I go back. :D

Todd in Beerbratistan, ex-Michigander

very cool spot, I worked for them for 8 years; from birth till death.

Because I actually liked their food, but a part of me missed Howard Johnson's from the days that they dominated turnpike cuisine. Who can forget the endless waiting to be served substandard food, the crappy HoJo Cola they had instead of Coke... but they did have 28 kinds of ice cream at a time when few Americans dared dream of flavors beyond vanilla, chocolate and strawberry. In particular, I will always remember the worst breakfast anywhere in the world, served by the HoJos in Fredericksburg, Virginia, where they apparently used some sort of nuclear device in the toast preparation process.

Fuddruckers used to be really big in Southern California, now they're few and far between.

They exist here in Texas, where they started.

My kids loved it.

Right next to my bank!

I've had their ostrich.

Three in Albuquerque alone.

I was just there last Thursday. Their chili cheese fries are orjasmic.

We have a Fuddruckers in Annapolis, MD, right across from the Annapolis Mall. I haven't been there is a year or so but they do a flourishing business. They have good burgers and a wonderful fixings bar. It's just that the restaurant is loud and the kidlet doesn't like loud.

A decent burger.

--IMM

Thye may have thinned out in SoCal, but they're still around and opening new ones.

with a Timber Lodge Steakhouse.:shrug:

Great burgers

though I haven't been to Rax in years, and the one I was most familiar with is no longer open.

I think when they had their bankruptcy they wound up closing their corporate-owned stores, but the franchisee-owned stores might have stayed open: http://www.rax-online.com/

yuck to Taco Cabana.

I loved Rax's sammiches!

In fact, the original owners opened a place in San Antonio with the original menu called Mama Margie's after the lady who provided the original recipes.

In fact, there is one one TC that is not pink - it's the original. Before they got busted by the INS, if you couldn't say numbers in Spanish, you went hungry. :evilgrin:

As long as the numbers stopped at 19,I have trouble after 20.

Sounds like Ninfa's, which used to be good but once Mama N. died the food became substandard.

TP had the best chicken fajitas.

They're still in business though.

I worked at Hardee's briefly (mercifully briefly) in high school.

Aren't they still owned by the same company that owns Carl's, Jr?




Edited to remove pesky superfluous apostrophe.

They use to be all over where I live until about 10 years ago or so I think. Instead they became carls jr but its just not the same.

back home in Minnesota the Hardee's are still Hardee's.

come out with their Thickburger (thereby starting the whole Angus beef burger trend!). There are still several in this area (central NC) but not as many as there used to be.

Man, I used to love Burger Chef when I was growing up. The last one I remember seeing was near my grandmother's house in the late 1970s. I know they were around for a while after that, but I don't know how long. RIP Burger Chef!

Their sausage biscuits are delicious. :hi:

but not all. They still have Hardees in parts of the Midwest and also in Wyoming. Even in those places, though, they changed their sign and menu to match Carls Jr.

I'll have to say Sambos. They offered me a management career path. Probably good that I didn't take it..considering what happened.

Also I recall Arthur Treachers being a bit better than Long John Silvers...

One set of my grandparents lived in Eastern Ohio and we would always make a pilgrimmage to Burger Chef. Didn't know it was no defunct. That was back when I was still eating red meat, three decades ago, when I was a kid.

much better than Taco Bell

Wienerwald, the West German answer to KFC. At a time the chain had 1600 Franchises, even a few in the USA. Today, it is in its fourth or fifth bankruptcy; basically it is no longer in existence.



Goldbroiler was the east German answer to Wienerwald (I never actually saw one; I came to the east after the chain's demise):

oh no, I missed my chance to have hawaiian style chicken the last time I was in Germany!

Hot Shoppes was a DC area chain that started the Mariott empire. Their Fried Chicken was outstanding. Some of them were like Howard Johnson's, some were drive-ins and some were plain old fast food joints. The plain old fast food joints morphed into the original Roy Rogers chain, which was far superior to any Roy Rogers you may see these days.

