AARoads Forum

The Hardee's/Carl's thread mentioned Rax, and I didn't realize how tenuous the chain's grasp on life had become. Their website (http://www.raxroastbeef.com) has gone defunct, and according to the most recent Internet Archive capture (January 2015), they were down to twelve locations at that time, ten of which were in Ohio.

The chain most intertwined with the history of the American highway landscape, Howard Johnson's, made headlines a few months ago when the Lake Placid location closed, leaving only two. But with no remaining commissaries, no central management, and no 28 flavors, the chain really winked out a decade ago.

Roy Rogers seems to be holding steady at just under 50 locations with a strong customer base in the Washington metro area. Almost a third (17 stores, nearly all locations outside Maryland and Virginia) are in toll road service areas, and a single serious falling-out with HMSHost could decimate the chain. And it's hard to overlook the fact that the chain is less than one-tenth the size it was in 1990.

What other chains (either on life support or clinically deceased) would you add to the list? Any that you think could be revitalized?

Boston Market and Bruegger's Bagels come to mind as chains that pretty much died. Both are coming back a little bit, it seems like, but are shadows of their former selves.

Side note: there is a Max and Ermas in Aberdeen, SD for some reason that is completely affiliated with the Columbus OH chain.

Shakey's pizza - was all over the US but its remaining restaurants are mostly in California.

Quote from: briantroutman on June 21, 2015, 05:33:20 PM
The Hardee's/Carl's thread mentioned Rax, and I didn't realize how tenuous the chain's grasp on life had become. Their website (http://www.raxroastbeef.com) has gone defunct, and according to the most recent Internet Archive capture (January 2015), they were down to twelve locations at that time, ten of which were in Ohio.

The chain most intertwined with the history of the American highway landscape, Howard Johnson's, made headlines a few months ago when the Lake Placid location closed, leaving only two. But with no remaining commissaries, no central management, and no 28 flavors, the chain really winked out a decade ago.

Roy Rogers seems to be holding steady at just under 50 locations with a strong customer base in the Washington metro area. Almost a third (17 stores, nearly all locations outside Maryland and Virginia) are in toll road service areas, and a single serious falling-out with HMSHost could decimate the chain. And it's hard to overlook the fact that the chain is less than one-tenth the size it was in 1990.

What other chains (either on life support or clinically deceased) would you add to the list? Any that you think could be revitalized?

Florida closed many.  Missed their fried chicken as it was better than KFC.

Pizza Hut went downhill from what it was back in the 70's and 80's.  Many dine in stores closed and just their carry out stores remain just barely.  Papa John's gave them better competition.

Personally, while not exactly "roadside" I see Domino's as dying.  When your ad campaign is "everything we used to do was crap, but now ..." you are circling the bowl.

Shoney's, which has been through bankruptcy multiple times, over-expanded and then retreated.  Now it is no longer a table service restaurant, but a hot bar based feeding trough, based in buildings it either owns or can rent for nothing. 

At least AFAI can see Hardee's.  Multiple locations in my region are closing, and the open ones are not being updated or repaired.

Really, the whole "diner" category is not what it was.  The restaurants with actual waitresses and plates, above fast food but below "fast casual".  Denny's, Shoney's, Howard Johnson, Eat N' Park, Perkins, IHOP, Big Boy, that sort.  Still going, but people are opting for fast food for less money and time, or stepping up to "fast casual".  Their clientele is aging out quickly.

Quote from: SP Cook on June 21, 2015, 06:08:31 PM
Personally, while not exactly "roadside" I see Domino's as dying.  When your ad campaign is "everything we used to do was crap, but now ..." you are circling the bowl.

Yeah, not to mention their original recipe of cheese pizza was insanely better.

Quote from: corco on June 21, 2015, 05:41:28 PM
Boston Market and Bruegger's Bagels come to mind as chains that pretty much died. Both are coming back a little bit, it seems like, but are shadows of their former selves.

Side note: there is a Max and Ermas in Aberdeen, SD for some reason that is completely affiliated with the Columbus OH chain.

I haven't seen any decline in Boston Market at all.  Around NE Illinois, they're still going very strong.  Now, Max and Erma's, on the other hand...

And, we do have one of those twelve Rax locations in Joliet.  It's been here in the same location for decades and through updates.  It was here when I got here in 1980.

Mods, would it be possible to split roadman65's posts–plus corco's, jakeroot's, and my responses to them–to a separate thread?

Done --sso

Back to the original topic... Arthur Treacher's Fish and Chips also came to mind. I had three within about an hour's drive growing up–all long gone. The trademark is now owned by the parent of Nathan's Famous, and if you go to their website, it seems more focused on attracting franchisees than promoting their actual product. The dozen or so locations that do exist seem to be largely in food courts–does anyone know if any freestanding locations are left?

Quote from: SP Cook on June 21, 2015, 06:08:31 PM
At least AFAI can see Hardee's.  Multiple locations in my region are closing, and the open ones are not being updated or repaired.

Really, the whole "diner" category is not what it was.  The restaurants with actual waitresses and plates, above fast food but below "fast casual".  Denny's, Shoney's, Howard Johnson, Eat N' Park, Perkins, IHOP, Big Boy, that sort.  Still going, but people are opting for fast food for less money and time, or stepping up to "fast casual".  Their clientele is aging out quickly.

Hardee's seems to be on the rebound here in Illinois, adding a lot of locations.

Denny's seems to have also cleaned up and updated, also adding some new locations, mainly in shopping centers instead of the older standalone buildings.

Quote from: roadman65 on June 21, 2015, 06:26:11 PM
Nobody wants to tip anymore.

I've heard about that out west, and maybe it's a California/Florida thing not to tip.  Here in the Midwest, it's expected.

Quote from: Brandon on June 21, 2015, 08:36:59 PM
I haven't seen any decline in Boston Market at all.  Around NE Illinois, they're still going very strong.

Your perception of this would depend on where you are. They had over 1,200 locations at one point, and now they're standing at about a third of that. For example they used to have locations in the Harrisburg-Lancaster region, and as of 2014, there are none. It seems that they've evacuated a number of secondary or tertiary metros.

The "Tipping" portion of the thread has been moved to https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=15832.msg2073500#msg2073500 per OP's request.

Please continue that conversation there.

Restaurants that were national may have decided to narrow their focus. The same is true in the gasoline industry, which we have another thread on referring to exactly this.

Both Boston Market and Hardee's are doing well, and neither are showing any signs of stress. When a restaurant closed a number of locations near each other, many times it's more of a franchisee issue rather than a corporate issue. Friendly's in Ohio suffered a mass closing due to a franchisee deciding he just wanted to shut them all down.

Quote from: SP Cook on June 21, 2015, 06:08:31 PM
Personally, while not exactly "roadside" I see Domino's as dying.  When your ad campaign is "everything we used to do was crap, but now ..." you are circling the bowl.

Laughable.

Their stock is up nearly 1000% in 5 years, and their "we can do better" ads was viewed industry wide as wildly innovative and successful. Revenue in 2014 was nearly $400 million higher than it was just 5 years ago.

For a generic pizza chain, which never gets any love when there are mom and pop pizza chains nearby that usually make a better pizza, Dominos is kicking ass right now.

Let me re-paste a couple of relevant items that got moved into the tipping thread...

Quote from: SP Cook on June 21, 2015, 06:08:31 PM
Personally, while not exactly "roadside" I see Domino's as dying.  When your ad campaign is "everything we used to do was crap, but now ..." you are circling the bowl.

I've never liked Domino's–the pizza, the advertising, or the company. But I think you'd be hard pressed to say that any chain with more than 10,000 locations has one foot in the grave. Clearly, their niche has always been being cheap and fast–even if their pizza is barely edible. When you're in a business where penny-pinching customers sift through ValPak coupons to decide whether to buy a sub-$10 pizza from you or Little Caesars, product quality is secondary. Domino's is probably safe bashing their past quality standards because most of their customers don't care about quality anyway. They might, however, pick up a few higher end customers who had written off Domino's as cheap junk pizza.

Quote from: SP Cook on June 21, 2015, 06:08:31 PM
Shoney's, which has been through bankruptcy multiple times, over-expanded and then retreated.

I forgot about Shoney's–certainly they've gone through a major contraction. At one time, the company had a "Shoney's Inn"  brand for hotels, but I suspect they're all gone by now.

We don't have to limit the discussion to fast food–although I can't think of many lodging or other types of chains that you could say are on life support. Let's just keep in mind that "one foot in the grave"  is a more serious proposition than "they're not as good as they used to be"  or "they're smaller than they used to be" . I'm thinking of companies that might cease to exist in a decade or two.

Quote from: jeffandnicole on June 21, 2015, 09:45:28 PM
Friendly's in Ohio suffered a mass closing due to a franchisee deciding he just wanted to shut them all down.

Friendly's went bankrupt (http://nrn.com/corporate-news/friendly-s-franchisee-files-bankruptcy).  A whole bunch of them closed down around here in Upstate NY.

Quote from: Rothman on June 21, 2015, 11:53:43 PM

Quote from: jeffandnicole on June 21, 2015, 09:45:28 PM
Friendly's in Ohio suffered a mass closing due to a franchisee deciding he just wanted to shut them all down.

Friendly's went bankrupt (http://nrn.com/corporate-news/friendly-s-franchisee-files-bankruptcy).  A whole bunch of them closed down around here in Upstate NY.

I used to love Friendly's as a little kid - especially their ice cream. Unfortunately, I never got to experience it as an adult thanks to my lactose intolerance developing in the 12th grade.

I loved it as a kid as well, but it seemed to me that as I got older, the ice cream portions got smaller (the ice cream dishes themselves even seemed to become thicker, leaving as little room as possible for ice cream) and the rest of food just crappier.  They just got squeezed by Denny's-like places on one side and Applebee's-like places on the other.

Quote from: Rothman on June 21, 2015, 11:53:43 PM

Quote from: jeffandnicole on June 21, 2015, 09:45:28 PM
Friendly's in Ohio suffered a mass closing due to a franchisee deciding he just wanted to shut them all down.

Friendly's went bankrupt (http://nrn.com/corporate-news/friendly-s-franchisee-files-bankruptcy).  A whole bunch of them closed down around here in Upstate NY.

I remember from east-coast roadtripping in the late 1990s and early 2000s hearing commentary from locals about them on their slide with words like "they're just not friendly anymore".

My sense is that Wisconsin-based Culvers is about to be their successor in the northeast.

Mike

I lived in Superior, WI for a time.  Anything that brings butterburgers closer to me is not anything I have a problem with!

That said, Sonic evidently smelled blood around here for some reason.  They're building their first franchise up here for miles around.  Seems there's a turf war going on with burger places now (Five Guys, Smashburger, now Sonic...).

Quote from: Rothman on June 21, 2015, 11:53:43 PM

Quote from: jeffandnicole on June 21, 2015, 09:45:28 PM
Friendly's in Ohio suffered a mass closing due to a franchisee deciding he just wanted to shut them all down.

Friendly's went bankrupt (http://nrn.com/corporate-news/friendly-s-franchisee-files-bankruptcy).  A whole bunch of them closed down around here in Upstate NY.

The franchisee went bankrupt, not Friendly's the chain itself.  The chain is alive and well in Delaware.

Papa Gino's comes to mind.  There used to be a bunch in CT and even upstate NY, but there's 2 left that I know of in CT.  Also, Pizzeria Uno just closed its last CT location in Milford.  Applebee's has also fallen on hard times in my area (only a couple left).  Friendly's and D'Angelos  have each thinned out, but there's still one of each in my town.  The nearest Roy Rogers is on the NY Thruway.  There were rumors that Hardee's was coming back to the area, but I haven't heard much lately. 

Red Lobster has been struggling for a while, with the most commonly cited cause being that their traditional customer base (working class families looking for an occasional treat) can no longer afford to eat there.


As for restaurants shrinking in scope, this definitely is an oft repeated trend. I remember as a kid eating at A&W in Connecticut, but today there are none anywhere in the state and very few left in the northeast at all. It appears there are three in all of New England and nine in New York.

Quote from: Alex4897 on June 22, 2015, 12:20:57 AM

Quote from: Rothman on June 21, 2015, 11:53:43 PM

Quote from: jeffandnicole on June 21, 2015, 09:45:28 PM
Friendly's in Ohio suffered a mass closing due to a franchisee deciding he just wanted to shut them all down.

Friendly's went bankrupt (http://nrn.com/corporate-news/friendly-s-franchisee-files-bankruptcy).  A whole bunch of them closed down around here in Upstate NY.

The franchisee went bankrupt, not Friendly's the chain itself.  The chain is alive and well in Delaware.

The chain's parent company, Friendy Ice Cream Corp., did file a chapter 11 bankruptcy (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2011-10-05/friendly-ice-cream-chain-files-for-bankruptcy-protection-after-76-years) itself in 2011. A lot of people automatically assume that "bankruptcy"  = the death of a company, but that's not always the case. A chapter 11 bankruptcy is specifically intended to allow a company to reorganize its debts so that it can avoid going out of business permanently. But coupled with the bankruptcy of two major franchisees, I think it's safe to say that Friendly's isn't exactly in clover these days.

I must say that the one time I visited a Friendly's in recent years, the food was mediocre and the service indifferent–as if everyone was numbly going through the motions. Actually, I've heard the same complaints leveled against Howard Johnson's just before they collapsed in the '80s. It's a shame, too, because Friendly's would seem to be the closest thing to a modern day Howard Johnson's–Massachusetts-born, neocolonial buildings with cupolas, diner-type menu with emphasis on ice cream...

But as with many other sit-down chains mentioned (Red Lobster, Shoney's, IHOP), it would appear the entire low end of the full-service dining business has at the very least been squeezed as less affluent consumers either dine at home or prefer counter service alternatives.

Quote from: mgk920 on June 21, 2015, 11:59:40 PM
My sense is that Wisconsin-based Culvers is about to be their successor in the northeast.

I know that Culver's has some kind of table service (perhaps like Steak-n-Shake?), but I've always taken my Culver's orders to-go. And so I think of them more as a high-end fast food place–whereas I consider Friendly's to be a sit-down restaurant. Since Culver's has added veggie burgers nearly chain wide, and with their great frozen custard desserts, they can do no wrong as far as I'm concerned. I'd like to see Culver's nationwide...and yet part of me would regret losing the magic of making a cross country road trip and looking forward to entering "Culver's territory" .

Big Boy seems to be in trouble as they closed all their locations except in Michigan.  Shoney's and Marriot used to have their franchises, but dropped them as well.

Shoney's was doing well in the stock market in the mid 90's, but took a nose dive.  We have only one left in Orlando as many closed.

Clock Restaurant, a chain here in Florida, cut back on many locations.  I thought they went out, but seen one on US 27 either in Sebring or Avon Park when I was roading a few weeks ago.  So they must of been in grave danger to still only have one around and closed many of them.

Surprised Stuckey's hasn't hit this thread yet.  Not very many stand-alone Stuckey's left...when I was a kid in the 1970s they were everywhere.

The Fredericksburg Shoneys does really well.  Not sure how the Friendly's directly across the street is doing.  Shoneys was the only place we could regularly afford to go out to eat when I was small...I see tons of closed locations toodling around the southeast.

A Virginia chain that is all but gone is Aunt Sarah's...only 2 left, both in Richmond. 

Another southern chain that is down to 2 locations is Quincy's Steakhouse (Florence SC and Monroe NC).  They used to be all over the southern states.

I am also a huge fan of Culvers which is SLOWLY expanding its reach...

Mike

Quote from: briantroutman on June 21, 2015, 05:33:20 PM
The Hardee’s/Carl’s thread mentioned Rax, and I didn’t realize how tenuous the chain’s grasp on life had become. Their website (http://www.raxroastbeef.com) has gone defunct, and according to the most recent Internet Archive capture (January 2015), they were down to twelve locations at that time, ten of which were in Ohio.

When I lived in Minnesota in high school in the mid 80s we ate at Rax every day on the way home, and occasionally at another one near home. It was one of my favorite restaurants but I haven't thought about them in years.  thanks for the memories!

We have a culvers here in Austin not far from home.  It's not one of my favorites but if you want a burger and ice cream they do a decent job.

Quote from: Duke87 on June 22, 2015, 01:44:54 AM
Red Lobster has been struggling for a while, with the most commonly cited cause being that their traditional customer base (working class families looking for an occasional treat) can no longer afford to eat there.


As for restaurants shrinking in scope, this definitely is an oft repeated trend. I remember as a kid eating at A&W in Connecticut, but today there are none anywhere in the state and very few left in the northeast at all. It appears there are three in all of New England and nine in New York.

Red Lobster is awful. Overpriced, not much for menu options for the non-seafood fan, and the service at the one by us is awful.  People pick it 2x/year for their work birthdays and someone always gets free food.

We go to Red Lobster once a year - during their unlimited Shrimp fest.  There's about 6 options, and we'll eat at least one of each, and maybe seconds.  Last time we actually walked there - about 6 miles -  so we could walk home and burn some of those calories!

I haven't been in a Friendly's in several years.  I was joking that their newer commercials, where they show kids or a family eating food and ice cream in slow motion, reminded me more of their slow service than their food. 

Quote from: Mapmikey on June 22, 2015, 07:13:56 AM
A Virginia chain that is all but gone is Aunt Sarah's...only 2 left, both in Richmond. 

I didn't know there was a second one. I just knew about the one on US 1 north of the city, but a Google search shows that there's another one on Broad Street. The one at I-95 exit 64 closed years ago.

My local Friendly's suddenly closed in 2012 and was demolished to make room for a gas station. I can remember eating there only once as an adult.

Old Country Buffet/Home Town Buffet has been going through a major contraction as of late.

Friendly's has made a lot of changes over the years, but the one constant has been piss poor service.

Quote from: Takumi on June 22, 2015, 08:30:30 AM

Quote from: Mapmikey on June 22, 2015, 07:13:56 AM
A Virginia chain that is all but gone is Aunt Sarah's...only 2 left, both in Richmond. 

I didn't know there was a second one. I just knew about the one on US 1 north of the city, but a Google search shows that there's another one on Broad Street. The one at I-95 exit 64 closed years ago.

My local Friendly's suddenly closed in 2012 and was demolished to make room for a gas station. I can remember eating there only once as an adult.

Old Country Buffet/Home Town Buffet has been going through a major contraction as of late.

That place was so popular in Minnesota.  Here we have Golden Corral, which is doing well.

Quote from: briantroutman on June 21, 2015, 05:33:20 PM
Roy Rogers seems to be holding steady at just under 50 locations with a strong customer base in the Washington metro area. Almost a third (17 stores, nearly all locations outside Maryland and Virginia) are in toll road service areas, and a single serious falling-out with HMSHost could decimate the chain. And it's hard to overlook the fact that the chain is less than one-tenth the size it was in 1990.

Marriott wanted out of the fast food business, and sold most of its own Roy Rogers to Hardees (converting to Hardees was a massive failure), and those stores then became McDonald's. 

Marriott sold the concept (http://www.royrogersrestaurants.com/), brand and rights associated with same to the family of a former Marriott executive,  the Plamondons, who have updated and are reviving the chain, while apparently keeping on the good side of HMSHost, which still uses the concept in many of its service plazas. There are several reasonably new Roy Rogers in Maryland and Virginia that seem to be doing well.

QuoteThe franchisee went bankrupt, not Friendly's the chain itself.  The chain is alive and well in Delaware.

As well as in New England, apparently.  They've even been advertising on WCAX recently.


Someone earlier had mentioned Bruegger's which I find surprising because they've held pretty steady for the past decade.

Franchise fade on the Oregon coast: A&W went from four to one in Coos County.  Go 45 miles north of the Coos Bay-North Bend area and you will find another one in Florence.  Both are classic A&W's and the root beer is as delicious as always. 

Rax built a nice place in a bad location and wound up going under.  Carl's Jr. tried the same location and got the same result.  Then it was Arby's turn and they too went down for the count.  Funny to think that with a cool million or so on the line that the person who spent the money didn't do their due diligence regarding traffic flow.

Sambo's built a Googie-styled restaurant here in the Sixties.  That franchise is long gone but the building remains a restaurant.  Too bad it's not a very good one.  We never did get a Denny's.

Taco Time came in before Taco Bell ever did.  They're gone.

Dairy Queen had six in Coos County in their heyday.  Now the count is three.

Pizza Hut, Shakey's and Black Knight are the pizza chains which went down the tubes here.

Quizno's opened one outlet and it lasted about three years.  Subway on the other hand has grown to four in Coos Bay-North Bend and they all seem to do well enough. 

KFC used to have two storefronts and now has one.

Taco Bell has seen two be the regular number but both have moved over the course of time.

Going south of Coos Bay shows a paucity of franchises.  Subway and DQ are about it all the way down (108 miles) to Brookings, which has some but not all of the majors.  Heading north has Reedsport with a few, Florence with a decent assortment and then when one gets to Newport/Lincoln City, which gets lots of PDX/Salem visitors, the amount of franchises is about the same as Coos Bay/North Bend.

The I-5 corridor has been the most popular place for national franchises to locate in Oregon.  In-N-Out is building their first one in Medford right now.  Red Robin, Sonic, Five Guys and regional chain Burgerville are easily found but the most colorful of the bunch is McMenamin's.  We also have the Olive Garden, Red Lobster, PF Chang's, Panda Express, Papa John's, Carl's Jr. and Denny's along the freeway or close by.  The only chain I can recall falling flat on it's face and pulling out in recent years along the I-5 corridor in Oregon was El Pollo Loco.  They sure make a tasty chicken but their attempt to go national went sour and they retrenched back to California for the most part.

California simply crushes it in regards to national and regional chains compared to the Pacific Northwest.  It's like two different world on the West Coast in that regard.

Rick

Fazoli's pretty much died out in several southern states (one location left in GA, none in FL), despite being all over the region not so long ago, although there are plans apparently to bring some locations back in central Georgia next year.

Long John Silver's has been in pretty steady decline in the region too.

QuoteHere we have Golden Corral, which is doing well.

The Golden Corral here, interestingly, is now thriving, but in the early 1990s it, at a different location, closed and was replaced by a local seafood restaurant, which is also thriving. Where the Golden Corral is now was once a Ryan's steakhouse (also owned by Old Country Buffet), which had closed around the same time the original Golden Corral had. We've had 2 Hardee's since the mid 1990s, fairly close to each other, but surprisingly both do well.

Quote from: spooky on June 22, 2015, 08:37:55 AM
Friendly's has made a lot of changes over the years, but the one constant has been piss poor service.

All Ohio locations of Friendly's are gone - seemingly overnight. I miss (and liked) their ice cream.

Quote from: roadman65 on June 22, 2015, 05:06:51 AM
Big Boy seems to be in trouble as they closed all their locations except in Michigan.

That's not quite true...there are other Big Boy locations in CA, OH, IL, and ND. But the chain as a whole isn't in great health. Big Boy is hard to pin down because it's not a tightly controlled franchise. The original location was Bob's in Glendale, CA, then founder Bob Wian himself granted territorial licenses to the Elias Brothers in Michigan, Frisch's in the Ohio Valley, and numerous others. The only standard item was the double decker Big Boy hamburger–beyond that, menus, decor, etc. would vary dramatically from region to region.

Some Big Boy franchisees like Shoney's Big Boy in the South or Eat'n Park Big Boy in western PA decided to expand beyond their territory and give up the Big Boy trademark in order to do so.

Quote from: Mapmikey on June 22, 2015, 07:13:56 AM
Surprised Stuckey's hasn't hit this thread yet.

I forgot about Stuckey's–that's a good example and one of the few non-restaurant chains to mention. I could be wrong (and I'm too lazy to look it up at the minute), but I think that Stuckey's actually went down to the brink of extinction–and maybe even went bankrupt–in the '80s. But then the trademark was re-purchased by a Stuckey family member, and the chain has added location since then...and may be in decent financial health, even though they're nowhere near their former peak.

Quote from: texaskdog on June 22, 2015, 09:44:09 AM
Here we have Golden Corral, which is doing well.

I've never been in a Golden Corral, and I don't think I ever could after watching this one episode of Forensic Files. Investigators were tailing a suspect (murder or rape probably), and they wanted to get a DNA sample from him to compare to DNA evidence left on the victim. He went into a Golden Corral, ate his meal and left, and investigators quickly seized the fork he left for testing. They got DNA–not one but TWO separate profiles: a male sample (the suspect) and a female sample (an unrelated woman who had eaten at the Golden Corral a week earlier).

