Bacolod Chicken Inasal (BCI) is a fast growing popular restaurant chain in the Philippines that seeks to become a Filipino restaurant institution known for its tradition of providing a great food experience giving delightful and lasting memories to customers. We are a Filipino-themed, middle-priced range, casual dining restaurant chain that specializes in the delicious chicken barbecue known as "chicken inasal" as well as a wide selection of well-loved Filipino dishes and specialties from southern Philippines.
The "chicken inasal" is a local version of the Filipino barbecue that originated from Bacolod City in the Visayas islands south of the Philippines. It is a delicious dish of chicken parts marinated in local herbs and spices, skewered on bamboo sticks then grilled to juicy perfection. Chicken inasal is so popular in Bacolod City that there are street stands selling the chicken barbecue in almost every corner. Bacolod City and the surrounding region is well-known for its delicious cuisine that are popular favorites of most Filipinos.
BACOLOD CHICKEN INASAL does not however, just serve well-loved Filipino dishes but it also offers a great food experience, feelings of comfort and convenient eating. Our intensive market research efforts through surveys and focus group discussions show that our customers enjoy a great food experience with us due to our delicious tasting dishes, the outstanding service of our staff, the relaxed and comfortable ambience of our interiors and our reasonable prices. Surveys also show that we bring feelings of comfort to our customers through dishes that remind them of home. Lastly, studies show that the majority of our customers dine with us for the convenience of having good tasting food served quickly saving them from doing their own cooking.
In 1945, after World War II, American occupation troops stationed in Quezon City, Philippines were befriended by Maximo Gimenez, a Stanford University-educated teacher. A few came to his nearby house for a drink or two, until they insisted that they pay for their drinks.
Maximo decided to open a cafe which served chicken, steak and drinks. He was joined by Mercedes his wife, and Felipa, his sister-in-law. His niece Ruby managed the kitchen, joined by her husband Claro. Ruby concocted a special recipe for chicken that was adored by the G.I.s., and they kept coming back for more. Soon enough, the Filipino public heard about the delicious chicken -- tender, juicy, and crispy -- and they came too!
Encouraged by her mother to expand the menu and serve more Filipino food, Ruby set up the Baclaran branch along Roxas Boulevard in Parañaque. It was decided that the restaurant would be named "Max's" which was Maximo's nickname.
We started our life in 1958 when Frank and Dan Carney opened the first Hut in Wichita, Kansas. The first Pizza Hut restaurant was only small, with enough room for 25 seats; the restaurant sign only had space for nine letters. Frank and Dan wanted to have 'Pizza' in the name, which left space for just 3 more letters. Because the building looked like a hut... Pizza Hut was born! Fifteen years later, the first UK restaurant opened. Since then we have grown to become the biggest Pizza Company on the planet. We're the UK's leading pizza restaurant and delivery chain too, with over 600 outlets across the country. We are part of Yum Restaurants International (who also own KFC, Taco Bell, Long John Silver's, A & W and Pizza Hut Worldwide).
Red Ribbon BakeShop is a popular fast-food chain and bakery in the Philippines and the United States, offering a wide range of cakes and pastries. The chain began in 1979 in Quezon City along Timog Avenue and started franchising in 1999. In 1984, they opened their first US branch in West Covina, California. Today, there are more than 80 branches all over the Philippines, and there are now 20 stores all over California, two in Las Vegas, two in New Jersey, one in metro Phoenix, and an upcoming branch in New York. [2]. Other expansion plans continue to be worked out.
In 2005, Red Ribbon was acquired by Jollibee Foods Corporation, a conglomerate of popular fast-food chains in the
Alex III Restaurant’s beginnings started when Mr. Alex B. Reyes III, coming from a well known
family of restaurateurs, envisioned a restaurant which provides what he called the three needs
of Customers in a restaurant – quality food, excellent service and cleanliness. Armed with more
than 20 years of food business experience and knowing the needs of customers, he created one
of the first to come up with a mixture of Japanese, Chinese and Filipino cuisine in one roof.