Red Barn had some Tasty Burgers......

As a kid I went to the one at Bailey's, and the one in Bethesda closed just a few years ago. I loved it.

It was the heart and soul of Bethesda, a title now inherited by Tastee Diner.

...where the Wisconsin Avenue Hot Shoppe in Bethesda used to stand. :cry:

They should have kept a Hot Shoppe at ground level.

Tastee Diner's my hang out now.

I'm within walking distance.

It's where you might just be waited on by someone with a real beehive hairdo and 1970s era blue eyeshadow.

I've noticed that the Bethesda and Silver Spring Tastee Diners have pretty dramatically different atmospheres. The Bethesda one had some decidedly pro-GOP material up, for example!

the Baltimore mayor also.

When the diner reopened after the fire, the GOPers raced in with photographs. Gene, who owns it, is a real middle of the road guy who had the letter from Clinton framed by the cash register.

They're all over China. Maybe they just went international and closed their American branches.

after former Baltimore Colt football player (and Hall of Famer)Gino Marchetti. They were very similar to McDonald's, except they also served Kentucky Fried Chicken. And instead of a Big Mac, they had something called the "Gino Giant".

Tim

And lots of Gino's pizza spots here in WV. Usually, just across the street from Hardee's!

:hi:

I would say "Shakeys". I loved it because they had the Three Stooges on those first edition projection TV's.

My mother in law knows the owner of several former Shakeys here locally. Basically, Shakeys died because the rights were bought by some investment group that jacked up the royalties demanded from franchisees, and then refused to spend any of it on advertising and market expansion. Most Shakeys franchises eventually gave the finger to the corporate offices and renamed themselves in order to go independent. Sadly, local pizza places don't do as well since they lack name recognition, and very few actually make it.

Supposedly the Shakeys rights were sold again recently and the new owners are keen on rebuilding the chain, but so many restaraunts got burned by them that they're having a hard time finding any takers.

Two of my favorite pizza restaurants as a kid were converted from Shakey's franchises into locally-owned pizza restaurants :)

in La Crescenta, CA.

They had a double burger long before McDonalds. Here the restaurant was Kip's Big Boy. I think in Los Angeles it was Bob's.

I haven't eaten at one in years, but they were my favorite from the ages of 3-5 :)

While visiting relatives in Ohio.

Southern Cal. used to serve the tastiest food. Their whole grain bread was delicious.

They have large hot pepperoni pizzas available for $5.00. I live in Wisconsin.

but daaaaamn! :o 5$ for a large, you say? oh theat brings back some good memories.


the complex the old LC's was in was deserted for years, until a few months ago. it was replaced by a new local pizza chain. good pizza from the same place, not as good, but it is better than school food.

They usually have the 'Dancin Stoners' out in the parking lot boogeying down with the$5 sign.

I found a couple up in Pennsylvania. At least, they were there a few years ago.

Spread at least as far west as New Mexico and Idaho and were all over the South back in the '80s (at least georgia and Florida)...I loved that place. They had a great salad bar -- this was in the early days of the widespread salad bar -- and probably my favorite single item on the menu was their chocolate-chip milkshake...pure magic. Never really ate their sandwiches much, but I used to love their salad bar and those shakes.

ESPECIALLY Red Barn. Back in the 70s they had one in Niles, Oh, that had kick-arse chicken and sundaes, which we stopped at every time after swimming. I can hear "Moonlight Feels Right" just thinking about how much better life was back then.

I LOVED GD Ritzy and Burger Chef burgers.

I worked at one of 'em in high school, and for a couple of summers in college.

Not a bad experience. But not great, either.

They had this evil thing called a "Butter burger basket" that I loved as a kid. Probably one reason I'm 25 pounds overweight today....

We still have a Frostop in Huntington, WV.

Best Root Beer I ever drank.

Hot dogs appear stepped on however.