Quote from: cpzilliacus on June 22, 2015, 11:41:08 AM
Marriott wanted out of the fast food business...

Yes, I'm familiar with the Marriott connection–and at least the Plamondons seem proud of their brand. But jeez–Howard Johnson's, Roy Rogers, Big Boy... Use 'em and dump 'em. Marriott's piling up the corpses.

Quote from: SP Cook on June 21, 2015, 06:08:31 PM
Personally, while not exactly "roadside" I see Domino's as dying.

Domino's officially changed their name from Domino's Pizza to just Domino's recently.  The reasoning for such was due to their expanded product line (i.e. not just pizzas).  Such a name change was not unlike when Boston Chicken (remember that name?) changed to Boston Market during the 90s... expansion/promotion of its non-chicken products.

Fuddruckers seems to be a lot less common than it was. I always liked the DIY toppings.

And there aren't a lot of Ground Round restaurants around either. My mom did not approve of tossing peanut shells on the floor but we did it anyway.

I miss Carlos O'Kelly's more than either of them. The food was great and it was the only Mexican-esque place my daughter would go when she was little. But hardly any remain outside of Kansas now.

Didn't realize it until I looked it up, but Chi-Chi's is completely gone from North America. I don't miss them. Last time I visited one was when I was in college and my friends would go, order cheap drinks, and snack on chips and queso for hours.

I don't see how any Friendly's stays in business. I keep trying different ones because I want to like them, but always leave disappointed. And their ice cream scoops have gotten INCREDIBLY tiny.

Quote from: Purgatory On Wheels on June 22, 2015, 04:03:07 PMDidn't realize it until I looked it up, but Chi-Chi's is completely gone from North America. I don't miss them. Last time I visited one was when I was in college and my friends would go, order cheap drinks, and snack on chips and queso for hours.

IIRC, Chi-Chi's imploded quickly in the 1990s(?) after a fatal food poisoning incident caused when someone working at a Pittsburgh-area outlet didn't wash his hands . . . .

Mike

Quote from: Purgatory On Wheels on June 22, 2015, 04:03:07 PM
Fuddruckers seems to be a lot less common than it was. I always liked the DIY toppings.

The one in Annapolis (off of Md. 450 just west of U.S. 50) was closed a few years ago by Anne Arundel County Health Department restaurant inspectors for some of the usual violations.  It cleaned up and re-opened. 

Speaking of the Ground Round: http://www.nj.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2015/06/inside_new_jerseys_last_ground_round.html

Our local one before it closed many many years ago was previously a Howard Johnson's. We still have a ton of those plastic baseball caps they used to put ice cream in for dessert!

Quote from: Purgatory On Wheels on June 22, 2015, 04:03:07 PM
Didn't realize it until I looked it up, but Chi-Chi's is completely gone from North America. I don't miss them. Last time I visited one was when I was in college and my friends would go, order cheap drinks, and snack on chips and queso for hours.

OK, I'm confused.  If you can drink cheap and eat for free, what could you possibly miss?  They've been closed for quite a while now.

QuoteAnd there aren't a lot of Ground Round restaurants around either. My mom did not approve of tossing peanut shells on the floor but we did it anyway.

Quote from: NJRoadfan on June 22, 2015, 05:32:50 PM
Speaking of the Ground Round: http://www.nj.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2015/06/inside_new_jerseys_last_ground_round.html

I'm amazed at how stupid reporters can actually be.

All Ground Rounds closed in the mid-90's.  It was only recently - let's say the past 5 years or so - that some of the former franchisees went in together and purchased the rights to the Ground Round name and other trademarks of the restaurant, and opened up some stores.  There were absolutely none for many years, so to say that the one in Bradley Beach is the last remaining one is skipping over 20 years of history where there were none.

It's kinda like saying how the Delsea Drive-In is the last remaining drive in theatre in NJ.  All of them had closed.  The Delsea reopened, and is now the only one in NJ.

Quote from: mgk920 on June 22, 2015, 05:02:42 PM
IIRC, Chi-Chi's imploded quickly in the 1990s(?) after a fatal food poisoning incident caused when someone working at a Pittsburgh-area outlet didn't wash his hands . . . .

I believe you're right on everything except the hand washing part... Tainted green onions the lead to a hepatitis outbreak.

Three pizza chains come to mind:

• Godfather's.  "The pizza you can't refuse." Their spokesman was an intimidating but comical dude in a pinstripe suit.  The ones in Ohio at least disappeared in the mid-'80s.
• Noble Roman's.  They had more of a "family" type restaurant, and at least once had a "Monster" character based on one of their pies.  The deep-dish sicilian was the best IMHO.  These vanished in the '90s, but I started to see the name reappear as counter service inside convenience stores, and at least one hotel in the double-aughts.
• Pizza Inn.  "We got a feeling you're gonna like us."  The website says they're still around, mostly in the south.
• Someone else mentioned Shakey's.

Always liked Friendly's, and I don't care what anyone says -- I happen to like their Fishamajig, and still get one when I get the chance.

Some are still around, but you don't see as many Carvel ice cream stands as you used to, especially ones with the signature architecture (they seem to focus more on packaged retail products nowadays).  For that matter, you really don't see free-standing ice-cream-only shops as often as you used to, unless they're "piggy-backed" with something else.  Most new Baskin-Robbins, for example, are paired with Dunkin Donuts shops.  Maybe it's simply not profitable anymore to have an independent store dedicated to ice-cream cones without charging at least $5/scoop.  (And if millenials are choosing to eat healthier than their predecessor generations, that can't be helping either.)

But does anyone remember Farrell's ice cream?  This was a themed, old-time ice cream parlor.  A signature item was the multi-scoop "Zoo"; they sounded a loud bell and drum whenever someone ordered one. (A New York chain called Jahn's did something similar when you ordered a "Kitchen Sink".)  If you could eat a Zoo yourself, you received a button reading "I made a pig of myself at Farrell's".  Once located here-and-there throughout the country, their website indicates only 3 left, all in Southern California.

And then there's Burger Chef.  Once a giant in the industry, they began a steady decline as far back as the early 70s, with the last one closing in 1996 IIRC.  Hardees, their successor, brought back the Big Shef at least once.

Remember Morrison's Cafeteria?  While they located mostly in malls, ISTR they advertised with billboards on Interstates.  Free advertising for the mall, in a way.

Whatever happened to Kenny Rogers' Roasters?  Last one I saw was in a food court, part of a 3-in-1 with Arthur Treacher's and Nathan's.

Quote from: PHLBOS on June 22, 2015, 03:58:49 PM

Quote from: SP Cook on June 21, 2015, 06:08:31 PM
Personally, while not exactly "roadside" I see Domino's as dying.

Domino's officially changed their name from Domino's Pizza to just Domino's recently.  The reasoning for such was due to their expanded product line (i.e. not just pizzas).  Such a name change was not unlike when Boston Chicken (remember that name?) changed to Boston Market during the 90s... expansion/promotion of its non-chicken products.

Nice try to diversify but the other food they have is awful

Quote from: PHLBOS on June 22, 2015, 03:58:49 PM
Domino's officially changed their name from Domino's Pizza to just Domino's recently.  The reasoning for such was due to their expanded product line (i.e. not just pizzas).  Such a name change was not unlike when Boston Chicken (remember that name?) changed to Boston Market during the 90s... expansion/promotion of its non-chicken products.

Similarly, if you look at a McDonald's sign from about 1970 and earlier, the word HAMBURGERS (in all-caps) is present.  This actually gave the "n-billion sold"(*) more meaning.  I suspect they removed hamburgers from the sign for one or both of 2 reasons: (1) pretty much everyone in the country knew what their signature product was by then, (2) plans for an extended product line, such as McNuggets.  (Note that a handful of earlier signs had a "Filet-o-Fish Sandwich" sign added into the arches structure.)

Also, Wendy's used to have "Old-Fashioned Hamburgers" as part of their signage. I think it was in the '80s when they reduced it to just the name.

(*) Around the same time McD's removed "Hamburgers" from the sign, they quietly switched the count notation from n-billion "Sold" to "Served".  Again, two likely reasons were (1) "Served" sounds so much friendlier than "Sold", and/or (2) the burgers given away for promos/contests/tour bus drivers/etc. aren't exactly "sold" anyway.  Eventually, the counting gave way to the Carl Sagan-like "Billions and Billions" Served (especially on tall-mast signs near freeways, since you'd take your life into your hands to climb up there and update the numbers), then they got rid of the count altogether and went with "Restaurant", a permanent marquee sign, descriptive words like "Drive-thru", or just blank space.

Farrell's Ice Cream! YES! Columbus, Ohio had a location  loooong time ago - I want to say in the Clintonville area.

There was also Duff's Smorgasboard - that has been too long ago - was it Newark, Ohio or Columbus?

Quote from: route17fan on June 22, 2015, 08:26:59 PM
There was also Duff's Smorgasboard - that has been too long ago - was it Newark, Ohio or Columbus?

The location I was most familiar with was in Pigeon Forge, Tenn. Haven't been there in about 15 or 16 years so I don't know if it's still in business or not, but it was going strong back in the late 90s.

Quote from: hbelkins on June 22, 2015, 08:47:46 PM

Quote from: route17fan on June 22, 2015, 08:26:59 PM
There was also Duff's Smorgasboard - that has been too long ago - was it Newark, Ohio or Columbus?

The location I was most familiar with was in Pigeon Forge, Tenn. Haven't been there in about 15 or 16 years so I don't know if it's still in business or not, but it was going strong back in the late 90s.

I was just in Pigeon Forge last month and I can report that Duff's is closed. Not sure when it closed, I think I remember seeing it in the Fall of 2013 when I last stayed up there.

Quote from: Takumi on June 22, 2015, 08:30:30 AM

Old Country Buffet/Home Town Buffet has been going through a major contraction as of late.

Could be questionable management.  In Green Bay, they had their logo on a blue food freeway sign - on the wrong exit.

Quote from: Big John on June 22, 2015, 09:25:56 PM

Quote from: Takumi on June 22, 2015, 08:30:30 AM

Old Country Buffet/Home Town Buffet has been going through a major contraction as of late.

Could be questionable management.  In Green Bay, they had their logo on a blue food freeway sign - on the wrong exit.

lotta that going on (wrong exit) In Platteville, the sign for many of them is usually the first of the three exits.   Figuring one would take the business route through.  For a McDonalds - they are practically at the other end of the business route. (after this year they will be at the opposite end.)

Country Kitchen is another that fell off the side of the road in many places.

Bob Evans is dying. Godfather's is hanging on but barely: the quality is no longer there.

Also Long John Silvers and A&W

Yeah, I haven't seen a standalone Long John Silver's in decades.

Quote from: lepidopteran on June 22, 2015, 07:45:41 PM

Quote from: PHLBOS on June 22, 2015, 03:58:49 PM
Domino's officially changed their name from Domino's Pizza to just Domino's recently.  The reasoning for such was due to their expanded product line (i.e. not just pizzas).  Such a name change was not unlike when Boston Chicken (remember that name?) changed to Boston Market during the 90s... expansion/promotion of its non-chicken products.

Similarly, if you look at a McDonald's sign from about 1970 and earlier, the word HAMBURGERS (in all-caps) is present.  This actually gave the "n-billion sold"(*) more meaning.  I suspect they removed hamburgers from the sign for one or both of 2 reasons: (1) pretty much everyone in the country knew what their signature product was by then, (2) plans for an extended product line, such as McNuggets.  (Note that a handful of earlier signs had a "Filet-o-Fish Sandwich" sign added into the arches structure.)

Also, Wendy's used to have "Old-Fashioned Hamburgers" as part of their signage. I think it was in the '80s when they reduced it to just the name.

(*) Around the same time McD's removed "Hamburgers" from the sign, they quietly switched the count notation from n-billion "Sold" to "Served".  Again, two likely reasons were (1) "Served" sounds so much friendlier than "Sold", and/or (2) the burgers given away for promos/contests/tour bus drivers/etc. aren't exactly "sold" anyway.  Eventually, the counting gave way to the Carl Sagan-like "Billions and Billions" Served (especially on tall-mast signs near freeways, since you'd take your life into your hands to climb up there and update the numbers), then they got rid of the count altogether and went with "Restaurant", a permanent marquee sign, descriptive words like "Drive-thru", or just blank space.

I also think that cheeseburgers and other burgers with cheese such as Big Macs vastly outsell hamburgers these days so they moved away from the word "hamburger" to reflect the popularity of their core product.

Quote from: Rothman on June 22, 2015, 10:48:23 PM
Yeah, I haven't seen a standalone Long John Silver's in decades.

Columbus still has a few. What's insidious about the LJS/KFC combos around here is that they won't serve you fries with the LJS food; they make you take the KFC potato wedges which I don't like. I either avoid the combination stores or get something like green beans or corn instead. It ends up being less filling so I get hungry faster afterward -- making it a worse value.

Quote from: route17fan on June 22, 2015, 08:26:59 PM

There was also Duff's Smorgasboard - that has been too long ago - was it Newark, Ohio or Columbus?

Shit man, I don't remember that one... was it the one I've heard about that was in the shopping center at Hamilton and Main that had the conveyor that snaked all the way though the dining room?

Quote from: Purgatory On Wheels on June 22, 2015, 04:03:07 PM
I miss Carlos O'Kelly's more than either of them. The food was great and it was the only Mexican-esque place my daughter would go when she was little. But hardly any remain outside of Kansas now.

There are still several along the Avenue of the Saints corridor and one in Dubuque, but they've scaled back quite a bit -- all of its Des Moines-area locations closed last year.

Quote from: GCrites80s on June 22, 2015, 11:04:01 PM

Quote from: route17fan on June 22, 2015, 08:26:59 PM

There was also Duff's Smorgasboard - that has been too long ago - was it Newark, Ohio or Columbus?

Shit man, I don't remember that one... was it the one I've heard about that was in the shopping center at Hamilton and Main that had the conveyor that snaked all the way though the dining room?

Ooh maybe! - I was thinking maybe Graceland(ish) but I can't remember. Hamilton and Main seems vaguely familiar too.

Quote from: route17fan on June 22, 2015, 08:26:59 PM
Farrell's Ice Cream! YES! Columbus, Ohio had a location  loooong time ago - I want to say in the Clintonville area.

There was also Duff's Smorgasboard - that has been too long ago - was it Newark, Ohio or Columbus?

Both now I remember as we had one of them here in Florida on US 192 up the street from Dismal World. Duffs as they were good.  Farrels I remember being in Brunswick Square Mall on NJ 18 in East Brunswick, NJ back in the 80's.  I have not been that way in some time, so I cannot say for sure if it is still there or not.

Quote from: Rothman on June 22, 2015, 10:48:23 PM
Yeah, I haven't seen a standalone Long John Silver's in decades.

We still have one on US 192 at Central Avenue in Kissimmee, Florida.

Quote from: jeffandnicole on June 22, 2015, 05:40:32 PM

Quote from: Purgatory On Wheels on June 22, 2015, 04:03:07 PM
Didn't realize it until I looked it up, but Chi-Chi's is completely gone from North America. I don't miss them. Last time I visited one was when I was in college and my friends would go, order cheap drinks, and snack on chips and queso for hours.

OK, I'm confused.  If you can drink cheap and eat for free, what could you possibly miss?  They've been closed for quite a while now.

QuoteAnd there aren't a lot of Ground Round restaurants around either. My mom did not approve of tossing peanut shells on the floor but we did it anyway.

Quote from: NJRoadfan on June 22, 2015, 05:32:50 PM
Speaking of the Ground Round: http://www.nj.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2015/06/inside_new_jerseys_last_ground_round.html

I'm amazed at how stupid reporters can actually be.

All Ground Rounds closed in the mid-90's.  It was only recently - let's say the past 5 years or so - that some of the former franchisees went in together and purchased the rights to the Ground Round name and other trademarks of the restaurant, and opened up some stores.  There were absolutely none for many years, so to say that the one in Bradley Beach is the last remaining one is skipping over 20 years of history where there were none.

It's kinda like saying how the Delsea Drive-In is the last remaining drive in theatre in NJ.  All of them had closed.  The Delsea reopened, and is now the only one in NJ.

I think you're off on the timeline and the history. My recollection is that Ground Round shut down their corporate-owned locations, but the franchised locations generally remained open. I'm sure that many of those have since shuttered, including the few I remember locally in southern New England, but it seems likely that any Ground Round that is open today has been one all along.

The article states that they closed 59 corporate-owned locations in 2004. I definitely remember two near my current office, and I started working here in 2003.

Quote from: spooky on June 23, 2015, 07:10:24 AM
I think you're off on the timeline and the history. My recollection is that Ground Round shut down their corporate-owned locations, but the franchised locations generally remained open. I'm sure that many of those have since shuttered, including the few I remember locally in southern New England, but it seems likely that any Ground Round that is open today has been one all along.

The article states that they closed 59 corporate-owned locations in 2004. I definitely remember two near my current office, and I started working here in 2003.

I know that Bennigans shut down all their corporate owned stores, but allowed the franchised stores to remain open.  There's still one in the Vineland, NJ area.  Unfortunately, their food, while same in name, may not be the same product from before.  The infamous broccoli bites for example that they now sell are vastly different from the ones formerly sold. 

But Ground Round had completely shut down, at least in NJ.  And that's why I'm saying the article is wrong - I see what it said, and it doesn't agree with reality. Hell, Ground Round itself even issued a press release saying they are *returning* to locations where they used to be.  http://www.groundround.com/data/files/press-room/pressrelease_082713.html

A couple of years ago we ate at the last Kenny Rogers Roasters in the US.  It was at the Ontario mall in California.  We were staying out there for a football game and happened to see it in the mall, so we ate dinner there.  They're apparently very popular in Asia, but for whatever reason they shut down all the US locations.

I remember going to Duff's in the 80s in Connecticut, and I remember the conveyor belt, but it's a very hazy memory.

Quote from: Rothman on June 22, 2015, 10:48:23 PM
Yeah, I haven't seen a standalone Long John Silver's in decades.

Still have one here in the West View, PA area.  Recently lost an A&W/Long John location that was up in Cranberry, PA.

Whatever happened to Bob Evans?

I wonder if Yum! is trying to abandon the dual-restaurant concept. We've lost 4 Long John Silvers in MSP, all of which were paired with something else (either A&W or Taco Bell; the A&Ws went down with the ship but the Taco Bells are now standalone). Also noticed that the dual KFC/TB in North Branch, MN is now solely a Taco Bell.

Quote from: TheHighwayMan394 on June 23, 2015, 12:55:33 PM
I wonder if Yum! is trying to abandon the dual-restaurant concept. We've lost 4 Long John Silvers in MSP, all of which were paired with something else. Also noticed that the dual KFC/TB in North Branch, MN is now solely a Taco Bell.

Yum! doesn't own Long John Silver's and A&W anymore since 2011.

My local Long John Silver's was standalone for years, but became paired with an A&W within the last decade. I know a few other standalone ones in Virginia, but I've never seen a standalone A&W.

Quote from: Buffaboy on June 23, 2015, 12:52:31 PM
Whatever happened to Bob Evans?

Bob Evans died in 2007. His namesake restaurant chain has nearly 600 restaurants in the Eastern United States.

Quote from: lepidopteran on June 22, 2015, 07:02:15 PMWhatever happened to Kenny Rogers' Roasters?  Last one I saw was in a food court, part of a 3-in-1 with Arthur Treacher's and Nathan's.

He knew when to fold 'em.

Quote from: rickmastfan67 on June 23, 2015, 12:47:28 PM

Quote from: Rothman on June 22, 2015, 10:48:23 PM
Yeah, I haven't seen a standalone Long John Silver's in decades.

Still have one here in the West View, PA area.  Recently lost an A&W/Long John location that was up in Cranberry, PA.

The one off Rt. 8 in the Etna/Shaler area closed at some point in the last month or two.

Quote from: Pete from Boston on June 23, 2015, 06:13:30 PM

Quote from: lepidopteran on June 22, 2015, 07:02:15 PMWhatever happened to Kenny Rogers' Roasters?  Last one I saw was in a food court, part of a 3-in-1 with Arthur Treacher's and Nathan's.

He knew when to fold 'em.

or...

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2F3DH16wh.jpg&hash=7cec301f14c3d0ef70e297a08182cc1498956de6)

Quote from: Takumi on June 23, 2015, 01:48:20 PM
My local Long John Silver's was standalone for years, but became paired with an A&W within the last decade. I know a few other standalone ones in Virginia, but I've never seen a standalone A&W.

I've seen a few in Michigan.

Quote from: Takumi on June 22, 2015, 08:30:30 AM
Old Country Buffet/Home Town Buffet has been going through a major contraction as of late.

Ovation Brands (or perhaps its franchisee here) seems to be rather ostensible about bringing in extra revenue. I dined at an OCB last night and found out they now offer a to-go cup for an extra 99 cents. This was in addition to selling the beverage separately, and at least in Battle Creek, the private dining room was made into a game room.

Quote from: lepidopteran on June 22, 2015, 07:45:41 PMSimilarly, if you look at a McDonald's sign from about 1970 and earlier, the word HAMBURGERS (in all-caps) is present.  This actually gave the "n-billion sold"(*) more meaning.  I suspect they removed hamburgers from the sign for one or both of 2 reasons: (1) pretty much everyone in the country knew what their signature product was by then, (2) plans for an extended product line, such as McNuggets.  (Note that a handful of earlier signs had a "Filet-o-Fish Sandwich" sign added into the arches structure.)

The lowest number I remember seeing on those signs in the very early 70s was either 8 or 9 billion served.  I'm not 100% sure but I believe that the change from sold to served predates my earliest memories of McDonalds.

Quote from: lepidopteran on June 22, 2015, 07:45:41 PM(*) Around the same time McD's removed "Hamburgers" from the sign, they quietly switched the count notation from n-billion "Sold" to "Served".  Again, two likely reasons were (1) "Served" sounds so much friendlier than "Sold", and/or (2) the burgers given away for promos/contests/tour bus drivers/etc. aren't exactly "sold" anyway.

See above, at least such was the case for the ones located in eastern Massachusetts.  The first free-standing McDonalds without any Hamburger nor burger count references on its exterior signs, near where I lived at the time; was the one located along Canal St. in Salem, MA.  That one opened circa 1976 and is still there (with its original red box sign containing just the logo) to this day.

Quote from: lepidopteran on June 22, 2015, 07:45:41 PMEventually, the counting gave way to the Carl Sagan-like "Billions and Billions" Served (especially on tall-mast signs near freeways, since you'd take your life into your hands to climb up there and update the numbers), then they got rid of the count altogether and went with "Restaurant", a permanent marquee sign, descriptive words like "Drive-thru", or just blank space.

IIRC, the switch to the Billions and Billions Served came about when the Served count exceeded 100 billion.  Coincidentally, such occurred circa 1999/2000; there was even a (now-somewhat lame) Y2K-related joke e-mail that circulated at that time stating that McDonalds would financially collapse when their signs would change to 00 Billion Served (due to no room for the 1 digit on the signs).

I used to like Friendly's, but haven't been to the east coast in about 7 years to see what they're like now.  I liked that you could get a meal and then a sundae made pretty much any size and any way at the same restaurant.  Around Seattle, places that make a variety of sundaes with different flavors and toppings generally don't serve meals too.

Farrell's was great, but even longer ago.

The A&W locations that are shared with KFC are really poor.  I like the A&W burgers and floats, but I'm finding that I really dislike the smell of chicken frying, and the service seems uniformly poor.  In BC and Alberta there are still lots of standalone A&Ws, that was a treat on our Yellowknife trip three years ago.

[/quote]

I know that Culver's has some kind of table service (perhaps like Steak-n-Shake?), but I've always taken my Culver's orders to-go. And so I think of them more as a high-end fast food place–whereas I consider Friendly's to be a sit-down restaurant. Since Culver's has added veggie burgers nearly chain wide, and with their great frozen custard desserts, they can do no wrong as far as I'm concerned. I'd like to see Culver's nationwide...and yet part of me would regret losing the magic of making a cross country road trip and looking forward to entering "Culver's territory" .
[/quote]

Your wish might be coming true; several Culver's have opened in the greater Phoenix metropolitan area recently.