Various food critics ridiculed this style but the seasoned restaurateur ignored such criticisms
and time has proven him right. ALEX III was an instant hit as customers “ keep coming back”.
The business began in 1940, with a restaurant opened by siblings Dick and Mac McDonald in San Bernardino, California. Their introduction of the "Speedee Service System" in 1948 established the principles of the modern fast-food restaurant. The original mascot of McDonald's was a man with a chef's hat on top of a hamburger shaped head whose name was "Speedee." Speedee was eventually replaced with Ronald McDonald in 1968.
The present corporation dates its founding to the opening of a franchised restaurant by Ray Kroc, in Des Plaines, Illinois on April 15, 1955[6] , the ninth McDonald's restaurant overall. Kroc later purchased the McDonald brothers' equity in the company and led its worldwide expansion and the company became listed on the public stock markets in 1965[7]. Kroc was also noted for predatory and unscrupulous business practices, forcing the McDonald's brothers to leave the fast food business and leave California to return to their state of origin, New Hampshire. The McDonald's brothers were forced by Ray Kroc to take their own name off of their restaurants, after being sued by Kroc. Kroc deliberately opened up McDonald's restaurants near every McDonald's brothers restaurants just to undercut their business in a feud documented in both Kroc's autobiography and in the McDonald brothers autobiography. The site of the McDonald brothers' original restaurant is now a monument.
With the expansion of McDonald's into many international markets, the company has become a symbol of globalization and the spread of the American way of life. Its prominence has also made it a frequent topic of public debates about obesity, corporate ethics and consumer responsibility.
Tony Tan Caktiong and his family opened a Magnolia Ice Cream parlor at Cubao in 1975 with Jolibe as the original name. Sometime in 1978, Tony Tan and his brothers and sisters, being partners, engaged the services of a management consultant in the person of Manuel C. Lumba. Consultant Lumba shifted the business focus from ice cream to hamburgers,after his studies showed that a much larger market was waiting to be exploited. Lumba became Tony Tan's first business and management mentor. Lumba next re-formed the name Jolibe to Jolly Bee and made the two words form a single name Jollibee, but changed the "y" to an "i". The Jollibee mascot was conceptualized by Lumba inspired by local and foreign children's books. Lumba next created the product name "Yumburger" as well as the name "Chickenjoy". He had the company incorporated in order to benefit from incorporation and leased a house on Main St. in Cubao, Quezon City as the first headquarters. Lumba also formulated a long-term marketing strategy, listing up a number of consumer promotions and traffic building schemes. Tony Tan stressed that developing internal strengths was critical. The stores were re-designed, the service transformed into a full self-service, fast-food operation with drive thrus. Not long after, Tony Tan and Manny Lumba went on an observation tour in the United States, attended food service and equipment conventions. Tony Tan placed Manny Lumba in charge of franchise development.
Shakey's was founded in Sacramento, California, on April 30, 1954, by Sherwood "Shakey" Johnson and Ed Plummer. Johnson's nickname resulted from nerve damage following a bout of malaria suffered during World War II. The first weekend the parlor opened, only beer was served and Shakey took the profits from beer sales and bought ingredients for pizza the following Monday.
Shakey personally played dixieland jazz piano to entertain patrons. Shakey's initially became known outside Sacramento, not for its pizza, but for the jazz program it sponsored on a regional radio network. Shakey Johnson is honored in the Banjo Hall of Fame in Guthrie, Oklahoma, for his longtime use of banjo music at his pizza parlors. Other live music, including piano, was also a staple in the old Shakey's parlors.
The original store at 57th and J in Sacramento remained in business until the late 1990s.
The second Shakey's Pizza Parlor opened in Portland, Oregon, in 1956. Shakey's began franchising its restaurant to others in 1957. According to Johnson, Shakey's Pizza engaged in little market research and made most of its decisions on where to locate stores by going where Kinney Shoes opened stores. By the time Johnson sold his interest in 1967, there were 272 Shakey's Pizza Parlors in the United States. The first international store opened in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in 1968. By 1975, the company had expanded to the Pacific Rim, including Japan and the Philippines. The chain is now much bigger in the Philippines than in the United States.
