Chain restaurants dominate the landscape of America. Whether you enjoy eating at these establishments or simply despise them, they’re simply impossible to ignore. Whether they’re in malls, truck stops, food courts at your work, airports, or even just on the side of your local Interstate, it seems as if there are more choices than there ever have been in history. However, with the growth of newer choices, other options shrink and get wiped off the map.
Endangered Restaurants List of America
In this article, we will cover five endangered and near-extinct restaurant chains. First, we’ll start off with the endangered category. These are restaurants that still have a fairly sizable footprint but are a small fraction today of what they once were. We’re going to start off with Friendly’s Family Restaurants.
Friendly’s Family Restaurants
Friendly’s began all the way back in 1935. It started off as an ice cream shop, however, evolved into a family restaurant with ice cream. It would grow to a peak of 850 restaurants by the 1990s and has gone down to 119 locations, just 14% of its peak. Most of the remaining locations are almost exclusively in the Northeast. What happened to Friendly’s? Basically, the company throughout the 2000s got into a heavy amount of debt, supply costs fluctuated, and the company did not fare well during the Great Recession years. What remained got hit hard again by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the chain was already on pretty thin ice.
Personally, I just feel like it’s sort of an antiquated type of restaurant compared to the more modern family options of today like Red Robin or other more modern choices. Anyway, there’s a good chance that this company just simply goes to becoming a grocery brand in the not too distant future.
Roy Rogers Fast Food Restaurants
Next, we have Roy Rogers Fast Food Restaurants. This had a peak of 648 locations in the 1990s. Today it has just 41 locations, just 6.3% of peak. Most of the remaining locations are in either Maryland, Virginia, or Pennsylvania. Roy Rogers would start off in the late ’60s as a project by Marriott hotels and they would use the name of the famous actor and singer at the time, Roy Rogers. It would be kind of a more blended fast food experience than McDonald’s or Burger King, with the heavy focus not being on just burgers as roast beef would be a big part of their menu.
One of the most unique features was the fixin’ bar, which was basically a condiment bar that gave you the ability to customize for yourself what you would put on what you ordered there. But in the ’90s, the company was sold by Marriott to Hardee’s and Hardee’s ended up just turning more than half of them into their own restaurants. Other ones closed, and other ones got sold off to other fast-food chains. Again, I think it’s just an antiquated brand that’s sort of just fading away. Nothing too modern about it. It’s not something that people would choose over other choices of today, and it’s pretty much just a regional draw in the lower mid-Atlantic States.
Shoney’s Restaurants
Next, we have Shoney’s Restaurants. This was a big chain in the South. At its peak in the 1990s, it had 1800 locations. Today, that number is just 62, resulting in only 3.4% of its peak existing today. Shoney’s started off as a drive-in in West Virginia and then rebranded into Big Boy. But in the ’50s, it would become what it is known today as Shoney’s.
Basically, it’s a southern-style sitdown restaurant that also offers buffets. But not too long after its founder passed away, the company would go into bankruptcy. Basically, what happened was the chain overexpanded, and it would undergo a major downsizing. Management was not very good for a while, and over time, it’s just shrunk and shrunk and shrunk to now just having 62 restaurants. This one, I don’t know if it really can make a comeback at all because buffets are less popular than they’ve ever been before, and even just general family restaurants are not the first choice amongst many people of today.
Ponderosa, Bonanza Steakhouse
Next, we have our near-extinct category. The first one we have here is Ponderosa, Bonanza Steakhouse. At its peak in the 1980s, it had around 700 locations. Today, it has just 21 or 3% of its peak. Bonanza Steakhouse was the first of the two, and it was started by one of the characters from the TV show, hence the name.
Then Ponderosa was started, named after a location on the show, and they were separate companies but became the same company in the late ’90s. Basically, this company has had just a really long decline, kind of coexisting with the decline in buffets. It didn’t do well when the economy at large did not do well, and in the US anyway, it’s very slowly just disappearing from the landscape of America, even though it appears that some exist in international markets still.
Arthur Treacher’s Fish and Chips
Last but not least, we have Arthur Treacher’s Fish and Chips. At its peak in the 1970s, it had 826 locations. Today, it has just two, with 0.2% remaining. Arthur Treacher’s was named after the actor of the same name who was involved in the company early on.
But probably the most significant thing that happened to Arthur Treacher’s was that the price of cod, which was their signature dish, simply just got too high, and they had to replace it with Pollock, and customers just didn’t care for it. The changes slowly over time shrunk and shrunk, and one by one, the restaurants have gone away. They attempted a co-branding with Nathan’s Hot Dogs, which lasted for a while, but today there are only two remaining, and it was down to one, but one that closed reopened, so it is presently at two.