Quote from: Pete from Boston on June 23, 2015, 06:13:30 PM

Quote from: lepidopteran on June 22, 2015, 07:02:15 PMWhatever happened to Kenny Rogers' Roasters?  Last one I saw was in a food court, part of a 3-in-1 with Arthur Treacher's and Nathan's.

He knew when to fold 'em.

Thanks–there have been few times I've actually laughed as a result of a post.

No, really, he parlayed the profits into the Kenny's Ice Cream Parlor franchise.

Quote




But does anyone remember Farrell's ice cream?  This was a themed, old-time ice cream parlor.  A signature item was the multi-scoop "Zoo"; they sounded a loud bell and drum whenever someone ordered one. (A New York chain called Jahn's did something similar when you ordered a "Kitchen Sink".)  If you could eat a Zoo yourself, you received a button reading "I made a pig of myself at Farrell's".  Once located here-and-there throughout the country, their website indicates only 3 left, all in Southern California.

There used to be one, and it may still be there, a Farrell's in Santa Clarita. Some years back, my friend's son Andrew had his 14th birthday party there. They had the drum, the bells and the song for when he blew out the candles in his ice cream. The poor kid was so embarrassed! :-D

Quote from: kkt on June 24, 2015, 07:18:40 PM
The A&W locations that are shared with KFC are really poor.  I like the A&W burgers and floats, but I'm finding that I really dislike the smell of chicken frying, and the service seems uniformly poor.  In BC and Alberta there are still lots of standalone A&Ws, that was a treat on our Yellowknife trip three years ago.

I actually liked the A&W/KFC combo locations, because you could get KFC with a real A&W root beer. Unfortunately, the one near my office lasted a year at most.

QuoteThe A&W locations that are shared with KFC are really poor.  I like the A&W burgers and floats, but I'm finding that I really dislike the smell of chicken frying, and the service seems uniformly poor.  In BC and Alberta there are still lots of standalone A&Ws, that was a treat on our Yellowknife trip three years ago.

A&W Canada is a completely separate, unaffiliated company from the company that has restaurants in the USA. Their food is much better.

I've seen Red Lobster mentioned here, but I think another Darden restaurant is in decline even more.  I've seen recently remodeled Red Lobsters, but the same investment doesn't appear to be getting made in Olive Garden, and perhaps for good reason.

I haven't been there in many years, but yesterday my co-workers wanted to go there for lunch. I got the unlimited soup, salad and breadsticks. Turns out my limit was about 3 bites of each. Salad was 3 pieces of wilted lettuce, a pound of cheese and 50 croutons. Soup was gnocchi and chicken but it tasted like clam chowder. Breadsticks were basically salt delivery systems. I could have eaten a salt cube from the feed store instead.

I honestly think the number of fast food restaurants that serve unhealthy food will decline. People are becoming more health-conscious, partially the more intelligent and educated. Theses people do not want typical unhealthy fast food.

I think we will see new chains with healthier fast food pop up, and the traditional places like McDonalds will become less common in higher income areas, and be more relegated to lower income areas.

There is currently a huge demand that is not being filled by the restaurant industry. A lot of people want healthy or remotely healthy fast food, and nobody's doing that.

Cafeterias filled that need in a lot of ways in the past, but unfortunately they died out. They really need to be brought back.

The biggest reason for the excessive consumption of unhealthy foods is that families are no longer together, and women are no longer in the kitchen cooking proper meals for their families.

We need something to replace that. We need restaurants that provide mamma's home cookin' at a reasonable price, and without tipping.
Rather than having a server, I'd rather order and pay at the counter, and have them holler at me when it's done, and get up and pick it up myself.

Quote from: Brian556 on June 25, 2015, 01:24:06 PM
I honestly think the number of fast food restaurants that serve unhealthy food will decline. People are becoming more health-conscious, partially the more intelligent and educated. Theses people do not want typical unhealthy fast food.

I think we will see new chains with healthier fast food pop up, and the traditional places like McDonalds will become less common in higher income areas, and be more relegated to lower income areas.

There is currently a huge demand that is not being filled by the restaurant industry. A lot of people want healthy or remotely healthy fast food, and nobody's doing that.

Cafeterias filled that need in a lot of ways in the past, but unfortunately they died out. They really need to be brought back.

The biggest reason for the excessive consumption of unhealthy foods is that families are no longer together, and women are no longer in the kitchen cooking proper meals for their families.

We need something to replace that. We need restaurants that provide mamma's home cookin' at a reasonable price, and without tipping.
Rather than having a server, I'd rather order and pay at the counter, and have them holler at me when it's done, and get up and pick it up myself.

I will add "perceived" to the front of every instance you said Healthy.

People may go to Panera Bread and Chipotle because of their healthy options, but they actually have to order those healthy options.  Condiments, dressings, chips, sides and beverages add up.  Even someone watching calories may be consuming an inordinate amount of fat from those calories, sodium, etc.

For all the people that say they never go to McDonalds, they can serve up relatively healthy options.  Sure, a Big Mac, Large Fry and Large Soda is a big calorie buster, but most people don't order that, or eat everything they order.  Nor do they do it every day.  A lunchmeat sandwich at home with chips and a soda isn't all that far off from what they would've consumed nutrition-wise at a fast food restaurant.

Quote from: OCGuy81 on June 25, 2015, 12:55:04 PM
I've seen Red Lobster mentioned here, but I think another Darden restaurant is in decline even more...

Red Lobster was sold last year and is no longer part of Darden. I'm not sure what the current situation with gift card redemptions is, but I remember the Darden gift cards were popular with my Middle America relatives–because to them, Red Lobster and Olive Garden were the #1 and #2 names in fine dining.

Quote from: OCGuy81 on June 25, 2015, 12:55:04 PM
I could have eaten a salt cube from the feed store instead.

Darden had an activist investor group who had a list of demands for changing Olive Garden:

- Reduce portions so that customers are hungry enough to buy dessert
- Limit the unlimited breadsticks so that customers don't fill up on freebies
- Salt the heck out of everything so that customers buy wine
- Jack up wine prices to eke out a higher profit margin

Sounds like they're doing their job. [roll eyes]

Quote from: rawmustard on June 24, 2015, 10:08:47 AM

Quote from: Takumi on June 22, 2015, 08:30:30 AM
Old Country Buffet/Home Town Buffet has been going through a major contraction as of late.

Ovation Brands (or perhaps its franchisee here) seems to be rather ostensible about bringing in extra revenue. I dined at an OCB last night and found out they now offer a to-go cup for an extra 99 cents. This was in addition to selling the beverage separately, and at least in Battle Creek, the private dining room was made into a game room.

Ovation closed 74 restaurants nationwide today.  http://www.kcra.com/news/local-news/news-sacramento/3-hometown-buffet-restaurants-in-sacramento-area-shut-down/37826548?

AFAIK, there is a Lums left in Bellevue Nebraska

haven't seen a Bishops Buffet in maybe 20 years, or more

Nickerson Farms have any left ??

How about Ponderosa or Bonanza ?

Was Kenny's in Omaha Nebraska a national chain steak place?  Seems like I recall 2 or 3 locations, 72nd/Dodge (was the odd little Verizon building till they moved), and one a ways north on 72nd that is a defunct used car dealer.  Building still recognizable.

A local chain, Grandmothers is down to what, 1 or 2 locations ?

King's Food Host ?

Arthur Treachers ??

Dog 'n Suds in Ft Wayne is now a Diamond Dog.  The ones in Norton Shores and Montague, Michigan are still operating, as is the one in Elyria, Ohio.  When I was a kid, there were over 800 locations in the U.S.

Quote from: Jardine on February 04, 2016, 11:28:43 PM


Nickerson Farms have any left ??

How about Ponderosa or Bonanza ?

I remember the Nickerson Farms from when I was on the road with my family in the late 60s and 70s.  Haven't seen them for decades.  In Southern Indiana, we have at least one Ponderosa left in this area.  All of the others have closed.

Has anyone seen any Frostops?  I know of one seasonal one in Tell City, IN, one in Huntington, WV, some in Louisiana, and one in Idaho.  They sell their root beer (my favorite) in some stores, but their corporate website says nothing about the restaurants (drive-ins) or even franchising.  I'm guessing that the remaining stores are orphans.

Quote from: kkt on June 24, 2015, 07:18:40 PM
I used to like Friendly's, but haven't been to the east coast in about 7 years to see what they're like now.  I liked that you could get a meal and then a sundae made pretty much any size and any way at the same restaurant.

They've been shrinking and aren't as good as they used to be. For the last few years, service has been poor across the board. They pulled out of the Midwest and quite a few locations have closed in areas still served. Buffalo lost at least 2, Glens Falls lost 1, and probably a lot more were lost as well. Quite a shame, as they were once one of my favorite restaurants.

Quote from: Jardine on February 04, 2016, 11:28:43 PM
How about Ponderosa or Bonanza ?
...
Arthur Treachers ??

Ponderosa has a few locations left. One is in Niagara Falls.

Arthur Treacher's has locations in Metro New York and Cleveland, plus one location each in Stroudsburg and Fairfax.

Bonanza has a location in St. Cloud, MN. I'm not sure if the Baxter location is still there or not. (It turned out to not be)

Here's your complete list of Bonanzas that remain:

Chambersburg, PA
Des Moines
Eureka, MO
Hazleton, PA
Lebanon, VA
Lincoln, IL
Mandan, NE
New Columbia, PA
Presque Isle, ME
Sanford, ME
St. Cloud, MN
Tupelo, MS
Wise, VA
Yankton, SD

I've eaten at the Presque Isle one on this list too.

Quote from: briantroutman on June 21, 2015, 10:12:44 PM
I've never liked Domino's–the pizza, the advertising, or the company. But I think you'd be hard pressed to say that any chain with more than 10,000 locations has one foot in the grave. Clearly, their niche has always been being cheap and fast–even if their pizza is barely edible. When you're in a business where penny-pinching customers sift through ValPak coupons to decide whether to buy a sub-$10 pizza from you or Little Caesars, product quality is secondary. Domino's is probably safe bashing their past quality standards because most of their customers don't care about quality anyway. They might, however, pick up a few higher end customers who had written off Domino's as cheap junk pizza.

IMHO, Little Caesars is far worse than Dominos.  Back in the days when LC served pizzas in twos and in a long paper bag sleeve, the pizza was quite good.  The only thing I'll get from them now is the deep dish $5 lunch specials because their circular pizzas are terrible.  That being said, I have noticed the Deep Dish quality has gone down since they introduced them a few years ago. 

They also seem to skimp on the seasoning on their crazy bread more and more now.  If only they only slowed down a bit and not make things like it was a race, they would be instantly improving their product.


In other news....

Fazolis has been yo-yoing in and out of extinction as well.  The chain was flourishing in Northern Ohio at the turn of the century, but many of those locations went under.  Where I live now, there is a local franchisee who wanted to put Fazoli "express" stores in some of their gas stations -- So far, they have only one location in operation in 2 years. 

A Subway recently moved out of one of their truck stops to a stand-alone store across from the truck stop. But instead of Fazolis, they put in a Quiznos, which is another chain I thought was shrinking because of how they screwed franchisees a few years ago for overcharging for food and supplies.

Bonaza's and Brother's Pizza is slowly dying out. There's one in Chambersburg and the next closest one to me is in another state. Brother's Pizza has three locations that I know of. Two is in Chambersburg proper, and the other is near the state line (PA/MD state line).

McDonalds is dying out. One location exists in US 30, and it got kicked out of my area, as the next one is in Greencastle. It was then kicked out of Hagerstown due to some burger place. Basically gone from the tri-state area.

Nickerson Farms is dead. Stuckey's died and came back.  I don't see McDonald's dying, though. Some locations have shriveled up, but otherwise appear to be live and well (sadly).

Western Sizzlin seems to be wibbly-wobbly: some locations have closed, but others are still active. I've not seen a new one open in years, though.

Quote from: noelbotevera on February 05, 2016, 04:04:05 PM
Bonaza's and Brother's Pizza is slowly dying out. There's one in Chambersburg and the next closest one to me is in another state. Brother's Pizza has three locations that I know of. Two is in Chambersburg proper, and the other is near the state line (PA/MD state line).

McDonalds is dying out. One location exists in US 30, and it got kicked out of my area, as the next one is in Greencastle. It was then kicked out of Hagerstown due to some burger place. Basically gone from the tri-state area.

They have hundreds of locations in whatever tri-state area you may be referring to.  You're going to see these so-called fast-causal chains come and go long before MickeyD's is ever in really serious trouble (Chipotle...I'm especially referring to you).

Quote from: jeffandnicole on February 05, 2016, 10:08:38 PM

Quote from: noelbotevera on February 05, 2016, 04:04:05 PM
Bonaza's and Brother's Pizza is slowly dying out. There's one in Chambersburg and the next closest one to me is in another state. Brother's Pizza has three locations that I know of. Two is in Chambersburg proper, and the other is near the state line (PA/MD state line).

McDonalds is dying out. One location exists in US 30, and it got kicked out of my area, as the next one is in Greencastle. It was then kicked out of Hagerstown due to some burger place. Basically gone from the tri-state area.

They have hundreds of locations in whatever tri-state area you may be referring to.  You're going to see these so-called fast-causal chains come and go long before MickeyD's is ever in really serious trouble (Chipotle...I'm especially referring to you).

Last I knew, McDonald's was still seeing a net increase in their number of locations. I doubt that these stores near your listed location (https://www.google.com/maps/search/mcdonalds/@39.8999505,-77.7838252,11.5z) have all closed. Google is pretty quick at updating their listings.

Quote from: cl94 on February 05, 2016, 10:13:52 PM

Quote from: jeffandnicole on February 05, 2016, 10:08:38 PM

Quote from: noelbotevera on February 05, 2016, 04:04:05 PM
Bonaza's and Brother's Pizza is slowly dying out. There's one in Chambersburg and the next closest one to me is in another state. Brother's Pizza has three locations that I know of. Two is in Chambersburg proper, and the other is near the state line (PA/MD state line).

McDonalds is dying out. One location exists in US 30, and it got kicked out of my area, as the next one is in Greencastle. It was then kicked out of Hagerstown due to some burger place. Basically gone from the tri-state area.

They have hundreds of locations in whatever tri-state area you may be referring to.  You're going to see these so-called fast-causal chains come and go long before MickeyD's is ever in really serious trouble (Chipotle...I'm especially referring to you).

Last I knew, McDonald's was still seeing a net increase in their number of locations. I doubt that these stores near your listed location (https://www.google.com/maps/search/mcdonalds/@39.8999505,-77.7838252,11.5z) have all closed. Google is pretty quick at updating their listings.

Just want to clarify, the tri state is the area of Martinsburg WV, Hagerstown MD, and Chambersburg PA.

A couple of the Hagerstown ones are gone - Google overlooked a couple locations.


There's also this chain named "Oops!". They sells books, games, DVDs, and whatnot. The Hagerstown location closed. The next closest location is in Washington DC off of the Beltway, near Alexandria.

Quote from: noelbotevera on February 05, 2016, 10:18:25 PM

Just want to clarify, the tri state is the area of Martinsburg WV, Hagerstown MD, and Chambersburg PA.

A couple of the Hagerstown ones are gone - Google overlooked a couple locations.

Gone or relocated? I've noticed they are slowly going to free-standing locations and leaving Wal-Mart. 

Quote from: US71 on February 05, 2016, 10:25:32 PM

Quote from: noelbotevera on February 05, 2016, 10:18:25 PM

Just want to clarify, the tri state is the area of Martinsburg WV, Hagerstown MD, and Chambersburg PA.

A couple of the Hagerstown ones are gone - Google overlooked a couple locations.

Gone or relocated? I've noticed they are slowly going to free-standing locations and leaving Wal-Mart.

The one near Roy Rogers is gone. I believe it was relocated somewhere out of the area.
The one in the Valley Mall area is the food court, and that got replaced by some burger place.
The one near I-81 @ US 30 is losing customers.
The one near I-81 @ PA 16 is also losing customers.
The one near I-81 @ Maugansville Road is losing customers - that one makes sense, as Hagerstown has better food and it's only 4 miles out.
The two near I-81 @ US 40 are gone.
The one near I-70 @ MD 65 is gone, but I think it was relocated somewhere else in the area.

We're down to 2 Long John Silver's and 2 Quizno's in CT, and the only Krispy Kreme left is at Mohegan Sun casino.  We had a Checker's, it closed, then the chain said it's coming back.  Blimpie has also dwindled down to a few locations, Nathan's is totally gone, and even D'Angelo's has closed quite a few locations.  Meanwhile, my town has scaled back the number of Dunkin locations from 9 to 8, and Subway from 7 to 6 by closing inside Stop & Shop and Walmart, respectively.

Quote from: jp the roadgeek on February 05, 2016, 10:35:58 PM
We had a Checker's, it closed, then the chain said it's coming back.

Checkers is expanding back east. They've opened 2 new locations in Buffalo. I don't know how old the Syracuse one is.

One LJS here (the other got shut down by the health dept)

2 BK's

2 Wendy's

2 Firehouse Subs

2 Western Sizzlin

3 Genos (pizza by the slice)

9 McDonald's

9 Subway


Quizno's left town 3-4 years ago

Newport Creamery.

This was a common chain concept in New England–sit-down family dining at a restaurant whose claim to fame was its ice cream.  Friendly's, Farm Shop, and Howard Johnson all followed the same formula.

Wikipedia says there were 33 before their 2000 bankruptcy, with 12 left.

There was a Burger King in West Deptford NJ that closed down years ago.  The building became a pizza place.  It didn't last.  Then it became a '25 Burgers' (small chain only in NJ).  It lasted a while, but finally shut down.  It just reopened again...as a Burger King! 

Not sure if the same person owned the building the entire time, and went back into the BK Franchise, or if it's had multiple owners thru the years of being different things.

Quote from: cl94 on February 05, 2016, 10:45:18 AM....

Arthur Treacher's has locations in Metro New York and Cleveland, plus one location each in Stroudsburg and Fairfax.

I believe the Arthur Treacher's in Fairfax has closed. I just drove past there Tuesday morning but I wasn't paying attention to the roadside businesses to be able to confirm for sure. More than one person on another forum I sometimes visit has said it's no longer open.


(Edited to fix mangled quotes. I should know better than to try to edit down long posts using the touchscreen keyboard.)

Quote from: jp the roadgeek on February 05, 2016, 10:35:58 PM
We're down to 2 Long John Silver's and 2 Quizno's in CT, and the only Krispy Kreme left is at Mohegan Sun casino.  We had a Checker's, it closed, then the chain said it's coming back.  Blimpie has also dwindled down to a few locations, Nathan's is totally gone, and even D'Angelo's has closed quite a few locations.  Meanwhile, my town has scaled back the number of Dunkin locations from 9 to 8, and Subway from 7 to 6 by closing inside Stop & Shop and Walmart, respectively.

Krispy Kreme was doomed in CT partly due to increased health-consciousness, partly due to piss-poor coffee, partly due to the town of Newington throwing a hissy-fit over the model of making doughnuts at a store and shipping them out to other locations for resale, and partly because New Englanders have absolutely no appreciation for ambrosia.

Quote from: MikeTheActuary on February 06, 2016, 11:29:43 AM

Quote from: jp the roadgeek on February 05, 2016, 10:35:58 PM
We're down to 2 Long John Silver's and 2 Quizno's in CT, and the only Krispy Kreme left is at Mohegan Sun casino.  We had a Checker's, it closed, then the chain said it's coming back.  Blimpie has also dwindled down to a few locations, Nathan's is totally gone, and even D'Angelo's has closed quite a few locations.  Meanwhile, my town has scaled back the number of Dunkin locations from 9 to 8, and Subway from 7 to 6 by closing inside Stop & Shop and Walmart, respectively.

Krispy Kreme was doomed in CT partly due to increased health-consciousness, partly due to piss-poor coffee, partly due to the town of Newington throwing a hissy-fit over the model of making doughnuts at a store and shipping them out to other locations for resale, and partly because New Englanders have absolutely no appreciation for ambrosia.

You're telling me Newington isn't bothered that Dunkin' Donuts uses the same system?  Health consciousness and lousy coffee sure haven't hurt them.

Krispy Kreme overimagined the room for them in the Northeast.  They also went too big too fast.  If the product was that good, opening a couple at a time would build a cult of scarcity.  Look how much less people appreciated Yuengling once you could get it anywhere up here.

Quote from: Pete from Boston on February 06, 2016, 11:35:02 AM
....

Krispy Kreme overimagined the room for them in the Northeast.  They also went too big too fast.  If the product was that good, opening a couple at a time would build a cult of scarcity.  Look how much less people appreciated Yuengling once you could get it anywhere up here.

Same could be said of Coors 40 years ago. My father tells a story about how when I was a baby in Texas he had people over for a barbecue and he went to a lot of trouble to get Coors, which he stored in the garage until the big day and he then wondered why nobody would drink it: "This was a Big Deal! This was COORS BEER!" Of course it had skunked in the heat of a central Texas garage. My brother and I couldn't fathom why anyone would care about Coors and he said it was not widely available at the time and he'd had to drive to Dallas to find it.

I guess in my frame of reference it'd be like Fat Tire was prior to when distribution began in Virginia a few years ago. I think I first had that on a football trip to Boise, again at the brewery in Fort Collins on a football trip to Laramie a few years later, loved it both times, and now I hardly ever buy it. Funny how that works.

Quote from: Pete from Boston on February 06, 2016, 11:35:02 AM

Quote from: MikeTheActuary on February 06, 2016, 11:29:43 AMKrispy Kreme was doomed in CT partly due to increased health-consciousness, partly due to piss-poor coffee, partly due to the town of Newington throwing a hissy-fit over the model of making doughnuts at a store and shipping them out to other locations for resale, and partly because New Englanders have absolutely no appreciation for ambrosia.

You're telling me Newington isn't bothered that Dunkin' Donuts uses the same system?  Health consciousness and lousy coffee sure haven't hurt them.

Krispy Kreme overimagined the room for them in the Northeast.  They also went too big too fast.  If the product was that good, opening a couple at a time would build a cult of scarcity.  Look how much less people appreciated Yuengling once you could get it anywhere up here.

Overexpansion probably didn't help matters either.  :)

Re Newington's hissy fit, I think the difference is that DD isn't making their doughnuts and shipping them out from a site that's not terribly far away from a residential neighborhood.

The fact that so many New Englanders seem to be addicted to DD coffee only further supports my belief that New Englanders really have no sense of taste.  :D

It might also overestimate the quality of any one doughnut over the rest in the public's opinion.  Krispy Kreme surely benefits in its home region from the same thing Dunkin' Donuts has here–it's everywhere, it's what everyone knows, and people assume it's the best.  Not as easy to reproduce in another market where people have that same (possibly misguided) idea about another chain.  One's doughnuts would probably have to be a lot more superior than a doughnut is capable of being.

I don't understand how one could prefer Dunkin Donuts to Krispy Kreme (sure, Krispy Kreme doesn't do heart shaped donuts with cookie dough filling, but then neither does Dunkin 11 1/2 months of the year), but then, Krispy Kreme was in its heyday when I was growing up and was considered a special treat by pretty much all of my peers in elementary and middle school.

Cult of scarcity.  Anything you can't have gets a boost compared to what you can get all the time.

I don't think people are as motivated to go out of their way to purchase one doughnut over another as these companies would like.

Quote from: vdeane on February 06, 2016, 03:46:45 PM
I don't understand how one could prefer Dunkin Donuts to Krispy Kreme (sure, Krispy Kreme doesn't do heart shaped donuts with cookie dough filling, but then neither does Dunkin 11 1/2 months of the year), but then, Krispy Kreme was in its heyday when I was growing up and was considered a special treat by pretty much all of my peers in elementary and middle school.

I never understood the attraction to either.  I've found Tim Hortons and a lot of local chains/one-offs to be far better than either Dunkin or Krispy Kreme.  My favorites are Homecut (local to Joliet) and Sweetwater's Donut Mill (Kalamazoo/Battle Creek, MI).

I don't get the hype behind Tim Hortons. Donuts aren't all that good and their drinks are crap.