Shakey Johnson sold his half of the company for $3 million to Colorado Milling and Elevator in 1967, which acquired Plummer's half for $9 million the next year. Shakey's was again sold to Hunt International Resources in 1974. Two franchisees bought the chain in 1984 and they sold out to Inno-Pacific Holdings of Singapore in 1989. Most of the U. S. stores closed during the time Inno-Pacific owned the chain (two Shakey's restaurants in the Houston, Texas metro area were shuttered). Some of the remaining franchisees took Inno-Pacific to court in 2003. Before this could come to trial, Shakey's was sold to Jacmar Companies of Alhambra, California, in 2004. Jacmar had been the franchisee of 19 Shakey's restaurants.
Shakey's has gone from 325 stores throughout the United States when Hunt International bought the company in 1974 to 63 stores as of 2008, 55 of them in California. There are two stores east of the Mississippi River: Warner Robins, Georgia and Auburn, Alabama. The West Allis, Wisconsin store closed on June 30, 2008. Only three Shakey's stores exist in the West outside California: Nogales, Arizona and two in suburban Seattle.
Greenwich started as an over-the-counter pizza store in the Greenhills Commercial Center in Metro Manila in 1971. In 1994, Jollibee Foods Corporation obtained a deal acquiring 80% of Greenwich shareholding. Then in 2006 Jollibee Foods Corp. bought out the remaining shares of its partners in Greenwich Pizza Corp., equivalent to a 20% stake, for P384 million in cash. The new company was called Greenwich Pizza Corporation, and the franchise experienced rapid expansion. From 50 stores in 1994, as of 2005 there are over 240 stores and an annual revenue of over P4 billion
In 1972, in a cozy neighborhood in North Miami, Florida, USA, Tony Roma opened Tony Roma’s Place. The alluring combination of warm ambience, genuine courtesy and sensational food was irresistible. Baby Back ribs emerged as the house specialty with people traveling from miles away just to sample the signature product. It wasn’t long before the word got out – Tony Roma’s is THE place for ribs.
Soon, Tony Roma’s Place became one of the most popular and successful restaurants in Miami. By the mid 80’s, Tony Roma’s restaurants took the west coast by storm and spread across the nation. Today, there are more than 260 Tony Roma’s restaurants in 27 countries.
The sensation Tony Roma started has become a world success story. Countless awards over the years for its ribs and signature sauces have been won. At Tony Roma’s, there are no customers; there are only guests, treated with the care and courtesy reserved for special friends.
Tony Roma’s may have come a long way since Miami, but the cozy ambience, sincere hospitality and the mouthwatering menu haven’t changed. So, no matter where you are in the world, when you visit Tony Roma’s, you can be assured of sampling its world famous ribs and a whole lot more!
Don Anastacio B. de Alba first set foot in the Philippines in 1952. He worked for the prestigious Casino Español until he opened his first restaurant, Alba Cocina Española, on Isaac Peral, now United Nations Avenue two years after. It was a modest eatery with only 5 tables to accommodate his clients.
A year after his first restaurant on Isaac Peral, Don Alba had become a byword among Spanish cuisine patrons, which could no longer be accommodated in the Isaac Peral eatery. He transferred to a bigger and better location on Florida Street, now Maria Orosa, closer to the Luneta. Don Alba was now popularly known as the man with the golden touch.
Top names in Philippine officialdom, politics, business, industry and the profession graced Alba's restaurant. Everybody who was somebody went to Alba. Cabinet members, justices, judges, fiscals and lawyers including students and young lovers, queued up at Florida's Alba. Opulent tourists from Europe, America and Asia made it a point to dine at Alba, now renowned as the authentic exponent of the best Spanish cuisine in Manila. Prince Juan Carlos of Spain and his wife Sofia dined at Alba when they visited Manila.
The overwhelming popularity of his eatery prompted Don Alba to expand -- and to incorporate. By 1961, he had two more high-class eateries: the Alba Restaurant and Supper Club on Dewey Boulevard and the Taberna Gitana in Quezon City, nightspots which offered exquisite Spanish music as interpreted by top-rate local and international artists.