When I was a kid, early 1960's, they served it in big, frozen, frosted mugs that you got to keep. If I'm ever in West Virginia, I'll look it up.

They had very good ice cream. It was even sold retail for a while. The restaurants in New York City had a downstairs that was fairly basic for the M-F, 9-5 lunch crowd with waitresses and an upstairs that was more up scale - dark wood, glass and brass - with linen table clothes and napkins and waiters.

I loved their hamburgers. Of course, that was in my meat-eating days. I remember eating a dozen of them at one time.

Six Burgers for a buck....

And the Birch Beer.....

We always stayed at HOJOs hotels when we travelled. They were cheaper than Holiday Inns, but usually had a pool and a kiddie pool. The food was reliable and their chocolate chip ice cream was the best. Baskin Robbins' is pretty close to it in flavor.

We had a Farrells in Grand Rapids, and there was one in Detroit. That was always our favorite birthday place, because you got a free sundae for it, plus everyone sang to you. My brother ate the Pig's trough, too, and got the "I made a pig out of myself at Farrells" pin. We would go and get the big sub sandwich for the whole family, or I used to like the fat hot dogs that no one sells anymore.

Great chicken pot pie, fried fish/spaghetti nights and...

The best damned Mocha Chip ice cream on the planet. That HoJo's in New Haven almost made the drive into-outta New England on I-95 worthwhile.

Perhaps best known as the birthplace of Klondike bars. :9

If fact, there's one just a few miles from where I live.

Given that I worked at Long John Silver's throughtout high school, I rarely ever crave fried fish.

I seem to remember it from my Primary School days...was it a 70's chain?

The other ones (sans Sambos) are all foreign to me

I know, there are some still open, but when McDonalds bought the Boston Market chain, they closed most of them. Where else could you walk in, get a complete turkey dinner, hot and ready to eat, and take it home - and be in and out of the place in 5 minutes? Nowhere else is that possible. And they had a great chicken salad.

There is a Boston Market very close to where I work. I haven't been there in a long time, though. I do remember that their turkey dinner was very good.

I haven't been to a Boston Market in a while. I used to love their food-the chicken, the sides, the tortellini salad. The last time I went there, the mac and cheese wasn't very cheesy, the chicken was greasy, and the pop was more watered down than it used to be. I haven't been back.

While I seriously miss Arthur. I had to nominate Penguin point. I was obviously delusional. They seem to be thriving in Northern Indiana and just closed their Michigan locations.

The root beer company used to have drive-in restaurants in Colorado when I was a kid. It was my favorite place to go.

And no cross-country family roadtrip was complete without stopping at every Stuckey's in Kansas.

It's a run down little place in central Modesto that's been there absolutely forever, and it's one of the last original A&W's in the country. And yes, they still deliver on rollerskates.

If you've ever seen American Graffiti, it's also the drive in that George Lucas hung out in as a kid, and inspired many scenes in that movie.

There is one is my husband's parents town that is drive in, but most look like normal fast food restaurants.

I can name a lot of good defunct lunch counters, but none of them were part of a chain.

at the Cheesequake service area, the Official Pit Stop of KamaAina's Mom (TM)when she and Repuke Stepdad are on their way to their weekend place down the shore. It may also still be in Manhattan Mall on Sixth Ave. near Macy's.

Are there any left?

My mom used to tell me the clowns lived in the house that was next door to the one we used to go to. I HATE clowns. My mom is an odd one, she also told me that the chocolate sprinkles on ice cream where ants...

Alive and well even after they blew him up in the 80's.:)
They are building them all over the place down here in Texas.

to avoid the racial stereotype thing.

Denny's was established in 1953 and turned into a chain called Denny's Restaurants in 1959. The Sambo's chain was established in 1957. The latter went bankrupt some time in the 80's I think, with only the original restaurant remaining.

Some of the *buildings* once used by Sambo's were purchased by the corporation that runs Denny's when Sambo's went under, but that's the extent of the connection.