Some of Krispy Kreme's retreat was due to franchisees. The Buffalo location closed because of something the franchisee did. It was often quite busy. At this point, it would probably be stupid for them to move back to the area because Dunkin moved in and Tim Hortons oversaturated the market by opening 3 locations along a single mile of road. Yes, that last part is true in more than one location.

Quote from: cl94 on February 06, 2016, 05:37:19 PM
I don't get the hype behind Tim Hortons. Donuts aren't all that good and their drinks are crap.

Some of Krispy Kreme's retreat was due to franchisees. The Buffalo location closed because of something the franchisee did. It was often quite busy. At this point, it would probably be stupid for them to move back to the area because Dunkin moved in and Tim Hortons oversaturated the market by opening 3 locations along a single mile of road. Yes, that last part is true in more than one location.

It's true of Dunkin' Donuts in many locations here.  Three per mile is not uncommon here.

Quote from: Pete from Boston on February 06, 2016, 05:45:14 PM

Quote from: cl94 on February 06, 2016, 05:37:19 PM
I don't get the hype behind Tim Hortons. Donuts aren't all that good and their drinks are crap.

Some of Krispy Kreme's retreat was due to franchisees. The Buffalo location closed because of something the franchisee did. It was often quite busy. At this point, it would probably be stupid for them to move back to the area because Dunkin moved in and Tim Hortons oversaturated the market by opening 3 locations along a single mile of road. Yes, that last part is true in more than one location.

It's true of Dunkin' Donuts in many locations here.  Three per mile is not uncommon here.

No different from McDonald's in that respect. In a few places, it almost seems as though they opened franchises close to each other so that people wouldn't have to turn across traffic to the other side of the road.

Regarding donuts, few things can beat the legendary Old Bay Seasoned Fried Chicken BLT from Astro Doughnuts and Fried Chicken in downtown DC (the shop is owned by a group including former Capitals player Jeff Halpern). I've had this two times when it was on the Uber Eats menu and it is truly delicious, but I've sworn never to eat it again because eating too many of these will mean bypass surgery isn't enough and you'll need a full beltway with express lanes. (You can't see the lettuce and tomato in this picture because they came on the side and I opted not to eat them. If I'd wanted a salad, I'd have gotten a salad!)

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi31.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fc378%2F1995hoo%2F302649C4-C76F-4E2A-8F0D-471FFAD26689_zpscbigfarl.jpg&hash=1093921df5c3ce5ecfdc4369d37f79140a3a7237)

Quote from: Pete from Boston on February 06, 2016, 05:45:14 PM
It's true of Dunkin' Donuts in many locations here.  Three per mile is not uncommon here.

Reminds me of a news report on the Revere tornado (https://youtu.be/VmCQirsl1FA?t=98)

Quote from: 1995hoo on February 07, 2016, 09:10:09 AM
Regarding donuts, few things can beat the legendary Old Bay Seasoned Fried Chicken BLT from Astro Doughnuts and Fried Chicken in downtown DC (the shop is owned by a group including former Capitals player Jeff Halpern). I've had this two times when it was on the Uber Eats menu and it is truly delicious, but I've sworn never to eat it again because eating too many of these will mean bypass surgery isn't enough and you'll need a full beltway with express lanes. (You can't see the lettuce and tomato in this picture because they came on the side and I opted not to eat them. If I'd wanted a salad, I'd have gotten a salad!)

(snip)

Just looking at that gives me phantom chest pains.

Quote from: 1995hoo on February 06, 2016, 11:21:30 AM

Quote from: cl94 on February 05, 2016, 10:45:18 AM....

Arthur Treacher's has locations in Metro New York and Cleveland, plus one location each in Stroudsburg and Fairfax.

I believe the Arthur Treacher's in Fairfax has closed. I just drove past there Tuesday morning but I wasn't paying attention to the roadside businesses to be able to confirm for sure. More than one person on another forum I sometimes visit has said it's no longer open.


(Edited to fix mangled quotes. I should know better than to try to edit down long posts using the touchscreen keyboard.)

I was just downloading dashcam videos, so I scanned through the one in which I passed the Arthur Treacher's location in Fairfax. Not only is the franchise closed, the building has been demolished and replaced by something else.

Quote from: cl94 on February 06, 2016, 05:37:19 PM
I don't get the hype behind Tim Hortons. Donuts aren't all that good and their drinks are crap.

Limited locations/availability plus lots of hype. Not unlike before Horse Piss Coors was availabe everywhere ;)

Quote from: US71 on February 07, 2016, 11:10:51 AM

Quote from: cl94 on February 06, 2016, 05:37:19 PM
I don't get the hype behind Tim Hortons. Donuts aren't all that good and their drinks are crap.

Limited locations/availability plus lots of hype. Not unlike before Horse Piss Coors was availabe everywhere ;)

I remember back in my college years, when I would travel over the border to Windsor, ON (as the magic age for drinking was 19). Tim Hortons seemed to be everywhere and most locations were jammed with people on Friday or Saturday nights.

I only like a few kinds/flavors of donuts, but TH donuts were pretty good.  Glazed Timbits (donut holes) were highly addicting.

Quote from: cl94 on February 06, 2016, 05:37:19 PM
I don't get the hype behind Tim Hortons. Donuts aren't all that good and their drinks are crap.

I go to Tim Hortons only for breakfast, without coffee since I like my caffeine cold. In Canada, I prefer Tim Hortons over McD's. In the U.S., McDs have better breakfast options in the areas where Tim Hortons are, so I usually don't go to Tim Hortons south of the border.

Macy's and JCPenney are also dying, though they've been dying for decades....now we just play the waiting game.

Quote from: noelbotevera on February 07, 2016, 11:29:05 AM
Macy's and JCPenney are also dying, though they've been dying for decades....now we just play the waiting game.

JCPenney, sure, but Macy's?  When they've shut stores down it's seemed to be mostly to eliminate duplication where they bought a competitor.  Not that I'm endorsing the viability of large department stores in 2016, but this is not Sears we're talking about.

Quote from: Pete from Boston on February 07, 2016, 04:53:53 PM

Quote from: noelbotevera on February 07, 2016, 11:29:05 AM
Macy's and JCPenney are also dying, though they've been dying for decades....now we just play the waiting game.

JCPenney, sure, but Macy's?  When they've shut stores down it's seemed to be mostly to eliminate duplication where they bought a competitor.  Not that I'm endorsing the viability of large department stores in 2016, but this is not Sears we're talking about.

Macy's is closing 36 stores within the next few months. The original Kaufmann's location in Pittsburgh closed at the end of last year. Sales have been way down.

Don't forget Sears. They've had a bunch of store closings as well and now that they're with Kmart, the issues are just doubled.

Just saw that in the "Decline of shopping malls" thread.  I stand corrected.

Sears could have made a go of it, but instead decided to try to be Kmart.  Bad move.

Quote from: Pete from Boston on February 07, 2016, 04:53:53 PM

Quote from: noelbotevera on February 07, 2016, 11:29:05 AM
Macy's and JCPenney are also dying, though they've been dying for decades....now we just play the waiting game.

JCPenney, sure, but Macy's?  When they've shut stores down it's seemed to be mostly to eliminate duplication where they bought a competitor.  Not that I'm endorsing the viability of large department stores in 2016, but this is not Sears we're talking about.

JCPenney had better not go.  I can't find anywhere else that I can consistently find clothes I like that fit properly (and are machine washable and don't cost too much).

Quote from: vdeane on February 07, 2016, 07:30:06 PM

Quote from: Pete from Boston on February 07, 2016, 04:53:53 PM

Quote from: noelbotevera on February 07, 2016, 11:29:05 AM
Macy's and JCPenney are also dying, though they've been dying for decades....now we just play the waiting game.

JCPenney, sure, but Macy's?  When they've shut stores down it's seemed to be mostly to eliminate duplication where they bought a competitor.  Not that I'm endorsing the viability of large department stores in 2016, but this is not Sears we're talking about.

JCPenney had better not go.  I can't find anywhere else that I can consistently find clothes I like that fit properly (and are machine washable and don't cost too much).

When JCPenney had simple prices, it was the only place I shopped for clothes. Shame that most consumers are stupid and think that a coupon or sale always means a better price. Even now, it's still one of the few places that consistently has men's sizes for thin people.

Quote from: vdeane on February 07, 2016, 07:30:06 PM

Quote from: Pete from Boston on February 07, 2016, 04:53:53 PM

Quote from: noelbotevera on February 07, 2016, 11:29:05 AM
Macy's and JCPenney are also dying, though they've been dying for decades....now we just play the waiting game.

JCPenney, sure, but Macy's?  When they've shut stores down it's seemed to be mostly to eliminate duplication where they bought a competitor.  Not that I'm endorsing the viability of large department stores in 2016, but this is not Sears we're talking about.

JCPenney had better not go.  I can't find anywhere else that I can consistently find clothes I like that fit properly (and are machine washable and don't cost too much).

Penney's, like any other healthy retailer, cuts stores that aren't doing well (see Macy's above - they recently cut about the same number of stores each).

My wife and I parked by, and passed through the Sears store to go into the mall this weekend -- a rarity for me on all parts.   There was a reason why the least amount of cars around the mall parked by Sears:  The place looked like the Going Out of Business signs were going up next week.  Clothing racks were half full, there was no bright displays to liven up the "artificially-flavored" vanilla sales floor, and it sure didn't look inviting.

I remembered when I was a kid how Sears had something for everyone, from a little snack stand to a toy department.   The Home Depots and Lowes chains killed off their paint & hardware departments, and their parent company Kmart is starving the rest of the store to death.

Quote from: thenetwork on February 08, 2016, 12:01:41 PM
My wife and I parked by, and passed through the Sears store to go into the mall this weekend -- a rarity for me on all parts.   There was a reason why the least amount of cars around the mall parked by Sears:  The place looked like the Going Out of Business signs were going up next week.  Clothing racks were half full, there was no bright displays to liven up the "artificially-flavored" vanilla sales floor, and it sure didn't look inviting.

I remembered when I was a kid how Sears had something for everyone, from a little snack stand to a toy department.   The Home Depots and Lowes chains killed off their paint & hardware departments, and their parent company Kmart is starving the rest of the store to death.

Sears is still probably the best place to get tools. Whenever I can, I buy Craftsman products and Land's End is what keeps me going there. It's sad what has become of the company.

Quote from: cl94 on February 08, 2016, 12:20:01 PM
Sears is still probably the best place to get tools. Whenever I can, I buy Craftsman products and Land's End is what keeps me going there. It's sad what has become of the company.

I used to buy Craftsman tools because of the lifetime no questions asked warranty.  Now that the lifetime is only for the lifetime of Sears that doesn't necessarily seem like a selling point.

Quote from: kkt on February 08, 2016, 12:57:31 PM

Quote from: cl94 on February 08, 2016, 12:20:01 PM
Sears is still probably the best place to get tools. Whenever I can, I buy Craftsman products and Land's End is what keeps me going there. It's sad what has become of the company.

I used to buy Craftsman tools because of the lifetime no questions asked warranty.  Now that the lifetime is only for the lifetime of Sears that doesn't necessarily seem like a selling point.

Heh.  Had a friend who had a wrench go through a wood chipper or something like that.  Brought the pieces to Sears and they replaced it no questions asked...just like their policy.

Quote from: kkt on February 08, 2016, 12:57:31 PM

Quote from: cl94 on February 08, 2016, 12:20:01 PM
Sears is still probably the best place to get tools. Whenever I can, I buy Craftsman products and Land's End is what keeps me going there. It's sad what has become of the company.

I used to buy Craftsman tools because of the lifetime no questions asked warranty.  Now that the lifetime is only for the lifetime of Sears that doesn't necessarily seem like a selling point.

I wouldn't count on that. Craftsman is a more valuable brand at this point than Sears. It is sold nationwide in Ace Hardware stores, and still provides very good value for the money. Like many brands, they will slap their name on just about anything at this point, but it if you are looking for hand tools and the like, they make a very good product.  I am curious who supplies them at this point.

A big part of what makes shopping there at all attractive these days is the roulette wheel of bonus deals that you get if you shop there with any frequency.  I've had amazing things like "surprise points" pop up and stack up all kinds of crazy discounts on top of already discounted items.

But yes, that's mostly negated by the fact that you have to go to Sears and put up with it.

Quote from: Pete from Boston on February 08, 2016, 01:36:50 PM

Quote from: kkt on February 08, 2016, 12:57:31 PM

Quote from: cl94 on February 08, 2016, 12:20:01 PM
Sears is still probably the best place to get tools. Whenever I can, I buy Craftsman products and Land's End is what keeps me going there. It's sad what has become of the company.

I used to buy Craftsman tools because of the lifetime no questions asked warranty.  Now that the lifetime is only for the lifetime of Sears that doesn't necessarily seem like a selling point.

I wouldn't count on that. Craftsman is a more valuable brand at this point than Sears. It is sold nationwide in Ace Hardware stores, and still provides very good value for the money. Like many brands, they will slap their name on just about anything at this point, but it if you are looking for hand tools and the like, they make a very good product.  I am curious who supplies them at this point.

I agree. Kenmore appliances became crap when LG started supplying them instead of Whirlpool, but the tools still seem to be good. I don't see the brand going away. They're too well-known. Someone will buy it out if Sears goes under (which would be quite a shame).

Lands' End will also succeed independently, as it once did.  Most of their line is much too preppy for my interest, but I've had great dress shirts from them, and gotten some good kid gifts there.

Quote from: Pete from Boston on February 08, 2016, 02:09:10 PM
Lands' End will also succeed independently, as it once did.  Most of their line is much too preppy for my interest, but I've had great dress shirts from them, and gotten some good kid gifts there.

Lands' End is where I get dress shirts when Brooks Brothers doesn't have a sale. Those things last much longer than almost every other dress shirt I have bought.

What happened to these ?

I remember one a couple blocks south of the old Ranch Bowl (now WalMart) on 72nd Street in Omaha.  As I recall, Carson sued them too.

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2F3.bp.blogspot.com%2F-owN6kmIEa1Y%2FUPr3QEwK_6I%2FAAAAAAAAGaw%2FbofA1C4m-H8%2Fs1600%2Fhere%26%23039%3Bs%2Bjohnnys.jpg&hash=b0b216b8f2a7c9f5dffb90df6168349438749e8b)

Quote from: Jardine on February 08, 2016, 05:37:01 PM
As I recall, Carson sued them too.

I remember a business law textbook I had in college referenced a lawsuit between Carson Productions and Here's Johnny Portable Toilets, Inc., so I wouldn't be surprised if he aggressively went after every company trying to use that phrase.

Krispy Kreme was that oddball place that we in Minnesota only got a brief taste of before they pulled out almost as quickly as they came. I think I was early in high school, and I thought it was fun watching the donut maker. I actually enjoyed the donuts too, which is rare because I typically am not a fan of them.

Quote from: 1995hoo on February 07, 2016, 09:10:09 AM

Quote from: Pete from Boston on February 06, 2016, 05:45:14 PM
It's true of Dunkin' Donuts in many locations here.  Three per mile is not uncommon here.

In a few places, it almost seems as though they opened franchises close to each other so that people wouldn't have to turn across traffic to the other side of the road.

One reason that easy access is important for donut shops is that most of their customers are on their way to work in the morning, and crossing to the other side of the road can be a deal-breaker when you're running late. I distinctly remember a Dunkin Donuts location closing (apparently) because they were located on the "dinner side" of the road.  This was actually a divided arterial with no median break at that point, so making a U-turn to get there during the morning rush -- not to mention doubling back to continue on afterward -- would simply take too long.

Fast-food places would do better on the dinner side of the road, it would seem.  But if one is caught on the "breakfast side", the dinner customers are typically not as pressed for time in the afternoon/evening, and they likely have a decent non-commuter clientele anyway.  (And many have breakfast menus besides.)

I doubt that a donut-only shop can survive on just the evening customers, namely those who pick up a box of donuts, say, for their bridge game or for after-soccer-practice.  But it does help that many Dunkin locations are now piggybacked with Baskin-Robbins ice cream.

Speaking of donut shops, who remembers "Mister Donut"?

Quote from: Jardine on February 08, 2016, 05:37:01 PM
What happened to these ?

I remember one a couple blocks south of the old Ranch Bowl (now WalMart) on 72nd Street in Omaha.  As I recall, Carson sued them too.

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2F3.bp.blogspot.com%2F-owN6kmIEa1Y%2FUPr3QEwK_6I%2FAAAAAAAAGaw%2FbofA1C4m-H8%2Fs1600%2Fhere%26%23039%3Bs%2Bjohnnys.jpg&hash=b0b216b8f2a7c9f5dffb90df6168349438749e8b)

This is fantastic.  I wish more places like this were still around.

- - - - - - -

I remember Mister Donut.  Bought out by Dunkin' Donuts in the 1990s, I believe, making the world a little more uniform and bland.

Quote from: Pete from Boston on February 08, 2016, 08:42:20 PM

I remember Mister Donut.  Bought out by Dunkin' Donuts in the 1990s, I believe, making the world a little more uniform and bland.

There were a few Mister Donuts around Wisconsin, but they closed around that time.

What's you all's experience with Red Robin? I saw one while Greyhounding back to Pittsburgh from...well, somewhere. It was at a service plaza (Midway, maybe?). It was one of those places I had heard of, but not for a really long time. Now in recent years, having moved to San Diego, where I am originally from, I hear their ads pretty frequently. But that old RR in that service plaza in PA just looked like one of those places way past its heyday but still holding on.

Quote from: Pete from Boston on February 08, 2016, 08:42:20 PM

I remember Mister Donut.  Bought out by Dunkin' Donuts in the 1990s, I believe, making the world a little more uniform and bland.

Maybe making the US more uniform and bland because there 1300 Mister Donuts in Japan.

Quote from: c172 on February 08, 2016, 09:34:04 PM
What's you all's experience with Red Robin? I saw one while Greyhounding back to Pittsburgh from...well, somewhere. It was at a service plaza (Midway, maybe?). It was one of those places I had heard of, but not for a really long time. Now in recent years, having moved to San Diego, where I am originally from, I hear their ads pretty frequently. But that old RR in that service plaza in PA just looked like one of those places way past its heyday but still holding on.

The RR in my town is pretty nice. It utilizes tablets to order and play games while you wait for your food, and the food is large and yummy. Service is excellent. It's so popular that it stays open up until 11 PM - I actually enjoyed my experience there.

I guess everything looks creepier in a turnpike service plaza.

Quote from: c172 on February 08, 2016, 09:34:04 PM
What's you all's experience with Red Robin? I saw one while Greyhounding back to Pittsburgh from...well, somewhere. It was at a service plaza (Midway, maybe?). It was one of those places I had heard of, but not for a really long time. Now in recent years, having moved to San Diego, where I am originally from, I hear their ads pretty frequently. But that old RR in that service plaza in PA just looked like one of those places way past its heyday but still holding on.

I went to one a couple of months ago for the first time.

The food was adequate.  No real complaints.

The service was the pits.  Incredibly slow, and the server vanished when it was apparent it had gone on way too long and we were going to be upset if he reappeared without food.  We'd been sitting there for 30-40 minutes before we ate, and the place was half empty.

Again, the food was fine once it got there, but we just had time to wolf it down, so it wasn't all that enjoyable.

Nearly all of the Mr. Donut stores in the Northern Ohio area became Donut Connection stores.  Looking at their list of stores as of now, that chain is pretty much extinct in Cleveland as well.

The Mister Donut stores are alive and well, but mostly overseas.

I got fed up with Red Robin.  They have unlimited fries, but they'll only give out a half a cup at a time for a table of two.  Then it's half an hour before the server comes and asks if you want more, and another 20 minutes for the server to come back with them.  By then, most people have given up and gone to McDonald's.

Quote from: kkt on February 08, 2016, 10:55:00 PM
I got fed up with Red Robin.  They have unlimited fries, but they'll only give out a half a cup at a time for a table of two.  Then it's half an hour before the server comes and asks if you want more, and another 20 minutes for the server to come back with them.  By then, most people have given up and gone to McDonald's.

Not the one I go to.  Granted - I generally sit at the bar and the bartender can be a little overwhelmed at times, but the food usually comes out quick, and the fry refills are plentiful.

Wow, Donut Connection! I've taken many a Greyhound bus through Johnstown, PA. Depressing donut shop in a depressing regional town. How many of those are there? Are they all located in Greyhound places?

I've eaten at Red Robin once. Was not terribly impressed by the overpriced burgers. The endless fries offer is nice. Culver's burgers are better.

Quote from: 1995hoo on February 06, 2016, 12:34:31 PM

Quote from: Pete from Boston on February 06, 2016, 11:35:02 AM
....

Krispy Kreme overimagined the room for them in the Northeast.  They also went too big too fast.  If the product was that good, opening a couple at a time would build a cult of scarcity.  Look how much less people appreciated Yuengling once you could get it anywhere up here.

Same could be said of Coors 40 years ago. My father tells a story about how when I was a baby in Texas he had people over for a barbecue and he went to a lot of trouble to get Coors, which he stored in the garage until the big day and he then wondered why nobody would drink it: "This was a Big Deal! This was COORS BEER!" Of course it had skunked in the heat of a central Texas garage. My brother and I couldn't fathom why anyone would care about Coors and he said it was not widely available at the time and he'd had to drive to Dallas to find it.

I guess in my frame of reference it'd be like Fat Tire was prior to when distribution began in Virginia a few years ago. I think I first had that on a football trip to Boise, again at the brewery in Fort Collins on a football trip to Laramie a few years later, loved it both times, and now I hardly ever buy it. Funny how that works.

Remember in "Smokey and the Bandit" the whole trip was to bring Coors from Texas back to Atlanta because it wasn't sold East of Texas

Speaking of, here we go again:

http://www.boston.com/food-dining/restaurants/2016/02/15/krispy-kreme-coming-new-england-again/BGoBKsBM4SJJPSpjP3ZpGI/story.html

Krispy Kreme is about to open seven locations in New England for the second time, this time all in New Hampshire and Maine.

"The demand for Krispy Kreme doughnuts and coffee continues to grow throughout New England," says Patricia Perry, Krispy Kreme Doughnuts' vice president for global franchise development.

She must be new there.

Krispy Kreme's implosion was astonishing to me.  They had the hype and the crazed fans, but then they overextended and collapsed.

Seven locations in New England?  Makes me wondering if they're making the same mistake twice.

Krispy Kreme crashed and burned in the Delaware Valley/Philadelphia market as well.

Quote from: PHLBOS on February 25, 2016, 12:57:31 PM
Krispy Kreme crashed and burned in the Delaware Valley/Philadelphia market as well.

Krispy Kreme's nationwide expansion occurred just before the Atkins diet craze, which was significant enough to affect several new locations. At least here in southwest Michigan, Dunkin is making a resurgence in the last few years.

There will actually be 8 in New England if you count the one at Mohegan Sun in CT

I forget the name, but 200 stores of this sports store will be closed out of the 450 locations left. The closest one to me is in Lancaster and is going to be closed sometime next week.

Quote from: noelbotevera on February 25, 2016, 06:55:59 PM
I forget the name, but 200 stores of this sports store will be closed out of the 450 locations left. The closest one to me is in Lancaster and is going to be closed sometime next week.

Sports Authority.

Wow Sports Authority is closing.  That is news as they are one of the big guys along with Dicks.

Quote from: roadman65 on February 25, 2016, 07:13:21 PM
Wow Sports Authority is closing.  That is news as they are one of the big guys along with Dicks.

That's going to leave an awful lot of goofy stadium-shaped buildings out there.

I remember when this store first arrived in New Jersey.  I thought they were local and their name was a play on the Sports and Exposition Authority, the state agency there that runs the stadiums.  Once I realized they were not local, the name seemed silly to me.

They came after I left NJ.  However, in Florida they were here when I first moved in 1990.  They had one on US 192 in Kissimmee (now in the Loop on Osceola Parkway) and on Sand Lake Road near FL Mall (still there).  I thought it was local here as Hermans was in NJ/NY area. 

Then I visited home once and saw one put up at the US 1 & 9 split in Woodbridge and then knew they were national.  I am not sure if Hermans went out after I moved or before I moved, so I cannot say that they put Hermans out as Wal Mart did Caldors (a local NY/ NJ department store).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8qhJOfNfso

Sports Authority going under leaves Dick's as the only major player in a lot of the country.