Soon the Alba chain of restaurants included La Parilla and Patio Flamenco on Roxas Boulevard, the Alba Patio de Makati on the 11th floor of the Doña Narcisa Building and the Jardin de Alba in the Greenhills Complex.
Besides those, he ran two executive canteens: The Bull and Bear Club in the Makati Stock exchange and the DBP canteen. In 1966, he added a cocktail lounge and bar to Florida's Alba, called Las Cuevas, a unique nightclub for the discriminating Manileños. Don Alba was now on top of the world, his eateries and nightspots being run by two separate corporations.
But the greatest pride of his life was the La Mancha, which opened in December of 1975, in the Magallanes Commercial Center. It was the most elegant, ornate and prestigious restaurant cum nightclub that he had ever put up. A three-story tower with a huge windmill dominated La Mancha's facade, a picture straight out of Miguel de Cervantes' Don Quixote. It was Don Alba's quixotic dream come to life.
La Mancha was envisioned as "an exceptional tourist attraction that would offer the choicest Castilian dishes in the finest Spanish tradition of warmth and gaiety". Said Don Alba: "I wanted to bring to Manila a part of Spain and its cultural history. I offered innovative dishes: grilled, steamed, and charcoalbroiled. On the exposed beams of the ceiling, I had my favorite proverbs, taken from Don Cervantes' novel, inscribed in Gothic. I went all-out for La Mancha, which cost more than P4 million".
Unfortunately for Don Alba, the construction of the Magallanes overpass complex destroyed his dream. The heavy traffic that ensued, not to mention the thick cloud of dust that fell in the area, drove away La Mancha's patrons. Even after the Magallanes overpass was complete, La Mancha continued to suffer heavy losses. To salvage the situation, he sold all his holdings and, with his second wife, and seven children, left for Spain.
After two years, he decided to come back to the Philippines to start all over again. He put up Casa Colas on Polaris Street, off Makati Avenue, in Makati, not as classy an eatery but clean and cozy. His menu carried Alba favorites, like pollo al ajillo, solomillo a la pobre, lengua a la Sevillana, pescado en salsa verde, chipirones en su tinta, and paella Valenciana. He even included tuhod y batoc estofado and pato al Jerez, the choice of health freaks.
One could also order pato a la Naranja or venado breseado con castañas. Those who loved wine to go with their meal could ask for Alba's choices, like Señorio de Serria or Bodegas de Secizalia.
After having retired from his fabulous chain of Alba eateries, Don Alba is now priming up to regain his crown in his line of endeavor. His undiminished enthusiasm, energy and industry, not to mention his rich experience and wealth of friends, will serve him well in his quest to bring back quality and class to dining, threatened by fast food and the emerging eat-and-run sub-culture. After 49 years in the country, he is still the man with a dream.
Casa Colas, presently known as Alba Restaurante Español, is located in Polaris Street, in Bel-Air, Makati, which is practically a back alley, away from the center of the crowd. Many have already discovered it. Whenever Don Alba goes, it seems, so go his patrons and customers. Why? The great American Ralph Waldo Emerson, provides an answer to that. He says: "If a man has a good corn, or wood, or boards or pigs to sell, or can make better chairs or knives, or crucibles, or church organs, than anybody else, you will find a broad, hard-beaten road to his house, although it be in the woods".
Mario's Ranelagh, is located in a small village in a very central location with a pub across the road. It opened in 1991. Mario's was originally a delicatessen owned by Declan Muldoon. Declan was not happy with the delicatessen and wanted to change. With the help an advice of Caroline Gillespie and other friends he decided on a restaurant.
