Restaurant chains that no longer exist

The company requires you to physically work in the store X number of hours of week. Owners are required to be hands-on. That also limits folks from owning more than a few stores. Chic-Fil-A's are probably the hottest franchise going right now (at least in my little corner of the world).

 

Mr. Steak is an incredible name for a place, and it would make me want to go there. Then again, I was highly disappointed by the product at The Steak Loft in Connecticut.

 

Funny that you associate it with Ontario. I looked it up out of curiousity and found this:

Apparently there is a single Hornes left in Port Royal, Virginia which operates as an independent restaurant.

 

I had a reputation in my family for closing them down when I came to visit. I'd fly in, we'd go to Ryan's, and when I came to visit the next year . . . closed. So we went to another one. I come back a year later . . . closed. And so on.

Found a couple of Ryan's not too far away when I moved here in 2011. Wife and I went once. Next time we visited . . . closed. Found another even closer, but before we could ever stop there they had taken a wrecking ball to the whole building.

 

You bastard! Closing down our great American affordable steakhouses has to be a Commie plot.

 

Kinda funny timing, my Facebook feed popped up with this link from the Dallas ABC affiliate ... former Cowboys LB Dat Nguyen's a CFA franchisee with a store in Fort Worth.

Fries with Dat? Former Cowboy now 'coaches' his Chick-fil-A

 

Are there any Bob's Big Boys in NY, NJ or PA? Thought they were all gone, but seems there are still a lot on the West Coast.

 

Jeez, you are to Ryan's what Ted McGinley is to sitcoms.

 

On steakhouses, we had a Quincy's, too. Loved the yeast rolls.

 

For those with a New York City background: Were the Tad's Steakhouses sort of the same deal? Always heard you had to use about a quart of steak sauce to make the steaks edible, but the price was right.

Used to work with two older New Yorkers on the news desk, and one of them (who weighed almost 300 pounds and had a reputation for eating anything and everything) raved about Tad's. The other guy thought he was crazy.

 

The Big Boy ownership puzzle around the country is weird. Frisch's, out of Cincinnati, was sold to another ownership group and yet still has the rights to use the Big Boy out front and the Big Boy sandwich. It's strange.