Speaking of Dick's, at least they were able to buy dicks.com. I remember discovering that their website was "dickssportinggoods.com" the hard way when I was in middle school.

Speaking of Sports Authority, they are over hundreds of million in debt. That meant they filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy. So now Dick's will dominate the sporting goods part of the market.

Quote from: cl94 on February 25, 2016, 09:16:19 PM
Sports Authority going under leaves Dick's as the only major player in a lot of the country.

Hmm, another monopoly, this one in the large-scale sporting goods sector.

Like when Circuit City closed, leaving Best Buy the last man standing.

Or when Linens 'n Things left Bed Bath and Beyond in charge.

How about Border's leaving Barnes and Noble the king of large-scale bookstores?

Quote from: cl94 on February 25, 2016, 09:16:19 PM
Sports Authority going under leaves Dick's as the only major player in a lot of the country.

Speaking of Dick's, at least they were able to buy dicks.com. I remember discovering that their website was "dickssportinggoods.com" the hard way when I was in middle school.

Acadamy sporting goods is in the Southeast, expanding into central Florida last year.

All I can say is good riddance to Sports Authority.  A higher proportion of poor quality merchandise when compared to Dick's.

I believe the one here in Colonie/Guilderland (or whatever that no man's land is where Crossgates Commons is) has closed.

Sports Authority is trimming the number of stores they will own in order to comply with their Chapter 11 filing. 

In some areas, they are pulling out completely (Texas is one of those areas).  In others, they are closing some of their "underperforming" stores.

Here in Colorado, they are closing a few stores in the state, but most will remain open.  Mile High Stadium in Denver will still be called Sports Authority Field @ Mile High...for now.

This all makes me miss Decathlon Sports that much more.  Good prices, very good house brand (Quechua).  All gone from the US.

Quote from: Rothman on February 26, 2016, 12:10:02 AM
All I can say is good riddance to Sports Authority.  A higher proportion of poor quality merchandise when compared to Dick's.

I believe the one here in Colonie/Guilderland (or whatever that no man's land is where Crossgates Commons is) has closed.

City of Albany. That side of the road is Albany. The mall itself is in Guilderland, where the town has changed building codes so the mall can't expand, effectively sending tax dollars to Colonie as they are able to expand. I think it has closed and it leaves an effective monopoly in northeastern New York.

Quote from: lepidopteran on February 25, 2016, 11:25:27 PM

Quote from: cl94 on February 25, 2016, 09:16:19 PM
Sports Authority going under leaves Dick's as the only major player in a lot of the country.

Hmm, another monopoly, this one in the large-scale sporting goods sector.

Like when Circuit City closed, leaving Best Buy the last man standing.

Or when Linens 'n Things left Bed Bath and Beyond in charge.

How about Border's leaving Barnes and Noble the king of large-scale bookstores?

It's true, Dick's will join Bed Bath & Beyond, Best Buy and Barnes & Noble as monopolies who still charge more than Amazon.

Quote from: spooky on February 26, 2016, 08:55:21 AM

Quote from: lepidopteran on February 25, 2016, 11:25:27 PM

Quote from: cl94 on February 25, 2016, 09:16:19 PM
Sports Authority going under leaves Dick's as the only major player in a lot of the country.

Hmm, another monopoly, this one in the large-scale sporting goods sector.

Like when Circuit City closed, leaving Best Buy the last man standing.

Or when Linens 'n Things left Bed Bath and Beyond in charge.

How about Border's leaving Barnes and Noble the king of large-scale bookstores?

It's true, Dick's will join Bed Bath & Beyond, Best Buy and Barnes & Noble as monopolies who still charge more than Amazon.

B & N also bought out a lot of the regional chains. My dad was a regional manager at Lauriat's Books in the northeast and they were put under by B & N after a buyout.

Quote from: spooky on February 26, 2016, 08:55:21 AM

Quote from: lepidopteran on February 25, 2016, 11:25:27 PM

Quote from: cl94 on February 25, 2016, 09:16:19 PM
Sports Authority going under leaves Dick's as the only major player in a lot of the country.

Hmm, another monopoly, this one in the large-scale sporting goods sector.

Like when Circuit City closed, leaving Best Buy the last man standing.

Or when Linens 'n Things left Bed Bath and Beyond in charge.

How about Border's leaving Barnes and Noble the king of large-scale bookstores?

It's true, Dick's will join Bed Bath & Beyond, Best Buy and Barnes & Noble as monopolies who still charge more than Amazon.

Their model comes with too much overhead to beat Amazon, though I will say this: I was hunting for a coffee cold-brewer as a Christmas present at kitchen and department stores.  Couldn't find it, went to Amazon, paid shipping, got it last possible minute.

Five minutes later I went into Barnes & Noble and there it was, cheap.

This anecdote proves little, but it showed that even though B&N can beat Amazon at "right now," it has had to wander way away from its core business to do so.

B&N wanted a slot in a local mall, as a bargaining chip with mall management, they insisted the lease for an existing book store in that mall not be renewed.

And it wasn't.

I'd like to think that was the start of that mall winding up with it's 35% occupancy rate today.

Quote from: spooky on February 26, 2016, 08:55:21 AM

Quote from: lepidopteran on February 25, 2016, 11:25:27 PM

Quote from: cl94 on February 25, 2016, 09:16:19 PM
Sports Authority going under leaves Dick's as the only major player in a lot of the country.

Hmm, another monopoly, this one in the large-scale sporting goods sector.

Like when Circuit City closed, leaving Best Buy the last man standing.

Or when Linens 'n Things left Bed Bath and Beyond in charge.

How about Border's leaving Barnes and Noble the king of large-scale bookstores?

It's true, Dick's will join Bed Bath & Beyond, Best Buy and Barnes & Noble as monopolies who still charge more than Amazon.

How will Dick's be a monopoly with Scheel's, MC Sports, Hibbet Sports, and more indirectly, Gander Mountain, Bass Pro Shops, and Cabela's out there?

Quote from: lepidopteran on February 25, 2016, 11:25:27 PM

Quote from: cl94 on February 25, 2016, 09:16:19 PM
Sports Authority going under leaves Dick's as the only major player in a lot of the country.

Hmm, another monopoly, this one in the large-scale sporting goods sector.

Like when Circuit City closed, leaving Best Buy the last man standing.

Gee, what happened to HH Gregg and other smaller electronic/appliance stores, not to mention Sears (whose dealer stores do very well selling this stuff)?  Or Walmart for that matter?

QuoteOr when Linens 'n Things left Bed Bath and Beyond in charge.

Kinda silly when you consider that JCPenney, Kohl's, Macy's, Carson's, etc all compete very well in this segment.

QuoteHow about Border's leaving Barnes and Noble the king of large-scale bookstores?

Border's was always second place to B&N, but what about Books-A-Million?  How about the other, smaller chains out there?

Quote from: Brandon on February 26, 2016, 12:11:46 PM

Quote from: spooky on February 26, 2016, 08:55:21 AM

Quote from: lepidopteran on February 25, 2016, 11:25:27 PM

Quote from: cl94 on February 25, 2016, 09:16:19 PM
Sports Authority going under leaves Dick's as the only major player in a lot of the country.

Hmm, another monopoly, this one in the large-scale sporting goods sector.

Like when Circuit City closed, leaving Best Buy the last man standing.

Or when Linens 'n Things left Bed Bath and Beyond in charge.

How about Border's leaving Barnes and Noble the king of large-scale bookstores?

It's true, Dick's will join Bed Bath & Beyond, Best Buy and Barnes & Noble as monopolies who still charge more than Amazon.

How will Dick's be a monopoly with Scheel's, MC Sports, Hibbet Sports, and more indirectly, Gander Mountain, Bass Pro Shops, and Cabela's out there?

Because there's a good portion of the country where they aren't big players. The northeast is home turf for Dick's and a couple Cabela's and Bass Pro locations aren't doing anything to change that. They just don't have enough of the "traditional" sporting goods market and they're mainly specialty retailers to begin with. To put it in perspective, Barnes & Noble has competitors, but not everywhere. They have no competition in much of the northeast, as they bought out and subsequently bankrupted their competition.

Saying Dick's has a "monopoly" is silly.  Dick's has several product lines (serious exercise gear, team sports supplies, golf and tennis equipment, not so serious exercise gear, guns, outdoor gear, college and pro fan gear) all of which are sold at many other businesses, national and local.  While other stores may not have ALL the different items, all are available from multiple other sources in any place in the country.  There is no product line where Dick's is even close to the only national outlet for.

In southeastern PA, seeing a Modell's is more common than a Sports Authority or Dick's.

Quote from: lepidopteran on February 25, 2016, 11:25:27 PM
How about Border's leaving Barnes and Noble the king of large-scale bookstores?

Sucks to see Borders gone.

Speaking of book stores, Barnes and Noble isn't quite the major player here. Stores such as Books a Million and 2nd and Charles down in Hagerstown are doing better than the closest Barnes and Noble from here.

Quote from: noelbotevera on February 26, 2016, 03:23:29 PM

Quote from: lepidopteran on February 25, 2016, 11:25:27 PM
How about Border's leaving Barnes and Noble the king of large-scale bookstores?

Sucks to see Borders gone.

Speaking of book stores, Barnes and Noble isn't quite the major player here. Stores such as Books a Million and 2nd and Charles down in Hagerstown are doing better than the closest Barnes and Noble from here.

An independent bookstore opened here ten years ago and is still open and thriving.  This is very unusual.

Quote from: PHLBOS on February 26, 2016, 02:12:07 PM
In southeastern PA, seeing a Modell's is more common than a Sports Authority or Dick's.

Modell's pulled out of Ohio. Guess why.

White Castle closed many of its' Northeast Ohio locations too. Forgive me if this is old news - I neglected to see if this was previously mentioned. If so, my apologies.

Quote from: GCrites80s on February 26, 2016, 10:23:45 PM

Quote from: PHLBOS on February 26, 2016, 02:12:07 PM
In southeastern PA, seeing a Modell's is more common than a Sports Authority or Dick's.

Modell's pulled out of Ohio. Guess why.

Because they got a sweet deal by Maryland to move to Baltimore!!!

Quote from: route17fan on February 26, 2016, 11:05:29 PM
White Castle closed many of its' Northeast Ohio locations too. Forgive me if this is old news - I neglected to see if this was previously mentioned. If so, my apologies.

So did they in Kansas City too.  Back in 01 I was craving a White Castle, and saw the sign on US 71 (as their store in Grandview was listed on the logo sign), got off the highway to only find the store boarded up!  Then the one that was in North Kansas City on MO 9 was the same. 

It came as a shock to me, as I have not had one in a while and always thought that they had a good thing going where they were.   Like my late Uncle used to say its not the lack of customers but "Bad Management" that drives a business out.   

We had a Wataburger in Orlando at three locations which all had the customers, but they pulled the plug on it after a year or so.  I am guessing that whoever the company entrusted the franchise to, dropped the ball here.

Not exactly a chain, but Noble Roman's pizza is all but defunct. They were primarily c-store pizza (ala Hunt Brothers & Hot to Go), but were never very good, IMO.

Speaking of HtG, are there any Smash Hit Subs left?

All of the Pizza Huts near my house have closed since the Recession, as well as a few Friendly's.

There was one Roy Rodgers location in Manchester that is now a piss-poor Indian food restaurant (I don't understand how they still exist on the NYS Thruway).  There was also a Burger king in that town that closed in the early 2010s that is going to be a bank.

Friendly's completely vacated the Cape.  Shame, they were decent enough to eat at when you wanted a break from having seafood.  A&P is also completely gone there, many of them were converted to Job Lots.

Quote from: route17fan on February 26, 2016, 11:05:29 PM
White Castle closed many of its' Northeast Ohio locations too. Forgive me if this is old news - I neglected to see if this was previously mentioned. If so, my apologies.

Yup, that's true. The closest White Castle restaurant for me is in Whitehall PA, a little south of Allentown. They're basically gone in the Midwest, except for one lone restaurant in Indiana, and in the Northeast I've never seen expansion since the Great Recession.

Quote from: RobbieL2415 on February 27, 2016, 12:13:03 PM
All of the Pizza Huts near my house have closed since the Recession, as well as a few Friendly's.

There was one Roy Rodgers location in Manchester that is now a piss-poor Indian food restaurant (I don't understand how they still exist on the NYS Thruway).  There was also a Burger king in that town that closed in the early 2010s that is going to be a bank.

Friendly's completely vacated the Cape.  Shame, they were decent enough to eat at when you wanted a break from having seafood.  A&P is also completely gone there, many of them were converted to Job Lots.

I frequented that Roy Rogers, or at least stopped there enough times to know that it was a dump. They had stopped trying long before it closed.  The other one in that area, on 84 in Sturbridge, closed in 2012 or so.  This baffles me, because they were busy with bus traffic all the time.

I think they remain on some toll roads because those are run by food service companies (HMS Host?) under long-term contracts. They rarely survive renovations.  HMS Host actually owned Roy Rogers at some point.

Around 2009, a Roy's opened up new on 95 in Stonington, Connecticut, but I believe they have already closed.

I don't mind Friendly's, but it is a bipolar company, with certain locations managed terribly and others well.  This inconsistency has not been good for their business.

All A&P locations everywhere are now closed.

Quote from: noelbotevera on February 27, 2016, 01:50:05 PM

Quote from: route17fan on February 26, 2016, 11:05:29 PM
White Castle closed many of its' Northeast Ohio locations too. Forgive me if this is old news - I neglected to see if this was previously mentioned. If so, my apologies.

Yup, that's true. The closest White Castle restaurant for me is in Whitehall PA, a little south of Allentown. They're basically gone in the Midwest, except for one lone restaurant in Indiana, and in the Northeast I've never seen expansion since the Great Recession.

Excuse me!?!  White Castle is all over the flipping place in the Midwest.  There've got to be several dozen in the Chicago area alone.  I can name at least 5 in a very short driving distance.

Quote from: Brandon on February 27, 2016, 02:00:14 PM

Quote from: noelbotevera on February 27, 2016, 01:50:05 PM

Quote from: route17fan on February 26, 2016, 11:05:29 PM
White Castle closed many of its' Northeast Ohio locations too. Forgive me if this is old news - I neglected to see if this was previously mentioned. If so, my apologies.

Yup, that's true. The closest White Castle restaurant for me is in Whitehall PA, a little south of Allentown. They're basically gone in the Midwest, except for one lone restaurant in Indiana, and in the Northeast I've never seen expansion since the Great Recession.

Excuse me!?!  White Castle is all over the flipping place in the Midwest.  There've got to be several dozen in the Chicago area alone.  I can name at least 5 in a very short driving distance.

Yep, it's true. http://fox8.com/2014/12/11/northeast-ohio-white-castle-locations-to-close-permanently/

Quote from: route17fan on February 27, 2016, 03:02:51 PM

Quote from: Brandon on February 27, 2016, 02:00:14 PM

Quote from: noelbotevera on February 27, 2016, 01:50:05 PM

Quote from: route17fan on February 26, 2016, 11:05:29 PM
White Castle closed many of its' Northeast Ohio locations too. Forgive me if this is old news - I neglected to see if this was previously mentioned. If so, my apologies.

Yup, that's true. The closest White Castle restaurant for me is in Whitehall PA, a little south of Allentown. They're basically gone in the Midwest, except for one lone restaurant in Indiana, and in the Northeast I've never seen expansion since the Great Recession.

With all due respect, Northeast Ohio != The Midwest.

There's still lots of locations in and around Detroit, in addition to the ones noted above in Chicago.  Both of which are in The Midwest.

Excuse me!?!  White Castle is all over the flipping place in the Midwest.  There've got to be several dozen in the Chicago area alone.  I can name at least 5 in a very short driving distance.

Yep, it's true. http://fox8.com/2014/12/11/northeast-ohio-white-castle-locations-to-close-permanently/

Roy Rogers was good when they were owned by Marriot.  When they got sold, it went down hill.

Bonanza was good, but they closed them all in North Jersey and Virginia.  I was surprised back in 96 that they still had one opened in Milford, DE.  I ate there then to enjoy the buffet and steaks they served.

Shoneys was great until they went belly up.  One store still exists near Disney in Lake Buena Vista, FL, but that is it for my area anyway.

Big Boy was all over, but in Florida and the East Coast they vanished.  Shoneys used to have a franchise of them until they started invading other franchise markets and they dropped them.  The only ones I saw were in Michigan and ate at one in Charlotte on the way back from Saulte Ste. Marie back in 08.

Jack In The Box used to be in NJ, but closed.  Until I went to California in 88, I had no idea that they were still around. Every time I go to Texas I eat at them.

Not exactly in financial trouble, but Braums is only in a circular market of 300 miles around OKC.  They told me they will not go outside that ring because they want all their products to be fresh in all their stores as their dairy is in a suburb of Oklahoma City.  So all of you who live in Oklahoma, Southern Kansas, Western Arkansas, and Northern Texas you are lucky as they have one of the best hamburgers and ice cream around.  In fact one couple I know in Wichita, buys their milk from them as their milk seems to hold out the best for taste and freshness.

Kmart as we all know, has been in trouble for decades and scaled back big after Sears bought them out. In Orlando the ones in South Orlando all closed including the one near I Drive and Sand Lake Road.  I guess they could not compete with Target or Walmart and did not want to try.  Kissimmee, FL is the only one left this side of Orlando.


Pizza Hut cut their own throat when they pushed their carry out and raised prices big.  The one near me closed and they were in the ideal location across a street from Gatorland.  In Houma, LA they closed them all as I can see the old buildings now being used by other establishments.  When I visited a friend there in 11, I was surprised that at least one of their stores was not still open, but my friend and other locals said people of Houma just do not crave pizza like they do the cajun stuff.

Quote from: roadman65 on February 27, 2016, 07:17:20 PM
Kmart as we all know, has been in trouble for decades and scaled back big after Sears bought them out.

I don't know how many times this must be said, KMART BOUGHT SEARS AND BECAME SEARS HOLDINGS!  Sears did not buy Kmart.

Quote from: Brandon on February 27, 2016, 07:37:35 PM

Quote from: roadman65 on February 27, 2016, 07:17:20 PM
Kmart as we all know, has been in trouble for decades and scaled back big after Sears bought them out.

I don't know how many times this must be said, KMART BOUGHT SEARS AND BECAME SEARS HOLDINGS!  Sears did not buy Kmart.

Yeah right!  Sears is bigger than Kmart and the old Kresky's was in Chapter 11 and could not buy anything with its financial state. 

I used to think the same but someone very knowledgeable I know in business got mad like you did and set me straight about that one.  Unless some miracle took place for a company in bankrupcy was able to get a hold of billions of dollars and then make a drastic buy, that could only fly.

Quote from: roadman65 on February 27, 2016, 07:44:03 PM

Quote from: Brandon on February 27, 2016, 07:37:35 PM

Quote from: roadman65 on February 27, 2016, 07:17:20 PM
Kmart as we all know, has been in trouble for decades and scaled back big after Sears bought them out.

I don't know how many times this must be said, KMART BOUGHT SEARS AND BECAME SEARS HOLDINGS!  Sears did not buy Kmart.

Yeah right!  Sears is bigger than Kmart and the old Kresky's was in Chapter 11 and could not buy anything with its financial state. 

I used to think the same but someone very knowledgeable I know in business got mad like you did and set me straight about that one.  Unless some miracle took place for a company in bankrupcy was able to get a hold of billions of dollars and then make a drastic buy, that could only fly.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sears_Holdings

QuoteSears Holdings Corporation is an American holding company headquartered in Hoffman Estates, Illinois. It is the owner of retail store brands Sears and Kmart, and was founded after the latter purchased the former in 2005.

That means Kmart bought Sears.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A56358-2004Nov17.html

http://money.cnn.com/2004/11/17/news/fortune500/sears_kmart/

QuoteKmart is buying Sears, Roebuck & Co. for $11 billion in a deal that will marry two of the nation's oldest retailers that had trouble keeping up with the changes in American culture around them.

Why do you doubt the facts?

Pizza Hut just closed one of their more visible outlets here in the Appleton, WI area (College Ave/WI 125 just east of I-41).

Mike

Quote from: Brandon on February 27, 2016, 10:44:20 PM

Quote from: roadman65 on February 27, 2016, 07:44:03 PM

Quote from: Brandon on February 27, 2016, 07:37:35 PM

Quote from: roadman65 on February 27, 2016, 07:17:20 PM
Kmart as we all know, has been in trouble for decades and scaled back big after Sears bought them out.

I don't know how many times this must be said, KMART BOUGHT SEARS AND BECAME SEARS HOLDINGS!  Sears did not buy Kmart.

Yeah right!  Sears is bigger than Kmart and the old Kresky's was in Chapter 11 and could not buy anything with its financial state. 

I used to think the same but someone very knowledgeable I know in business got mad like you did and set me straight about that one.  Unless some miracle took place for a company in bankrupcy was able to get a hold of billions of dollars and then make a drastic buy, that could only fly.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sears_Holdings

QuoteSears Holdings Corporation is an American holding company headquartered in Hoffman Estates, Illinois. It is the owner of retail store brands Sears and Kmart, and was founded after the latter purchased the former in 2005.

That means Kmart bought Sears.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A56358-2004Nov17.html

http://money.cnn.com/2004/11/17/news/fortune500/sears_kmart/

QuoteKmart is buying Sears, Roebuck & Co. for $11 billion in a deal that will marry two of the nation's oldest retailers that had trouble keeping up with the changes in American culture around them.

Why do you doubt the facts?

Judging by some of the recent news articles I have read, I will be curious as to which of the 2 brands will close their last remaining store first?  I hear more dire news of Sears than Kmart, but then again Sears has been along longer and is key to survival of many high-vacancy indoor malls, yet as one poster mentioned earlier, many of those smaller "storefront" Sears stores in the smaller towns that don't carry clothing or soft-end items are pretty much keeping the whole chain afloat...for now.

Considering that Kmart bought Sears, I would also think that the former will try to put the latter out first just to make Kmart look like the good guys by claiming that it was Sears who brought them to where they are today (which is far from the truth).

There is almost nothing that could leave Kmart with a good reputation.  Sears has a very small amount more goodwill left.

Quote from: Jardine on February 26, 2016, 11:25:22 AM
B&N wanted a slot in a local mall, as a bargaining chip with mall management, they insisted the lease for an existing book store in that mall not be renewed.

And it wasn't.

I'd like to think that was the start of that mall winding up with it's 35% occupancy rate today.

This sounds like Crossroads Mall in Omaha.  I remember that bookstore, but not the name of it.

A large number of Pizza Huts closed in Minnesota when one of their largest franchisees in the state ran into issues and vacated the brand, but a number of the restaurants have now returned.

Quote from: Brandon on February 27, 2016, 10:44:20 PM

Quote from: roadman65 on February 27, 2016, 07:44:03 PM

Quote from: Brandon on February 27, 2016, 07:37:35 PM

Quote from: roadman65 on February 27, 2016, 07:17:20 PM
Kmart as we all know, has been in trouble for decades and scaled back big after Sears bought them out.

I don't know how many times this must be said, KMART BOUGHT SEARS AND BECAME SEARS HOLDINGS!  Sears did not buy Kmart.

Yeah right!  Sears is bigger than Kmart and the old Kresky's was in Chapter 11 and could not buy anything with its financial state. 

I used to think the same but someone very knowledgeable I know in business got mad like you did and set me straight about that one.  Unless some miracle took place for a company in bankrupcy was able to get a hold of billions of dollars and then make a drastic buy, that could only fly.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sears_Holdings

QuoteSears Holdings Corporation is an American holding company headquartered in Hoffman Estates, Illinois. It is the owner of retail store brands Sears and Kmart, and was founded after the latter purchased the former in 2005.

That means Kmart bought Sears.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A56358-2004Nov17.html

http://money.cnn.com/2004/11/17/news/fortune500/sears_kmart/

QuoteKmart is buying Sears, Roebuck & Co. for $11 billion in a deal that will marry two of the nation's oldest retailers that had trouble keeping up with the changes in American culture around them.

Why do you doubt the facts?