The original design was the brainchild of designer Angela Murphy who achieved a lovely cozy atmosphere with an Italian accent. Seating is for approximately for 50 people. The next thing to consider was the staff. The original chef is son of the owner of the well known"Quo Vadis" restaurant and with his help the original menu was conceived. Declan wanted to produce good, fresh, reasonably priced food with a distinctly Italian flavour coupled with good reasonably priced Italian and new world wines. The menu has been revamped on a number of occasions but in essence has changed little from the original. In the beginning the staff consisted of 6 people, they now employ 20. In 1998 the Wine Bar (designed by Sinead Moore of Moore Interiors) opened. This was to facilitate customers waiting for tables who did not wish to wait in a pub. The end result is a really popular haunt for locals and visitors alike.
In 1996 Declan with his brother Stephen decided it was time to replicate the success of Ranelagh and set about finding a similar location. They found what they wanted in Terenure. Mario's Terenure is once again located in a village, central location with a pub across the road. It opened in april 1997. It is totally different from Ranelagh being larger and more modern, yet it achieves the same cozy atmosphere. Once again the design was conceived by Sinead Moore. Seating accommodation is for 60 people. It started with key staff from Ranelagh and went from there. Originally it employed 10 people it now employs 31 the menu is the same as Ranelagh which has stood the test of time. Wines are again very similar. The Wine Bar opened in August 1999. Mario's Restaurant in Terenure situated in a village of restaurants is one of the most popular restaurants in Dublin In 1999 Stephen and Declan once again went Looking for a location for a restaurant and found another site in a village with a really central location and pub the next door. This time, however they started from scratch. They bought the premises, demolishing the original building and came up with a gem. The architects were Mahony Architecture and the design, down to cups and saucers came from Sinead Moore. This time the Wine Bar was incorporated in the restaurant. Mario's Sandymount opened in August 2000. Key original staff come from Terenure and Ranelagh. The number of staff for first week was 18, they now employ 35. The menu and wines once again are the same as both other restaurants. Mario's Restaurant in Sandymount has proved extremely popular in an area that badly needed a quality restaurant.
The light-beige building looking like a Tower, crowned with the tower shaped roof, was built at the end of the 20-th century. It differed much from its modern view The building has two floors and the restaurant and the cookery-shop are placed on its different levels.
The popularity came to "Aristocrat" very fast. The citizens of Bishkek and our guests, foreign tourists, representatives of many foreign firms and companies always look forward to visit "Aristocrat”. Always recherche and various kitchen, wonderful service, cozy halls attract constantly a great number of people of different generations to celebrate birthdays, weddings, family festivals, memorial dates, anniversaries ant just to have lunch or dinner together with close favorite friends.
"Aristocrat" has remained unsurpassed leader of the restaurant business for long. The best cookers and confectioners make our guests be pleased with their cookery experience: the legendary cakes and pastries, cold and hot plates, the first and second courses, the fruit and sweet desserts and certainly, their attention and charm.
You will always be able to mark making bargains, to have lunch with your business partner, to conduct important negotiations, or just to have dinner in the strict and cozy interior of our Banquet Hall. And who knows, if your most far-reaching projects are likely to be born here.
And what a chance you have in "Aristocrat" Restaurant: over the sounds of classic music with a glass of cold beer or a glass of fine French wine to relax and to go away from vanity and urgent troubles of the life in general.
And not by chance, here, in "Aristocrat" the most solemn occasions of the political and cultural life of our city are celebrated.
Kentucky Fried Chicken, or KFC, is a chain of fast food restaurants based in Louisville, Kentucky. KFC has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Yum! Brands since 2002. The chain also advertises itself as Poulet Frit du Kentucky or PFK in the province of Quebec in Canada.
The company was founded as Kentucky Fried Chicken by Colonel Harland Sanders in 1952. The company adopted the abbreviated form of its name in 1991. Starting in April 2007, the company began using its original appellation of Kentucky Fried Chicken again for its signage, packaging and advertisements in the United States as part of a new corporate re-branding program;[3][4] newer and remodeled restaurants will have the new logo and name while older stores will continue to use the 1991 signage. Additionally, the company continues to use the abbreviation KFC freely in its advertising. Internationally the company is still known as KFC.