I doubt it is because Kmart is a small department store usually with one floor of selling space.  Most Sears are two story stores (in some malls they have three floors) and it does seem odd that a small department store (that filed for bankruptcy previously) can buy another chain bigger than they are.

Look, what difference does it make who owns who.  Like is my life (or yours) going to get any better by knowing who owns who.  Really, we have more problems to worry about like what we do after the next moron wins the 2016 presidential election, as IMHO opinion none of the candidates whether Rubio, Trump, Cruz, Sanders, or Mrs. Clinton are presidential material.   Our country is based on propaganda and no real candidate really does anything to address the real concerns of this nation.  Anyway, I do not want to bring that crap into this, but really who cares about whether Sears owns Kmart or if Kmart owns Sears.   I do not even shop at either retailer anyway, except for my car battery as DieHard brand prorate your batteries if they go before the time period on them, which is what I like not having to shell out over 100 bucks to replace a battery.

Quote from: roadman65 on February 28, 2016, 06:35:42 AM

Quote from: Brandon on February 27, 2016, 10:44:20 PM

Quote from: roadman65 on February 27, 2016, 07:44:03 PM

Quote from: Brandon on February 27, 2016, 07:37:35 PM

Quote from: roadman65 on February 27, 2016, 07:17:20 PM
Kmart as we all know, has been in trouble for decades and scaled back big after Sears bought them out.

I don't know how many times this must be said, KMART BOUGHT SEARS AND BECAME SEARS HOLDINGS!  Sears did not buy Kmart.

Yeah right!  Sears is bigger than Kmart and the old Kresky's was in Chapter 11 and could not buy anything with its financial state. 

I used to think the same but someone very knowledgeable I know in business got mad like you did and set me straight about that one.  Unless some miracle took place for a company in bankrupcy was able to get a hold of billions of dollars and then make a drastic buy, that could only fly.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sears_Holdings

QuoteSears Holdings Corporation is an American holding company headquartered in Hoffman Estates, Illinois. It is the owner of retail store brands Sears and Kmart, and was founded after the latter purchased the former in 2005.

That means Kmart bought Sears.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A56358-2004Nov17.html

http://money.cnn.com/2004/11/17/news/fortune500/sears_kmart/

QuoteKmart is buying Sears, Roebuck & Co. for $11 billion in a deal that will marry two of the nation's oldest retailers that had trouble keeping up with the changes in American culture around them.

Why do you doubt the facts?

I doubt it is because Kmart is a small department store usually with one floor of selling space.  Most Sears are two story stores (in some malls they have three floors) and it does seem odd that a small department store (that filed for bankruptcy previously) can buy another chain bigger than they are.

Smaller companies buy bigger ones all the time.  Anyway, the CEO of Sears was Alan Lacy.  The CEO of Kmart was Eddie Lampert.  The CEo of Sears Holdings is Eddie Lampert.  Alan Lacy is no longer with the company.  Usually the CEO of the purchasing company becomes the CEO of the new, combined company.

Quote from: DandyDan on February 28, 2016, 03:06:59 AM

Quote from: Jardine on February 26, 2016, 11:25:22 AM
B&N wanted a slot in a local mall, as a bargaining chip with mall management, they insisted the lease for an existing book store in that mall not be renewed.

And it wasn't.

I'd like to think that was the start of that mall winding up with it's 35% occupancy rate today.

This sounds like Crossroads Mall in Omaha.  I remember that bookstore, but not the name of it.

Yeah, I can't remember the name of that book store either, but it had been in that mall for a very long time.  And it was the Crossroads.  When I was a kid that mall was the place to go.  It was always busy.  We usually had lunch on the upper floor of Brandeis in their buffet/cafeteria.

I remember the kiddie rides in the center of the mall, seems like they rotated several kiosks thru the years too, I went to the handwriting analysis one.

Nobody really noticed how the teenagers were 'taking over' that mall until they started shooting at each other . . .

Waldens was all over the malls, but according to wiki they were part of the Borders Family, so the reason is obvious.

Quote from: mgk920 on February 28, 2016, 12:47:52 AM
Pizza Hut just closed one of their more visible outlets here in the Appleton, WI area (College Ave/WI 125 just east of I-41).

Mike

Strange. the Pizza Hut here upgraded a couple years ago.

Quote from: roadman65 on February 28, 2016, 10:56:06 AM
Waldens was all over the malls, but according to wiki they were part of the Borders Family, so the reason is obvious.

In the 1990s, Waldenbooks and B. Dalton were the mall outlets of Borders and Barnes & Noble, respectively.  At that time those chains were exploding into ever-larger big-box formats, and rarely fit into existing malls.  As these companies decimated retail bookselling, and Amazon did the same to them in turn, I'm sure these small outlets became unprofitable.

It's hard to imagine now that bookstores were rarely any bigger than Walden/B.Dalton before the 1990s.  Those were large bookstores in their heyday.

Quote from: noelbotevera on February 28, 2016, 03:11:13 PM

Quote from: mgk920 on February 28, 2016, 12:47:52 AM
Pizza Hut just closed one of their more visible outlets here in the Appleton, WI area (College Ave/WI 125 just east of I-41).

Mike

Strange. the Pizza Hut here upgraded a couple years ago.

Here too last year.

Quote from: noelbotevera on February 28, 2016, 03:11:13 PM

Quote from: mgk920 on February 28, 2016, 12:47:52 AM
Pizza Hut just closed one of their more visible outlets here in the Appleton, WI area (College Ave/WI 125 just east of I-41).

Mike

Strange. the Pizza Hut here upgraded a couple years ago.

You're talking about two locations of a chain in highly disparate markets. The economic conditions which allowed your Pizza Hut to have an upgrade may not have existed in the Appleton area Mike mentions.

Quote from: rawmustard on February 28, 2016, 04:17:40 PM

Quote from: noelbotevera on February 28, 2016, 03:11:13 PM

Quote from: mgk920 on February 28, 2016, 12:47:52 AM
Pizza Hut just closed one of their more visible outlets here in the Appleton, WI area (College Ave/WI 125 just east of I-41).

Mike

Strange. the Pizza Hut here upgraded a couple years ago.

You're talking about two locations of a chain in highly disparate markets. The economic conditions which allowed your Pizza Hut to have an upgrade may not have existed in the Appleton area Mike mentions.

And given that they're franchised locations, it's the franchisee that may have given up in Appleton, while a completely different franchisee revamped theirs in Chambersburg.

Quote from: PHLBOS on June 22, 2015, 03:58:49 PM

Quote from: SP Cook on June 21, 2015, 06:08:31 PM
Personally, while not exactly "roadside" I see Domino's as dying.

Domino's officially changed their name from Domino's Pizza to just Domino's recently.  The reasoning for such was due to their expanded product line (i.e. not just pizzas).  Such a name change was not unlike when Boston Chicken (remember that name?) changed to Boston Market during the 90s... expansion/promotion of its non-chicken products.

I used to think of the Boston Red Sox as the "Boston Chickens" because of their then-ongoing futility in fighting the Bambino Curse.  But Boston Chicken's name change made that pun obsolete.

Boston Market still has five locations in the above the C&D Canal portion of Delaware.

ixnay

Quote from: ixnay on February 29, 2016, 08:24:36 PM

Quote from: PHLBOS on June 22, 2015, 03:58:49 PM

Quote from: SP Cook on June 21, 2015, 06:08:31 PM
Personally, while not exactly "roadside" I see Domino's as dying.

Domino's officially changed their name from Domino's Pizza to just Domino's recently.  The reasoning for such was due to their expanded product line (i.e. not just pizzas).  Such a name change was not unlike when Boston Chicken (remember that name?) changed to Boston Market during the 90s... expansion/promotion of its non-chicken products.

I used to think of the Boston Red Sox as the "Boston Chickens" because of their then-ongoing futility in fighting the Bambino Curse.  But Boston Chicken's name change made that pun obsolete.

Boston Market still has five locations in the above the C&D Canal portion of Delaware.

ixnay

The timing was off by decades for the full potential of that joke, because in the old days across Comm Ave from your "Boston Chickens" were the Boston Braves!

Wasn't product diversification one of the reasons purported for the change of branding from Kentucky Fried Chicken to KFC?  I feel like this happens to a lot of companies even though I can't immediately think of other examples.

Quote from: ixnay on February 29, 2016, 08:24:36 PM

Quote from: PHLBOS on June 22, 2015, 03:58:49 PM

Quote from: SP Cook on June 21, 2015, 06:08:31 PM
Personally, while not exactly "roadside" I see Domino's as dying.

Domino's officially changed their name from Domino's Pizza to just Domino's recently.  The reasoning for such was due to their expanded product line (i.e. not just pizzas).  Such a name change was not unlike when Boston Chicken (remember that name?) changed to Boston Market during the 90s... expansion/promotion of its non-chicken products.

I used to think of the Boston Red Sox as the "Boston Chickens" because of their then-ongoing futility in fighting the Bambino Curse.  But Boston Chicken's name change made that pun obsolete.

Boston Market still has five locations in the above the C&D Canal portion of Delaware.

ixnay

Nowadays, the most relevant Boston Market joke concerns Kellen Winslow Jr. (http://www.sbnation.com/nfl/2014/1/17/5318728/kellen-winslow-jr-boston-market-masturbation) and his 2013 arrest while looking for one (story, although reported widely by major news outlets, is kinda NSFW)

Does anybody know what happened to all the Schlotzsky's restaurants in the Great Lakes region?  All the ones in Illinois closed down some 5-10 years ago.  Last time I found one was Omaha, NE and Greenville, TX.  I think they might still be operating in Wisconsin?

Quote from: paulthemapguy on March 01, 2016, 03:19:47 PM
Does anybody know what happened to all the Schlotzsky's restaurants in the Great Lakes region?  All the ones in Illinois closed down some 5-10 years ago.  Last time I found one was Omaha, NE and Greenville, TX.  I think they might still be operating in Wisconsin?

The only one I've been to was in southern Indiana.  Schlocky's, if you ask me.

Quote from: paulthemapguy on March 01, 2016, 03:19:47 PM
Does anybody know what happened to all the Schlotzsky's restaurants in the Great Lakes region?  All the ones in Illinois closed down some 5-10 years ago.  Last time I found one was Omaha, NE and Greenville, TX.  I think they might still be operating in Wisconsin?

The novelty wore off?  I used to like Schlotzky's...until I went to a real deli.

Quote from: paulthemapguy on March 01, 2016, 03:19:47 PM
Does anybody know what happened to all the Schlotzsky's restaurants in the Great Lakes region?  All the ones in Illinois closed down some 5-10 years ago.  Last time I found one was Omaha, NE and Greenville, TX.  I think they might still be operating in Wisconsin?

That's a good question. I was living in Appalachia in the mid-2000s. Then I moved to Columbus, OH for a little while, which did have Scholtzsky's. After that I was in Cincinnati from 2006 to 2009. No Scholtzsky's there. Then it was back to Columbus and there weren't any Scholtzsky's here anymore.

Quote from: Rothman on March 01, 2016, 10:09:42 PM

Quote from: paulthemapguy on March 01, 2016, 03:19:47 PM
Does anybody know what happened to all the Schlotzsky's restaurants in the Great Lakes region?  All the ones in Illinois closed down some 5-10 years ago.  Last time I found one was Omaha, NE and Greenville, TX.  I think they might still be operating in Wisconsin?

The novelty wore off?  I used to like Schlotzky's...until I went to a real deli.

Exactly.

Quote from: paulthemapguy on March 01, 2016, 03:19:47 PM
Does anybody know what happened to all the Schlotzsky's restaurants in the Great Lakes region?  All the ones in Illinois closed down some 5-10 years ago.  Last time I found one was Omaha, NE and Greenville, TX.  I think they might still be operating in Wisconsin?

Their west Appleton, WI outlet is still operating.

Mike

Quote from: paulthemapguy on March 01, 2016, 03:19:47 PM
Does anybody know what happened to all the Schlotzsky's restaurants in the Great Lakes region?  All the ones in Illinois closed down some 5-10 years ago.  Last time I found one was Omaha, NE and Greenville, TX.  I think they might still be operating in Wisconsin?

We still have Schlotzsky's in Battle Creek and Kalamazoo, although it isn't a place that I tend to frequent.

And I believe there's still one in Maumee, Ohio.

Quote from: roadman65 on February 27, 2016, 07:17:20 PM
Not exactly in financial trouble, but Braums is only in a circular market of 300 miles around OKC.  They told me they will not go outside that ring because they want all their products to be fresh in all their stores as their dairy is in a suburb of Oklahoma City.  So all of you who live in Oklahoma, Southern Kansas, Western Arkansas, and Northern Texas you are lucky as they have one of the best hamburgers and ice cream around.  In fact one couple I know in Wichita, buys their milk from them as their milk seems to hold out the best for taste and freshness.

I do the same. Can't stand grocery store milk knowing that Braum's is right there. I pop in to Braum's to buy milk often enough that they know me there (although that's mostly because I usually pay for my milk with a pair of $2 bills). Half the time I'll pick up dinner there too since I'm buying milk there already.

Their dairy is located in Tuttle, which isn't exactly an OKC suburb. It's an exurb if anything. Rural town, might function as a bedroom community to OKC for a lot of people, but it's more rural than suburban. We got to tour the dairy as a field trip once. It was pretty interesting.

Definitely not in financial trouble. The one closest to my house, which is also the closest one to OU, is always fairly busy, not least because they had a student-oriented apartment complex built up around them. Lucky kids get to go downstairs and have a mini grocery store right there.

Ponderosa and Sizzler used to be big, but now are steady.  Only a few of their stores with no new ones.

Racetrac Gas in Orlando is a funny one.  They have built many stores and many of the many changed over to either Shell or Sunoco after six months or around. Then after they transfer the ownership of the station/convenience store they build a brand new facility.   I do not know how they can build at the same time they are closing many stores even in prime locations too.  There was one on John Young Parkway at Old Winter Garden Road that did very well, but he became Sunoco, and now the store sits closed.

What happened to Wags Restaurant?  I saw them first back in 1990, the first time I visited Miami and Key West.  Ate at both the one on US 1 at the entrance to Key West and the one on 36th Street near Miami Airport and had a damn good breakfast.  I found later that they had one in Orlando, but closed to become either an Allies (small stand alone store) or Shoney's. I cannot remember who was there first as it was over 2 decades ago.

Quincy's was one I thought closed, however back in 09 driving on I-95 in Florence I was shocked to see a large billboard advertisement of their approaching I-20.   I thought that someone forgot to remove the sign as FDOT forgot to do on I-4's Exit 80 logo sign for several years after the OBT and Oakridge location closed in Orlando.  However, it was there at the US 52 exit across the RR track.  Now I found out its the only one of two left via an earlier post here. 

Golden Skillet I believe, is like Stuckeys is,  with only a few left nationwide.

Hardees in Orlando closed all their stores despite them and Carls Jr. are very much around.

Krystal used to be Open 24 Hours, but in the Orlando Market cut its hours back to being only open from morning till evening.

Long John Silvers was all over, but they scaled back big time at least in Florida.

Captain D's Seafood was also all over Central Florida, but now have only three or four of em left here.  The one in Winter Haven closed that I used to eat at a lot when I used to rail fan in nearby Auburndale and had customers for sure.  I cannot say about the markets outside Central Florida for sure.

Chesapeake Bay Seafood House, was all over Northern Virginia and a few stores in the Philadelphia area with the Oxford Valley Store being one my parents and I would eat at when we lived in New Jersey.  We later learned that only one is left and that is the one in Potomac Mills in VA.  I have no idea if that one is still there or not as it was in 09 that we ate there last.

Quote from: roadman65 on March 04, 2016, 06:58:23 AM
What happened to Wags Restaurant?  I saw them first back in 1990, the first time I visited Miami and Key West.  Ate at both the one on US 1 at the entrance to Key West and the one on 36th Street near Miami Airport and had a damn good breakfast.  I found later that they had one in Orlando, but closed to become either an Allies (small stand alone store) or Shoney's. I cannot remember who was there first as it was over 2 decades ago.

Wag's, owned by Walgreen's, was sold by Walgreen's to Marriott in 1988, who subsequently sold 30 of them around Chicagoland to Lunan Corporation in 1991.  The rest were just closed and sold piecemeal.  The Chicagoland ones were converted to Shoney's by 1994, and later sold piecemeal.  Some are still around today as IHOPs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wag's

Quote from: 1995hoo on February 07, 2016, 10:07:08 AM

Quote from: 1995hoo on February 06, 2016, 11:21:30 AM

Quote from: cl94 on February 05, 2016, 10:45:18 AM....

Arthur Treacher's has locations in Metro New York and Cleveland, plus one location each in Stroudsburg and Fairfax.

I believe the Arthur Treacher's in Fairfax has closed. I just drove past there Tuesday morning but I wasn't paying attention to the roadside businesses to be able to confirm for sure. More than one person on another forum I sometimes visit has said it's no longer open.


(Edited to fix mangled quotes. I should know better than to try to edit down long posts using the touchscreen keyboard.)

I was just downloading dashcam videos, so I scanned through the one in which I passed the Arthur Treacher's location in Fairfax. Not only is the franchise closed, the building has been demolished and replaced by something else.

Arthur Treacher's on Waterloo Road in Akron is still going strong....picked up stuff there a couple days ago. 

Quote from: PurdueBill on March 04, 2016, 01:47:51 PM

Quote from: 1995hoo on February 07, 2016, 10:07:08 AM

Quote from: 1995hoo on February 06, 2016, 11:21:30 AM

Quote from: cl94 on February 05, 2016, 10:45:18 AM....

Arthur Treacher's has locations in Metro New York and Cleveland, plus one location each in Stroudsburg and Fairfax.

I believe the Arthur Treacher's in Fairfax has closed. I just drove past there Tuesday morning but I wasn't paying attention to the roadside businesses to be able to confirm for sure. More than one person on another forum I sometimes visit has said it's no longer open.


(Edited to fix mangled quotes. I should know better than to try to edit down long posts using the touchscreen keyboard.)

I was just downloading dashcam videos, so I scanned through the one in which I passed the Arthur Treacher's location in Fairfax. Not only is the franchise closed, the building has been demolished and replaced by something else.

Arthur Treacher's on Waterloo Road in Akron is still going strong....picked up stuff there a couple days ago.

I used to go to the one in Barberton a lot.  Now it's a Subway, but they kept the lantern-shaped sign!

Wow they're still around!  I thought they died in the early 80's until the resurfaced when Miami Subs opened up here in Central Florida.  Then I thought they died again when Miami Subs bit the dust.  Still someplace in the US they still live.  I missed their fish so much.

Quote from: roadman65 on March 04, 2016, 06:58:23 AM
Long John Silvers was all over, but they scaled back big time at least in Florida.

Most of their Upstate New York locations have closed. They still have locations in Batavia, Glens Falls, Hudson, Newburgh, Oneida and Vestal. All are co-located with Taco Bell, KFC, or A&W. There used to be a bunch near Albany, but only Glens Falls is left.

Quote from: cl94 on March 04, 2016, 02:54:12 PM

Quote from: roadman65 on March 04, 2016, 06:58:23 AM
Long John Silvers was all over, but they scaled back big time at least in Florida.

Most of their Upstate New York locations have closed. They still have locations in Batavia, Glens Falls, Hudson, Newburgh, Oneida and Vestal. All are co-located with Taco Bell, KFC, or A&W. There used to be a bunch near Albany, but only Glens Falls is left.

They were all over the Northeast in their trademark salt box cottage into the 1980s, then vanished for 20 years.  Once they became part of the Yum! family, new locations returned in the early 2000s.  Some of those have already gone.

I've heard speculation that better fish in this area is too abundant for people to eat LJS.  I will still eat it on rare occasions solely out of nostalgia.  It might be the only fast food I have a soft spot for.

Quote from: cl94 on March 04, 2016, 02:54:12 PM

Quote from: roadman65 on March 04, 2016, 06:58:23 AM
Long John Silvers was all over, but they scaled back big time at least in Florida.

Most of their Upstate New York locations have closed. They still have locations in Batavia, Glens Falls, Hudson, Newburgh, Oneida and Vestal. All are co-located with Taco Bell, KFC, or A&W. There used to be a bunch near Albany, but only Glens Falls is left.

That means NJ will never get their first store ever!  Oh bummer! Lol!

My aunt who lived in Bridgewater, NJ would drive 35 miles to Wilson, PA to eat at one, and she actually asked why they won't ever open up one in New Jersey.  This was back in the 1990's when they were still big, and her answer from the employees, who often got asked that question was surprising.  It was because the company that owned them did not want to pay high NJ taxes!

I do not know the accuracy of that statement, but given the fact it took Pizza Hut nearly a decade before invading New Jersey's fast food market as PA and NY always had them throughout the 70's, it was not until the mid 1980's when they started popping up (at least in North Jersey) in the Garden State.   

Taco Bell also did not appear in the GS (although they might of been in South Jersey for years before) also till the late 80's.

Also considering that most resort towns like Wildwood have hardly any chain or brand name motels, as the lodging in that (and other ) NJ resort city is still mom and pop oriented.  Some may say that is a godsend after the Walmart takeover of the retail and small business market.  Some may even say that  because New England is still full of resort towns that also have mom and pop motels over chain denomination hotels and small lodges may be a thing about the seasons where as south of Virginia Beach the Summer beach seasons are longer than north of Hampton Roads.  So this may be apples to oranges, but it makes me think that NJ taxes may be too high that LJS stayed out and never crossed the Hudson or Delaware, or the imaginary line between Montague & Port Jervis and Alpine-Orangetown.

Quote from: roadman65 on March 04, 2016, 03:34:11 PM

Quote from: cl94 on March 04, 2016, 02:54:12 PM

Quote from: roadman65 on March 04, 2016, 06:58:23 AM
Long John Silvers was all over, but they scaled back big time at least in Florida.

Most of their Upstate New York locations have closed. They still have locations in Batavia, Glens Falls, Hudson, Newburgh, Oneida and Vestal. All are co-located with Taco Bell, KFC, or A&W. There used to be a bunch near Albany, but only Glens Falls is left.

That means NJ will never get their first store ever!  Oh bummer! Lol!

There's been a combo Taco Bell/LJS in Mantua, NJ for years.

QuoteTaco Bell also did not appear in the GS (although they might of been in South Jersey for years before) also till the late 80's.

I'm pretty sure they were in NJ in the early 80's at least.  Whenever they actually had a real bell in their old design was the time period it was built.

Quote from: jeffandnicole on March 04, 2016, 03:50:35 PM

Quote from: roadman65 on March 04, 2016, 03:34:11 PM

Quote from: cl94 on March 04, 2016, 02:54:12 PM

Quote from: roadman65 on March 04, 2016, 06:58:23 AM
Long John Silvers was all over, but they scaled back big time at least in Florida.

Most of their Upstate New York locations have closed. They still have locations in Batavia, Glens Falls, Hudson, Newburgh, Oneida and Vestal. All are co-located with Taco Bell, KFC, or A&W. There used to be a bunch near Albany, but only Glens Falls is left.

That means NJ will never get their first store ever!  Oh bummer! Lol!

There's been a combo Taco Bell/LJS in Mantua, NJ for years.

QuoteTaco Bell also did not appear in the GS (although they might of been in South Jersey for years before) also till the late 80's.

I'm pretty sure they were in NJ in the early 80's at least.  Whenever they actually had a real bell in their old design was the time period it was built.

I thought so with that last one as I saw one on US 130 in Cinnamson back in 1985.  I ate at that location then because we had none in Union County yet.

Quote from: jeffandnicole on March 04, 2016, 03:50:35 PM

Quote from: roadman65 on March 04, 2016, 03:34:11 PM

Quote from: cl94 on March 04, 2016, 02:54:12 PM

Quote from: roadman65 on March 04, 2016, 06:58:23 AM
Long John Silvers was all over, but they scaled back big time at least in Florida.

Most of their Upstate New York locations have closed. They still have locations in Batavia, Glens Falls, Hudson, Newburgh, Oneida and Vestal. All are co-located with Taco Bell, KFC, or A&W. There used to be a bunch near Albany, but only Glens Falls is left.

That means NJ will never get their first store ever!  Oh bummer! Lol!

There's been a combo Taco Bell/LJS in Mantua, NJ for years.

QuoteTaco Bell also did not appear in the GS (although they might of been in South Jersey for years before) also till the late 80's.

I'm pretty sure they were in NJ in the early 80's at least.  Whenever they actually had a real bell in their old design was the time period it was built.

They were all over the place, and the buildings are often still there.  Here's one:

https://goo.gl/maps/KuWicrWaxHx

Quote from: Pete from Boston on March 04, 2016, 05:40:19 PM

Quote from: jeffandnicole on March 04, 2016, 03:50:35 PM

Quote from: roadman65 on March 04, 2016, 03:34:11 PM

Quote from: cl94 on March 04, 2016, 02:54:12 PM

Quote from: roadman65 on March 04, 2016, 06:58:23 AM
Long John Silvers was all over, but they scaled back big time at least in Florida.

Most of their Upstate New York locations have closed. They still have locations in Batavia, Glens Falls, Hudson, Newburgh, Oneida and Vestal. All are co-located with Taco Bell, KFC, or A&W. There used to be a bunch near Albany, but only Glens Falls is left.

That means NJ will never get their first store ever!  Oh bummer! Lol!

There's been a combo Taco Bell/LJS in Mantua, NJ for years.

QuoteTaco Bell also did not appear in the GS (although they might of been in South Jersey for years before) also till the late 80's.

I'm pretty sure they were in NJ in the early 80's at least.  Whenever they actually had a real bell in their old design was the time period it was built.

They were all over the place, and the buildings are often still there.  Here's one:

https://goo.gl/maps/KuWicrWaxHx

Wow.  That looks really small for a Long John Silver's.

We used to have a Taco Bell/KFC in Ann Arbor.  I'm pretty sure it was the nastiest place I ever ate at.  The roaches and the rats had better places to hang out.

:bigass:

Quote from: Pete from Boston on March 04, 2016, 03:30:12 PM


I've heard speculation that better fish in this area is too abundant for people to eat LJS.  I will still eat it on rare occasions solely out of nostalgia.  It might be the only fast food I have a soft spot for.

Oh yeah, the fish close to the coast is way better than what we get out here. I can definitely taste the difference. Oddly, the chicken is better too despite the fact that chicken comes from all over the U.S.

Quote from: Pete from Boston on March 04, 2016, 05:40:19 PM

Quote from: jeffandnicole on March 04, 2016, 03:50:35 PM

Quote from: roadman65 on March 04, 2016, 03:34:11 PM

Quote from: cl94 on March 04, 2016, 02:54:12 PM

Quote from: roadman65 on March 04, 2016, 06:58:23 AM
Long John Silvers was all over, but they scaled back big time at least in Florida.

Most of their Upstate New York locations have closed. They still have locations in Batavia, Glens Falls, Hudson, Newburgh, Oneida and Vestal. All are co-located with Taco Bell, KFC, or A&W. There used to be a bunch near Albany, but only Glens Falls is left.

That means NJ will never get their first store ever!  Oh bummer! Lol!

There's been a combo Taco Bell/LJS in Mantua, NJ for years.

QuoteTaco Bell also did not appear in the GS (although they might of been in South Jersey for years before) also till the late 80's.

I'm pretty sure they were in NJ in the early 80's at least.  Whenever they actually had a real bell in their old design was the time period it was built.

They were all over the place, and the buildings are often still there.  Here's one:

https://goo.gl/maps/KuWicrWaxHx

Another one (Appleton, WI).  It's now a cell phone store:
https://goo.gl/maps/2jfzZn6tRBq

IIRC, it closed in either the late 1980s or early 1990s after a short run.

BTW, if you go a very short distance to the west of that image there is a defunct Schlotzsky's, now a Starbucks, on the other side of that Arby's.

Mike

Quote from: renegade on March 04, 2016, 06:36:15 PM

Quote from: Pete from Boston on March 04, 2016, 05:40:19 PM

Quote from: jeffandnicole on March 04, 2016, 03:50:35 PM

Quote from: roadman65 on March 04, 2016, 03:34:11 PM

Quote from: cl94 on March 04, 2016, 02:54:12 PM

Quote from: roadman65 on March 04, 2016, 06:58:23 AM
Long John Silvers was all over, but they scaled back big time at least in Florida.

Most of their Upstate New York locations have closed. They still have locations in Batavia, Glens Falls, Hudson, Newburgh, Oneida and Vestal. All are co-located with Taco Bell, KFC, or A&W. There used to be a bunch near Albany, but only Glens Falls is left.

That means NJ will never get their first store ever!  Oh bummer! Lol!

There's been a combo Taco Bell/LJS in Mantua, NJ for years.

QuoteTaco Bell also did not appear in the GS (although they might of been in South Jersey for years before) also till the late 80's.

I'm pretty sure they were in NJ in the early 80's at least.  Whenever they actually had a real bell in their old design was the time period it was built.

They were all over the place, and the buildings are often still there.  Here's one:

https://goo.gl/maps/KuWicrWaxHx

Wow.  That looks really small for a Long John Silver's.

We used to have a Taco Bell/KFC in Ann Arbor.  I'm pretty sure it was the nastiest place I ever ate at.  The roaches and the rats had better places to hang out.

:bigass:

That's the size they all were.  It had a couple dozen tables or so.

The last one of this old format I have been to is in Latrobe, PA.  Google indicates it is still there.

The old Taco Bell designs are still in use today, but different businesses occupy them.  The one on Orange Blossom Trail near Florida Mall moved to a modern facility not looking like a bell, but its old building (now some eithnic restaurant now) still has the design.  There is also a Chinese Fast Food joint on US 192 in Kissimmee too, that has been a previous Taco Bell that you can tell by looking at that is was.

I mentioned that out of irony as Jeff did bring up an interesting point.  However, the Taco Bell up the street from my house is just a box building shared with Dunkin Donuts/ Baskin Robbins.  Its like they modernized and then they went plain the second time around.

The Taco Bell I frequented growing up is now an AT&T phone store.  Another one nearby that closed is becoming...an AT&T phone store. 

Borrrring!!!

The only Taco Bell I knew of that closed (Petersburg, VA) is now a Little Caesar's. The Taco Bell built a new facility across the street. I've never been to either one.

Quote from: Pete from Boston on March 05, 2016, 01:57:07 AM

Quote from: renegade on March 04, 2016, 06:36:15 PM

Quote from: Pete from Boston on March 04, 2016, 05:40:19 PM

Quote from: jeffandnicole on March 04, 2016, 03:50:35 PM

Quote from: roadman65 on March 04, 2016, 03:34:11 PM

Quote from: cl94 on March 04, 2016, 02:54:12 PM

Quote from: roadman65 on March 04, 2016, 06:58:23 AM
Long John Silvers was all over, but they scaled back big time at least in Florida.

Most of their Upstate New York locations have closed. They still have locations in Batavia, Glens Falls, Hudson, Newburgh, Oneida and Vestal. All are co-located with Taco Bell, KFC, or A&W. There used to be a bunch near Albany, but only Glens Falls is left.

That means NJ will never get their first store ever!  Oh bummer! Lol!

There's been a combo Taco Bell/LJS in Mantua, NJ for years.

QuoteTaco Bell also did not appear in the GS (although they might of been in South Jersey for years before) also till the late 80's.

I'm pretty sure they were in NJ in the early 80's at least.  Whenever they actually had a real bell in their old design was the time period it was built.

They were all over the place, and the buildings are often still there.  Here's one:

https://goo.gl/maps/KuWicrWaxHx

Wow.  That looks really small for a Long John Silver's.

We used to have a Taco Bell/KFC in Ann Arbor.  I'm pretty sure it was the nastiest place I ever ate at.  The roaches and the rats had better places to hang out.

:bigass:

That's the size they all were.  It had a couple dozen tables or so.

The last one of this old format I have been to is in Latrobe, PA.  Google indicates it is still there.

Long John Silver's in my area only has two locations here. One is near I-81 on US 30, and the other is near the JCPenney's in Hagerstown Mall. There seems to be less people going to LJS because a new Primanti Brother's opened up not far from it. That could be a signal that it might close, and I stopped eating there because they took away Lobster Bites (something I enjoyed when I was about five to six years old).

The Long John's that I ate at often as a child is still there, I see. (https://www.google.com/maps/@42.0034676,-88.1283959,3a,47.3y,6.65h,90.02t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sx5CBoS4-Y4vG3fPZc0Tc5g!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo0.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3Dx5CBoS4-Y4vG3fPZc0Tc5g%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dsearch.TACTILE.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D392%26h%3D106%26yaw%3D330.44391%26pitch%3D0!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en)


The shopping center that contained a grocery store that sat behind it is apparently gone, though.

Long John's and Arthur Treacher's were big around my parts in the late '70's/early '80's.  Most of the Long John's were free standing, while most of the Arthur Treacher's were in malls. I remember the one in my town, and my cousin teases me to this day about knocking over the fire extinguisher and flooding the restaurant (I was 4 or 5). Really can't tell the difference between the two.  Both completely vanished by 1985.  Arthur Treacher's came back when a Miami Subs/Arthur Treacher's/Nathan's, Kenny Rogers' Roasters conglomeration opened in Milford, CT circa 2000, only to leave a couple years later and it's now a TD Bank.  There's only 2 Long John Silver's locations in the whole state, both paired with Taco Bell, in Plainville and Hartford.

I live a solid 30 minutes from the closest LJS, in Salem, New Hampshire–just enough time to keep me from getting in the car right now, driving up there, and being disappointed.

There was a LJS/TB tandem restaurant about 45 minutes east of me.  They dropped the LJS part of the restaurant and is now only a TB. 

The only Long Johns in my region is 60 miles southeast, paired up with an A&W and is the only LJS in Western Colorado.

There's been an LJS my entire life in Colonial Heights, but it's been a few years since I've eaten there. The Hopewell one is closed. Both were paired with A&Ws but I don't pay enough attention to whether the Colonial Heights one still has the A&W (there's a much better sit-down seafood restaurant literally next door to it). Chester and Petersburg both have Captain D's; the one in Chester is, from what I remember, decent (haven't eaten there in over a decade despite now working two blocks from it) and I never went to the one in Petersburg in the entire eight years I worked there. When I want seafood, I go to the local sit-down place.

Quote from: Big John on February 04, 2016, 11:05:17 PM
Ovation closed 74 restaurants nationwide today.  http://www.kcra.com/news/local-news/news-sacramento/3-hometown-buffet-restaurants-in-sacramento-area-shut-down/37826548?

Just this morning Ovation filed for bankruptcy protection for the third time in eight years (http://nrn.com/finance/report-ovation-brands-files-bankruptcy). Several more units were also suddenly closed over the weekend (later revealed to be 92).

Quote from: rawmustard on March 07, 2016, 01:14:00 PM

Quote from: Big John on February 04, 2016, 11:05:17 PM
Ovation closed 74 restaurants nationwide today.  http://www.kcra.com/news/local-news/news-sacramento/3-hometown-buffet-restaurants-in-sacramento-area-shut-down/37826548?

Just this morning Ovation filed for bankruptcy protection for the third time in eight years (http://nrn.com/finance/report-ovation-brands-files-bankruptcy). Several more units were also suddenly closed over the weekend (later revealed to be 92).

Minnesota went from 13 locations to 3 in less than a month. Seven were shut down in the February wave and three more today.

What's with Wegman's? They're mostly in the Northeast and the furthest south one I've saw was in Maryland.

Quote from: noelbotevera on March 08, 2016, 04:24:34 PM
What's with Wegman's? They're mostly in the Northeast and the furthest south one I've saw was in Maryland.

What is your question?  Like most supermarket chains, they are regional.

Quote from: Pete from Boston on March 08, 2016, 07:43:14 PM

Quote from: noelbotevera on March 08, 2016, 04:24:34 PM
What's with Wegman's? They're mostly in the Northeast and the furthest south one I've saw was in Maryland.

What is your question?  Like most supermarket chains, they are regional.

Wegman's is in expansion mode, especially in MA (they skipped over CT)

Quote from: jp the roadgeek on March 08, 2016, 09:43:41 PM

Quote from: Pete from Boston on March 08, 2016, 07:43:14 PM

Quote from: noelbotevera on March 08, 2016, 04:24:34 PM
What's with Wegman's? They're mostly in the Northeast and the furthest south one I've saw was in Maryland.

What is your question?  Like most supermarket chains, they are regional.

Wegman's is in expansion mode, especially in MA (they skipped over CT)

Hell, they skipped over half of New York. If Wegmans existed around here, Price Chopper wouldn't have a leg to stand on.

They're building stores in Virginia, too.

Quote from: cl94 on March 08, 2016, 09:47:19 PM

Quote from: jp the roadgeek on March 08, 2016, 09:43:41 PM

Quote from: Pete from Boston on March 08, 2016, 07:43:14 PM

Quote from: noelbotevera on March 08, 2016, 04:24:34 PM
What's with Wegman's? They're mostly in the Northeast and the furthest south one I've saw was in Maryland.

What is your question?  Like most supermarket chains, they are regional.

Wegman's is in expansion mode, especially in MA (they skipped over CT)

Hell, they skipped over half of New York. If Wegmans existed around here, Price Chopper wouldn't have a leg to stand on.

Wegman's and Price Chopper have a "truce" where neither one treads on the other's turf.  Hence, no Wegman's in Albany.

Truth be told, I've been wary of the recent big box supermarkets that have gone up.  Shop Rite, Walmart, Hannaford, Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, Price Chopper...Another Aldi's being built on Central Ave (the other one's on State St in Schenectady)...I'm really wondering if the Capital District was the chosen battlefield and in a few years we're going to have more empty big boxes.  Thank goodness they razed the Kmart.

Quote from: jp the roadgeek on March 08, 2016, 09:43:41 PM

Quote from: Pete from Boston on March 08, 2016, 07:43:14 PM

Quote from: noelbotevera on March 08, 2016, 04:24:34 PM
What's with Wegman's? They're mostly in the Northeast and the furthest south one I've saw was in Maryland.

What is your question?  Like most supermarket chains, they are regional.

Wegman's is in expansion mode, especially in MA (they skipped over CT)

They have generally avoided North Jersey and Southeastern New York, too.  They have one coming to Montvale, N.J. (displacing a local business with far superior produce), which should indicate they are ready to move in when the right properties are available.  I would expect subsequent movement in Southwestern Connecticut.  Wegman's has a Midas touch based on name and reputation lately, but they'll do well not to make a much more expensive Krispy Kreme mistake.

Quote from: Pete from Boston on March 08, 2016, 10:52:17 PM

Quote from: jp the roadgeek on March 08, 2016, 09:43:41 PM

Quote from: Pete from Boston on March 08, 2016, 07:43:14 PM

Quote from: noelbotevera on March 08, 2016, 04:24:34 PM
What's with Wegman's? They're mostly in the Northeast and the furthest south one I've saw was in Maryland.

What is your question?  Like most supermarket chains, they are regional.

Wegman's is in expansion mode, especially in MA (they skipped over CT)

They have generally avoided North Jersey and Southeastern New York, too.  They have one coming to Montvale, N.J. (displacing a local business with far superior produce), which should indicate they are ready to move in when the right properties are available.  I would expect subsequent movement in Southwestern Connecticut.  Wegman's has a Midas touch based on name and reputation lately, but they'll do well not to make a much more expensive Krispy Kreme mistake.

They're going into Brooklyn as well. I do wonder if the Ahold-Delhaize merger will hasten the expansion of Wegmans in New England and Eastern New York, as the combined company will have a bunch of redundant stores that may need to close, leaving a possible opening in the market.

Quote from: cl94 on March 09, 2016, 04:24:41 PM

Quote from: Pete from Boston on March 08, 2016, 10:52:17 PM

Quote from: jp the roadgeek on March 08, 2016, 09:43:41 PM

Quote from: Pete from Boston on March 08, 2016, 07:43:14 PM

Quote from: noelbotevera on March 08, 2016, 04:24:34 PM
What's with Wegman's? They're mostly in the Northeast and the furthest south one I've saw was in Maryland.

What is your question?  Like most supermarket chains, they are regional.

Wegman's is in expansion mode, especially in MA (they skipped over CT)

They have generally avoided North Jersey and Southeastern New York, too.  They have one coming to Montvale, N.J. (displacing a local business with far superior produce), which should indicate they are ready to move in when the right properties are available.  I would expect subsequent movement in Southwestern Connecticut.  Wegman's has a Midas touch based on name and reputation lately, but they'll do well not to make a much more expensive Krispy Kreme mistake.

They're going into Brooklyn as well. I do wonder if the Ahold-Delhaize merger will hasten the expansion of Wegmans in New England and Eastern New York, as the combined company will have a bunch of redundant stores that may need to close, leaving a possible opening in the market.

Wow.  And those yuppie hipsters will eat the Wegman's golden halo right up.  Good for Wegman's, bad for the non-wealthy.

Quote from: cl94 on March 09, 2016, 04:24:41 PM

Quote from: Pete from Boston on March 08, 2016, 10:52:17 PM

Quote from: jp the roadgeek on March 08, 2016, 09:43:41 PM

Quote from: Pete from Boston on March 08, 2016, 07:43:14 PM

Quote from: noelbotevera on March 08, 2016, 04:24:34 PM
What's with Wegman's? They're mostly in the Northeast and the furthest south one I've saw was in Maryland.

What is your question?  Like most supermarket chains, they are regional.

Wegman's is in expansion mode, especially in MA (they skipped over CT)

They have generally avoided North Jersey and Southeastern New York, too.  They have one coming to Montvale, N.J. (displacing a local business with far superior produce), which should indicate they are ready to move in when the right properties are available.  I would expect subsequent movement in Southwestern Connecticut.  Wegman's has a Midas touch based on name and reputation lately, but they'll do well not to make a much more expensive Krispy Kreme mistake.

They're going into Brooklyn as well. I do wonder if the Ahold-Delhaize merger will hasten the expansion of Wegmans in New England and Eastern New York, as the combined company will have a bunch of redundant stores that may need to close, leaving a possible opening in the market.

If there's enough demand for a new supermarket to open, then there's enough demand for the existing stores to stay open. 

For what it's worth, Wegmans open just a few stores each year.  This year it appears they're opening 4, which is above average.  The chances of them coming into any area with a whole slew of new stores is almost nil.  They will review the area and will probably select 1 or 2 locations, at the absolute most.

Here's their known store openings: https://www.wegmans.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CampaignLanding?storeId=10052&catalogId=10002&langId=-1&partNumber=CAMPAIGN_55185

Quote from: Rothman on March 08, 2016, 10:46:38 PM
Wegman's and Price Chopper have a "truce" where neither one treads on the other's turf.  Hence, no Wegman's in Albany.

Isn't that kind of collusion illegal?

Quote from: hbelkins on March 10, 2016, 01:34:29 PM

Quote from: Rothman on March 08, 2016, 10:46:38 PM
Wegman's and Price Chopper have a "truce" where neither one treads on the other's turf.  Hence, no Wegman's in Albany.

Isn't that kind of collusion illegal?

Not really.  Many stores have done that in the past.  They simply stay within their territory of where they want to have stores.  There's nothing that requires a store to enter any specific market.

And while Wegmans & Price Chopper may have a friendly agreement to not cross into each other's markets, it's not preventing any other supermarket chain from entering the same markets.

Quote from: jeffandnicole on March 10, 2016, 01:37:57 PM

Quote from: hbelkins on March 10, 2016, 01:34:29 PM

Quote from: Rothman on March 08, 2016, 10:46:38 PM
Wegman's and Price Chopper have a "truce" where neither one treads on the other's turf.  Hence, no Wegman's in Albany.

Isn't that kind of collusion illegal?

Not really.  Many stores have done that in the past.  They simply stay within their territory of where they want to have stores.  There's nothing that requires a store to enter any specific market.

And while Wegmans & Price Chopper may have a friendly agreement to not cross into each other's markets, it's not preventing any other supermarket chain from entering the same markets.

I assure you that as soon as it is not in the business interest of one of these companies, any such agreement will go out the window.

In other words, if these companies knew they could enter into one another's territory and succeed despite any potential backlash the other could levy, they surely would do so in a heartbeat.

I will amend that thought, though, by saying I am well aware of the restraint with which grocery chains tend to expand.  I can think of several examples off the top of my head of grocery chains pulling out of territories in the Northeast in which they were overextended and could not compete sufficiently to warrant the cost of being there.  So I don't mean to imply that suddenly Wegmans is going to overrun Price Chopper's territory one day, or vice versa..

It's seems that the Ahold/Delhaize redundancy is kind of overblown in most areas.  Hannaford's footprint is mostly northern New England, eastern MA, and New York state north of I-84.  Stop & Shop is mostly the three southern New England States, New York east of the Thruway and south of Kingston, and NJ north of I-195.  The only overlap is inside of 495 in MA and in Putnam, Dutchess, and Ulster counties in NY.

Quote from: Pete from Boston on March 10, 2016, 01:43:09 PM

Quote from: jeffandnicole on March 10, 2016, 01:37:57 PM

Quote from: hbelkins on March 10, 2016, 01:34:29 PM

Quote from: Rothman on March 08, 2016, 10:46:38 PM
Wegman's and Price Chopper have a "truce" where neither one treads on the other's turf.  Hence, no Wegman's in Albany.

Isn't that kind of collusion illegal?

Not really.  Many stores have done that in the past.  They simply stay within their territory of where they want to have stores.  There's nothing that requires a store to enter any specific market.

And while Wegmans & Price Chopper may have a friendly agreement to not cross into each other's markets, it's not preventing any other supermarket chain from entering the same markets.

I assure you that as soon as it is not in the business interest of one of these companies, any such agreement will go out the window.

In other words, if these companies knew they could enter into one another's territory and succeed despite any potential backlash the other could levy, they surely would do so in a heartbeat.

I will amend that thought, though, by saying I am well aware of the restraint with which grocery chains tend to expand.  I can think of several examples off the top of my head of grocery chains pulling out of territories in the Northeast in which they were overextended and could not compete sufficiently to warrant the cost of being there.  So I don't mean to imply that suddenly Wegmans is going to overrun Price Chopper's territory one day, or vice versa..

The margin on groceries is terribly low and they end up having to deep discount (or even throw away) tons of product. Another store entering the market can nuke both stores.

Quote from: jp the roadgeek on March 10, 2016, 08:01:47 PM
It's seems that the Ahold/Delhaize redundancy is kind of overblown in most areas.  Hannaford's footprint is mostly northern New England, eastern MA, and New York state north of I-84.  Stop & Shop is mostly the three southern New England States, New York east of the Thruway and south of Kingston, and NJ north of I-195.  The only overlap is inside of 495 in MA and in Putnam, Dutchess, and Ulster counties in NY.

And where they overlap, they often have locations across the street from each other. I'm not saying that there are many redundant locations, but those that exist just happen to be just outside of Wegmans' expansion territory. Personally, I hope it doesn't affect day-to-day operations too much from a consumer's perspective. Ahold did some pretty bad things to Tops and I don't want Hannaford to become like Stop and Shop (which Tops is currently trying to recover from).

Quote from: Pete from Boston on March 10, 2016, 01:43:09 PM

Quote from: jeffandnicole on March 10, 2016, 01:37:57 PM

Quote from: hbelkins on March 10, 2016, 01:34:29 PM

Quote from: Rothman on March 08, 2016, 10:46:38 PM
Wegman's and Price Chopper have a "truce" where neither one treads on the other's turf.  Hence, no Wegman's in Albany.

Isn't that kind of collusion illegal?

Not really.  Many stores have done that in the past.  They simply stay within their territory of where they want to have stores.  There's nothing that requires a store to enter any specific market.

And while Wegmans & Price Chopper may have a friendly agreement to not cross into each other's markets, it's not preventing any other supermarket chain from entering the same markets.

I assure you that as soon as it is not in the business interest of one of these companies, any such agreement will go out the window.

In other words, if these companies knew they could enter into one another's territory and succeed despite any potential backlash the other could levy, they surely would do so in a heartbeat.

I will amend that thought, though, by saying I am well aware of the restraint with which grocery chains tend to expand.  I can think of several examples off the top of my head of grocery chains pulling out of territories in the Northeast in which they were overextended and could not compete sufficiently to warrant the cost of being there.  So I don't mean to imply that suddenly Wegmans is going to overrun Price Chopper's territory one day, or vice versa..

The agreement will probably go out the window when Price Chopper upgrades their Syracuse, Binghamton, and Scranton stores to the new Market 32 format. I don't think Wegmans will be too thrilled by an overdone imitation of their stores opening in their home territory. From a source I have at Wegmans corporate, they have turned down offers from a few Albany area municipalities to focus on larger markets. The minute Price Chopper brings Ghetto 32 close to the home office, I can almost guarantee that Wegmans will have someone on the phone with Saratoga Springs, Wilton, Malta, or Clifton Park to scout locations.

Wegmans only has 88 stores, but $7 Billion in revenue.  It doesn't get that big by listening to mayors from every dinky little town crying for Wegmans to build a store.  The mayor will tell them how successful they will be in their municipality.  In reality, the mayor really just wants to promote the fact that he/she was the one who got a Wegmans to come to their town.

Most companies spend money...a LOT of money...looking for the right location.  Common requirements would be: Highway access within X miles, location on a road with a minimum of X lanes or XX,000 ADT, population of X within X miles, and an median income of X.

You can personally cry on the front doorstep of every Wegmans Exec, but if the road has YY,000 ADT and Wegmans requires XX,000, your town is out of luck.

^It's true. Every commercial landlord had better be able to come with ADT and average income numbers off the top of their heads. For my type of business (video games), I want the speed limit to be as low as possible. In comparison to Wegman's, I don't want the median income to be too high. If people make too much money they stop buying video games and other nerd stuff on average and start spending it on boats, horses and race cars. I want the income under 80k or so.

Perhaps the grocery chain discussion could be broken off into another thread ...

I got this in my email the other day.  Can you spot the error?

(https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1520/25089404023_0fb7fa0269_b.jpg)

Answer:  It's not great news that my Sears is still open.  They're ruined the place.

"email" would better be hyphenated "e-mail", like "h-bomb" and "x-ray".  I know the "email" usage is common, but that doesn't make it right.

Quote from: kkt on March 12, 2016, 03:58:24 PM
"email" would better be hyphenated "e-mail", like "h-bomb" and "x-ray".  I know the "email" usage is common, but that doesn't make it right.

I am a soldier in the war for a good grammar. But even I have conceded on "email." I was last taken to task for my insistence on hyphenation in that term in 2007.

I find the degradation of language by the acceptance of laziness to be deplorable, but at a certain point when a usage becomes more common than not, it is the de facto new standard.

Regardless, that was not the point of my message, which was that Sears is struggling to even keep its customers believing that it still exists.

Is there an item at Sears that sells for 31 cents that you can treat yourself to?

The Associated Press broke over a few months ago, and they now use email for e-mail (or E-mail) and website for Web site. Both changes aggravated me to no end.

Quote from: hbelkins on March 12, 2016, 09:23:50 PM
The Associated Press broke over a few months ago, and they now use email for e-mail (or E-mail) and website for Web site. Both changes aggravated me to no end.

Does it upset you when people don't capitalize "internet"?

I ask because I resisted as well, but in all these cases, the rapid evolution in terms parallels the rapid evolution in the role of the technology.  I feel objecting to this is on par with objecting when alternatives to "hello" fell out of favor for answering the telephone.

^Ahoy hoy and welcome to Cyberspace, 'Netizen.

Quote from: GCrites80s on March 13, 2016, 09:36:30 PM
^Ahoy hoy and welcome to Cyberspace, 'Netizen.

Reminds me that "on-line" now looks as antiquated as "to-day."

Quote from: jwolfer on February 25, 2016, 11:30:08 PM

Quote from: cl94 on February 25, 2016, 09:16:19 PM
Sports Authority going under leaves Dick's as the only major player in a lot of the country.

Speaking of Dick's, at least they were able to buy dicks.com. I remember discovering that their website was "dickssportinggoods.com" the hard way when I was in middle school.

Acadamy sporting goods is in the Southeast, expanding into central Florida last year.

Over in Michigan, we have MC Sports and Dunham's Sports

Big Boy has lost quite a few locations in Western Michigan in recent years.
Grand Rapids area: Standale (demolished), Rogers Plaza (split between tenants), 28th and Englewood (was a Chinese buffet, now for sale again), 28th and Radcliff (strip mall, now a Mediterranean place), 28th and Kraft (now Bagger Dave's) [the 28th and Radcliff location only lasted maybe two years and opened well after the other 28th Street locations closed]
Grand Haven
Big Rapids (O'Reilly's Auto Parts going in there)
Muskegon
Manistee (demolished and controversially replaced with a Walgreens)
Plainwell
Kalamazoo

Another Ponderosa location bites the dust. The one in Hazard, Ky., which by all indications was doing extremely well, announced Friday that it will not be reopening. This restaurant got some notoriety because they posted on their marquee "Closed Due To Governor" when the governor ordered dine-in restaurants closed back in mid-March.

Quote from: hbelkins on March 12, 2016, 09:23:50 PM
The Associated Press broke over a few months ago, and they now use email for e-mail (or E-mail) and website for Web site. Both changes aggravated me to no end.

There are far worse sins the AP commits than that to get riled up over.

And the Blimpie location in my town deflated this past week.  Ends a legacy of almost 30 years of having one in my town in one location or another.  Only 2 left in CT now: Windsor, and (oddly enough) Chaplin.

Quote from: jp the roadgeek on May 03, 2020, 03:54:04 PM
And the Blimpie location in my town deflated this past week.  Ends a legacy of almost 30 years of having one in my town in one location or another.  Only 2 left in CT now: Windsor, and (oddly enough) Chaplin.

Blimpie has been gone for several years here. We only have Subway , Firehouse, and Casey's General Store

Does Smash Hit subs still exist? I've not seen any for a long time. They were part of the Hot Stuff Pizza chain.  There used to be one here in Ft Smith, but it disappeared a while back.

Quote from: hbelkins on May 03, 2020, 01:37:42 PM
Another Ponderosa location bites the dust. The one in Hazard, Ky., which by all indications was doing extremely well, announced Friday that it will not be reopening. This restaurant got some notoriety because they posted on their marquee "Closed Due To Governor" when the governor ordered dine-in restaurants closed back in mid-March.

Quote from: hbelkins on May 03, 2020, 01:38:53 PM
Another Ponderosa location bites the dust.  The one in Hazard, Ky., which by all indications was doing extremely well, announced Friday that it will not be reopening. This restaurant got some notoriety because they posted on their marquee "Closed Due To Governor" when the governor ordered dine-in restaurants closed back in mid-March.

Did you mean to post the same message in two different threads?

And 4 year and 8 year bumps, too!

Friendly's is done.  It has to be.  Too much competition in the markets it once dominated.  I can get the same style of food at a better quality elsewhere.  Maybe Dean Foods will buy the rest of the restaurant assets and use their stores for ice cream only.  Their ice cream is good, IMO.

Quote from: Pete from Boston on March 13, 2016, 01:52:45 AM

Quote from: hbelkins on March 12, 2016, 09:23:50 PM
The Associated Press broke over a few months ago, and they now use email for e-mail (or E-mail) and website for Web site. Both changes aggravated me to no end.

Does it upset you when people don't capitalize "internet"?

It does me.  And when I see email instead of e-mail. 

On the other hand, I always write website instead of Web site.  So I'm contributing to the problem about which I complain.

Quote from: wanderer2575 on May 03, 2020, 08:50:05 PM

Quote from: Pete from Boston on March 13, 2016, 01:52:45 AM
Does it upset you when people don't capitalize "internet"?

It does me.  And when I see email instead of e-mail. 

How about e/m? That's got to be one worse.

Quote from: SectorZ on May 03, 2020, 03:24:25 PM

Quote from: hbelkins on March 12, 2016, 09:23:50 PM
The Associated Press broke over a few months ago, and they now use email for e-mail (or E-mail) and website for Web site. Both changes aggravated me to no end.

There are far worse sins the AP commits than that to get riled up over.

I recall reading recently about how the Japanese government requested from the AP that Japanese citizens start to be be referred to properly by their last name first (which the AP does for Chinese and Korean nationals) and the AP declined the request. What good reason is there for declining something not only so simple but a country's legitimate naming custom?

It should be written E. mail, just like E. coli.

Quote from: US71 on May 03, 2020, 03:57:23 PM

Quote from: jp the roadgeek on May 03, 2020, 03:54:04 PM
And the Blimpie location in my town deflated this past week.  Ends a legacy of almost 30 years of having one in my town in one location or another.  Only 2 left in CT now: Windsor, and (oddly enough) Chaplin.

Blimpie has been gone for several years here. We only have Subway , Firehouse, and Casey's General Store

Blimpie is a step below Subway, and Subway is already the bottom step.

Quote from: RobbieL2415 on May 03, 2020, 08:19:07 PM
Friendly's is done.  It has to be.  Too much competition in the markets it once dominated.  I can get the same style of food at a better quality elsewhere.  Maybe Dean Foods will buy the rest of the restaurant assets and use their stores for ice cream only.  Their ice cream is good, IMO.

A bunch of them just closed "temporarily"  due to the health crisis, including Manchester, Avon, Wethersfield, and the one on CT 372 in Plainville.  The ones in Southington on Queen St (CT 10) and the Berlin Turnpike in Newington will remain open for take out only.

Quote from: jp the roadgeek on May 04, 2020, 06:26:06 PM

Quote from: RobbieL2415 on May 03, 2020, 08:19:07 PM
Friendly's is done.  It has to be.  Too much competition in the markets it once dominated.  I can get the same style of food at a better quality elsewhere.  Maybe Dean Foods will buy the rest of the restaurant assets and use their stores for ice cream only.  Their ice cream is good, IMO.

A bunch of them just closed "temporarily"  due to the health crisis, including Manchester, Avon, Wethersfield, and the one on CT 372 in Plainville.  The ones in Southington on Queen St (CT 10) and the Berlin Turnpike in Newington will remain open for take out only.

The local Friendly's locations are all "temporarily closed" and this was a market where they once had a location in every shopping area. Hell, there were places where 2 existed within a mile!

Quote from: cl94 on May 04, 2020, 10:54:01 PM

Quote from: jp the roadgeek on May 04, 2020, 06:26:06 PM

Quote from: RobbieL2415 on May 03, 2020, 08:19:07 PM
Friendly's is done.  It has to be.  Too much competition in the markets it once dominated.  I can get the same style of food at a better quality elsewhere.  Maybe Dean Foods will buy the rest of the restaurant assets and use their stores for ice cream only.  Their ice cream is good, IMO.

A bunch of them just closed "temporarily"  due to the health crisis, including Manchester, Avon, Wethersfield, and the one on CT 372 in Plainville.  The ones in Southington on Queen St (CT 10) and the Berlin Turnpike in Newington will remain open for take out only.

The local Friendly's locations are all "temporarily closed" and this was a market where they once had a location in every shopping area. Hell, there were places where 2 existed within a mile!

Yea, you'd have one in the mall and another just outside it.

When I saw this thread pop up again after a number of years, it seemed vaguely familiar, but my first thought was ""˜...one foot in the grave'? What idiot came up with that title?"  And behold: The idiot was me!

Quote from: jp the roadgeek on May 03, 2020, 03:54:04 PM
Blimpie

I have never had a sandwich from Blimpie, and though I'm sure I have passed by several of their locations over the years, the only one I truly recall seeing was barely three feet of counter space inside a crummy, hard luck convenience store. That forever tainted my image of that chain, even if any such thing as a "nice, freestanding Blimpie"  ever existed. At some point years later, the Blimpie space was rebranded (with seemingly no other changes) as with the generic name "Subs Now" , suggesting that whatever the Blimpie association offered to the franchisee was negligible in the first place.

That crummy convenience store was a Uni-Mart–which itself is either a dead, dying, or zombie chain, depending on how you look at it. Uni-Mart was at one time a fairly solid chain of 400+ compact, middle-of-the road convenience stores. The company was based in State College and carved out a niche in the 1980s in small central Pennsylvania cities and rural areas unserved by 7-Eleven or other national brands. (This was back when Sheetz was itself a typical corner convenience store and had limited geographical reach.)

'80s Uni-Marts (https://s3-media0.fl.yelpcdn.com/bphoto/LXgWVa78qR79_RHOD0DCLA/o.jpg) were fairly decent when new–more or less a carbon copy of a 7-Eleven-type store of that era–but all locations suffered from a lack of reinvestment and maintenance, and they became dingy and threadbare after just a handful of years. By the mid '90s, most Uni-Marts were rather depressing places, and when Sheetz's seemingly palatial stores began appearing, they were a revelation in comparison. Uni-Mart countered with an updated logo and a new Sheetz-like superstore format, but the owners hardly seemed committed. The chain's backbone remained aging stores in declining neighborhoods. The brand eventually changed hands and went bankrupt. The current owners of the trademark list 24 stores (most if not all of them not original Uni-Marts), although I know of several original Uni-Marts still doing business using the trademark–apparently as independents.

Quote from: RobbieL2415 on May 05, 2020, 12:22:44 AM

Quote from: cl94 on May 04, 2020, 10:54:01 PM

Quote from: jp the roadgeek on May 04, 2020, 06:26:06 PM

Quote from: RobbieL2415 on May 03, 2020, 08:19:07 PM
Friendly's is done.  It has to be.  Too much competition in the markets it once dominated.  I can get the same style of food at a better quality elsewhere.  Maybe Dean Foods will buy the rest of the restaurant assets and use their stores for ice cream only.  Their ice cream is good, IMO.

A bunch of them just closed "temporarily"  due to the health crisis, including Manchester, Avon, Wethersfield, and the one on CT 372 in Plainville.  The ones in Southington on Queen St (CT 10) and the Berlin Turnpike in Newington will remain open for take out only.

The local Friendly's locations are all "temporarily closed" and this was a market where they once had a location in every shopping area. Hell, there were places where 2 existed within a mile!

Yea, you'd have one in the mall and another just outside it.

Yup. My favorite example is the shopping malls in Albany. Colonie Center and Crossgates Mall (a couple miles apart) both had one, plus there was one on the street outside of both malls. So you'd have 4 within 5-10 minutes of travel time. All have since closed. Queensbury/Glens Falls had 2 as well (1 just outside of the mall, 1 on US 9 a mile or two away), one of which has closed.

Quote from: cl94 on May 05, 2020, 08:32:47 AM

Quote from: RobbieL2415 on May 05, 2020, 12:22:44 AM

Quote from: cl94 on May 04, 2020, 10:54:01 PM

Quote from: jp the roadgeek on May 04, 2020, 06:26:06 PM

Quote from: RobbieL2415 on May 03, 2020, 08:19:07 PM
Friendly's is done.  It has to be.  Too much competition in the markets it once dominated.  I can get the same style of food at a better quality elsewhere.  Maybe Dean Foods will buy the rest of the restaurant assets and use their stores for ice cream only.  Their ice cream is good, IMO.

A bunch of them just closed "temporarily"  due to the health crisis, including Manchester, Avon, Wethersfield, and the one on CT 372 in Plainville.  The ones in Southington on Queen St (CT 10) and the Berlin Turnpike in Newington will remain open for take out only.

The local Friendly's locations are all "temporarily closed" and this was a market where they once had a location in every shopping area. Hell, there were places where 2 existed within a mile!

Yea, you'd have one in the mall and another just outside it.

Yup. My favorite example is the shopping malls in Albany. Colonie Center and Crossgates Mall (a couple miles apart) both had one, plus there was one on the street outside of both malls. So you'd have 4 within 5-10 minutes of travel time. All have since closed. Queensbury/Glens Falls had 2 as well (1 just outside of the mall, 1 on US 9 a mile or two away), one of which has closed.

We had a case of that with two locations within a half mile of each other and neither was in a mall.  About 30 years ago, Friendly's acquired a local chain called Farm Shop, and converted the locations to Friendly's.  This included one in Southington, CT about a half mile north of the (still) existing one on CT 10 just the other side of the I-84 interchange.  It remained this way for several years.  The converted Farm Shop location eventually closed and was replaced by Bertucci's, and has since been replaced (just before the pandemic) by Plan B Burger (a very popular local chain). 

Not quite one foot in the grave, but Steak n Shake is close. The quality isn't what it used to be and rumors abound about high franchise fees.

Quote from: US71 on May 06, 2020, 07:53:56 PM
Not quite one foot in the grave, but Steak n Shake is close. The quality isn't what it used to be and rumors abound about high franchise fees.

Have there been a lot of closures?

Quote from: Rothman on May 07, 2020, 12:50:51 AM

Quote from: US71 on May 06, 2020, 07:53:56 PM
Not quite one foot in the grave, but Steak n Shake is close. The quality isn't what it used to be and rumors abound about high franchise fees.

Have there been a lot of closures?

Seems like it. Most are franchised so it's hard to tell how many.

I think S&S franchised too many locations too quickly resulting in a lot of locations with absentee owners and poor customer service.  One thing I have noticed in the last few years is that the experience and food quality differ too much from location to location.

I'm not sure if it's still the case, but I've been told that the Friendly's in Lawrence, MA has a really good lease. It could easily be one of the last ones open.

The reason I'm not sure it still applies is because this was the explanation for why it was able to survive two floods in consecutive years, and the floods were over 10 years ago. I can't ask about the details of the lease now because the Friendly's in Lawrence is temporarily closed for the pandemic (some other Friendly's are open, like the one in Haverhill).

Quote from: US71 on May 07, 2020, 10:12:50 AM

Quote from: Rothman on May 07, 2020, 12:50:51 AM

Quote from: US71 on May 06, 2020, 07:53:56 PM
Not quite one foot in the grave, but Steak n Shake is close. The quality isn't what it used to be and rumors abound about high franchise fees.

Have there been a lot of closures?

Seems like it. Most are franchised so it's hard to tell how many.

About the time people started saying SnS was in trouble, several of them popped up in central Kentucky.

I've said this before, but I've never been terribly impressed with SnS. Last time I ate at one was years ago in the Joliet, Ill., area, and that was only because it was just down the street from my hotel, and I didn't feel like going out looking for something else because it had been a long day. They built a new one in Winchester in the last few years; I'll drive through the Rally's or even the McDonald's up the street before I'll go there.

Apparently, it's not just me, then.

The only time I've had a bad experience at a Steak 'N Shake was only a few years ago, and I'm not even sure I've been to one since then.  Maybe once.

Last couple times I went, Steak 'n Shake was fine.  Didn't have any complaints.  Probably two years ago, though.  Last time was somewhere in Ohio.

Remember...the big driver there is their 4 for 4 menu.  Not sure what you're expecting for that price point.  They're offering food at a great value, not offering value for great food.

Quote from: jeffandnicole on May 07, 2020, 04:41:39 PM
Remember...the big driver there is their 4 for 4 menu.  Not sure what you're expecting for that price point.  They're offering food at a great value, not offering value for great food.

The same quality of food and service I'd experienced at the same chain the entire rest of my life?

Quote from: 1 on May 07, 2020, 10:39:49 AM
I'm not sure if it's still the case, but I've been told that the Friendly's in Lawrence, MA has a really good lease. It could easily be one of the last ones open.

The reason I'm not sure it still applies is because this was the explanation for why it was able to survive two floods in consecutive years, and the floods were over 10 years ago. I can't ask about the details of the lease now because the Friendly's in Lawrence is temporarily closed for the pandemic (some other Friendly's are open, like the one in Haverhill).

Don't be surprised if they are unwilling to share the details of the lease.

The case of KFC or PFK as we said in Quebec. There's no KFC located in Quebec City since last December.

Only Steak n Shake I ever went to was in Downtown Indy.  Was quiet when I got there but by the time I left there was a line out the door.  Popular late night place in the entertainment district, especially after the bars close so that people could soak up all the booze with the cheap burgers and fries.

Quote from: jp the roadgeek on May 06, 2020, 05:05:24 PM

Quote from: cl94 on May 05, 2020, 08:32:47 AM

Quote from: RobbieL2415 on May 05, 2020, 12:22:44 AM

Quote from: cl94 on May 04, 2020, 10:54:01 PM

Quote from: jp the roadgeek on May 04, 2020, 06:26:06 PM

Quote from: RobbieL2415 on May 03, 2020, 08:19:07 PM
Friendly's is done.  It has to be.  Too much competition in the markets it once dominated.  I can get the same style of food at a better quality elsewhere.  Maybe Dean Foods will buy the rest of the restaurant assets and use their stores for ice cream only.  Their ice cream is good, IMO.

A bunch of them just closed "temporarily"  due to the health crisis, including Manchester, Avon, Wethersfield, and the one on CT 372 in Plainville.  The ones in Southington on Queen St (CT 10) and the Berlin Turnpike in Newington will remain open for take out only.

The local Friendly's locations are all "temporarily closed" and this was a market where they once had a location in every shopping area. Hell, there were places where 2 existed within a mile!

Yea, you'd have one in the mall and another just outside it.

Yup. My favorite example is the shopping malls in Albany. Colonie Center and Crossgates Mall (a couple miles apart) both had one, plus there was one on the street outside of both malls. So you'd have 4 within 5-10 minutes of travel time. All have since closed. Queensbury/Glens Falls had 2 as well (1 just outside of the mall, 1 on US 9 a mile or two away), one of which has closed.

We had a case of that with two locations within a half mile of each other and neither was in a mall.  About 30 years ago, Friendly's acquired a local chain called Farm Shop, and converted the locations to Friendly's.  This included one in Southington, CT about a half mile north of the (still) existing one on CT 10 just the other side of the I-84 interchange.  It remained this way for several years.  The converted Farm Shop location eventually closed and was replaced by Bertucci's, and has since been replaced (just before the pandemic) by Plan B Burger (a very popular local chain).

Let's face it, Bertucci's is horrible.  I'm surprised they're still around.

I have never typed it as "e-mail". How ever, since I hate words that look like two different words, I have typed it as "web site". I have typed it as "Internet" ever since Spell Check has suggested it to be capitalized. I often think that Spell Check is not very accurate, but I agree that Internet should be capitalized. I am also using the Serial Commas. I do not care what the Associated Press has rules about any of the commas and hyphens.

An episode of The Bob Newhart Show has Howard taking his son to an ice cream place that I thought was strange. After reading the many pages of this discussion, I now under stand there is a cultural reference to ice cream places that gather around you and sing.

I also needed to read all of the discussion to see if any of these examples have all ready been mentioned:

Based on the negative reviews, I do not know how Catfish King is still in business.

Texas Palominas (not recognized by Spell Check) Buffet is probably out of business entirely. If so, it was probably in business for around one decade. I did not have any bad experiences, but since then, other people have mentioned it be came the worst. Many reviews indicate that buffet restaurants are especially magnets to families that have their children run amok or are too noisy. Perhaps an Arcade would have helped. Another issue with buffets can be very old food that sits there until gathered to be eaten.

Similar reviews have been applied to Golden Corral. There has all ways been speculation that Golden Corral is closing or decreasing. Several Golden Corral locations have closed from various problems, but is other wise unaffected.

Shoney's has gone through its own scandals to the point of bankruptcy. There does not seem to be any more that closed since the new ownership.

Some body had not been to a Sirloin Stockade in a very long time, that they thought they were closed. How ever, there are a few restaurants that mimic Sirloin Stockade. One of these imitation restaurants, "Branding Iron" has closed. A few (but probably not very many) Sirloin Stockades have closed also.

There is a Watsonburger, both Watsonburger and Whataburger seem to be popular in Texas. But Watsonburger is either gone entirely, or has reduced to one location. There is also another restaurant chain (or chains) known as What-A-Burger that does not appear to be suffering. Whataburger is also expanding.

Ruby Tuesday seems to have stabilized recently.

Also, I was confused when I read that "Morrison's" went out of business, unaware that Morrison's in U.K. is not related.

Luby's is not suffering.

How ever, there have been numerous Furr's locations that have been closing slowly, one after the other.

North Rig Grill is a restaurant I am surprised is not every where in Texas.

Grandy's is a restaurant that had around 100 locations, but now less than 30.

Here is the best example of a withering Road Side Chain:

This is the one that I remembered first. It is why I decided to type in this discussion:

Kettle.

This restaurant, not unlike Grandy's, had numerous locations, perhaps over 200. But now There are less than 6 Kettle Restaurants. Kettle does not have an official web site any more.