KFC primarily sells chicken in form of pieces, wraps, salads and burgers. While its primary focus is fried chicken KFC also offers a line of roasted chicken products, sides and desserts. Outside of North America, KFC offers beef based products such as burgers or kebabs, pork based products such as ribs and other regional fare. The popularity and novelty of KFC has led to the general formula of the fried chicken fast-food restaurant being copied by restaurant owners worldwide.
Born and raised in Henryville, Indiana, Sanders passed through several professions in his lifetime. Sanders first served his fried chicken in 1930 in the midst of the Great Depression at a gas station he owned in North Corbin, Kentucky. The dining area was named "Sanders Court & Café" and was so successful that in 1936 Kentucky Governor Ruby Laffoon granted Sanders the title of honorary Kentucky Colonel, in recognition of his contribution to the state's cuisine. The following year Sanders expanded his restaurant to 142 seats, and added a motel he bought across the street. When Sanders prepared his chicken in his original restaurant in North Corbin, he prepared the chicken in an iron skillet, which took about 30 minutes to do, too long for a restaurant operation. In 1939, Sanders altered the cooking process for his fried chicken to use a pressure fryer, resulting in a greatly reduced cooking time comparable to that of deep frying.[7] In 1940 Sanders devised what came to be known as his Original Recipe.
The Sanders Court & Café generally served travelers, often those headed to Florida, so when the route planned in the 1950s for what would become Interstate 75 bypassed Corbin, he sold his properties and traveled the U.S. to sell his chicken to restaurant owners. Sanders entered into franchise agreements paying him five cents for each piece of chicken sold.[citation needed] The first to take him up on the offer was Pete Harman in South Salt Lake, Utah; together, they opened the first "Kentucky Fried Chicken" outlet in 1952. By the early 1960s Kentucky Fried Chicken was sold in over 600 franchised outlets in both the United States and Canada. One of the longest-lived franchisees of the older Col. Sanders' chicken concept, as opposed to the KFC chain, was the Kenny Kings chain. The company owned many Northern Ohio diner-style restaurants, the last of which closed in 2004. Sanders sold the entire KFC franchising operation in 1964 for $2 million USD [10] Since that time, the chain has been sold three more times, most recently to PepsiCo, which made it part of its Tricon Global Restaurants division, which in turn was spun off in 1997, and has now been renamed to Yum! Brands. Additionally, Colonel Sanders' nephew, Lee Cummings, took his own Kentucky Fried Chicken franchises (and a chicken recipe of his own) and converted them to his own "spin-off" restaurant chain, Lee's Famous Recipe Chicken.
Today, some of the older KFC restaurants have become famous in their own right. One such restaurant is located in Marietta, Georgia. This store is notable for a 56-foot (17 m) tall sign that looks like a chicken. The sign, known locally as the Big Chicken, was built for an earlier fast-food restaurant on the site called Johnny Reb's Chick, Chuck and Shake. It is often used as a travel reference point in the Atlanta area by locals and pilots.[11]
Wendy's is an international chain of fast food restaurants founded by Dave Thomas in 1969 in Columbus, Ohio. As of December 2006 Wendy's was the third largest hamburger fast food chain with approximately 6,700 locations after McDonald's (31,000 locations) and Burger King (11,200 locations).[1][2] On April 24, 2008, the company announced a merger with Triarc, the parent of Arby's. Under the new owner the company will remain headquartered in Dublin, Ohio.[3]
Wendy's International is the parent company of Wendy's, and is a publicly traded company. Approximately 77% of Wendy's restaurants are franchised, the majority of which are located in North America. Wendy's and its affiliates employs more than 46,000 people in its global operations. In fiscal year 2006, the firm had $9.45 billion (USD) in total sales. While Wendy's sets standards for exterior store appearance, food quality and menu, individual owners have control over hours of operations, interior decor, pricing and staff uniforms and wages.
In response to the 1986 slowdown, Wendy's restructured its cleanliness standards, menu and other operational details to ensure that stores met the goals and standards of the parent company so that its franchises were competitive in the market.
Wendy's menu consists primarily of hamburgers, chicken sandwiches, French fries and beverages. The company does not have a signature product such as the Whopper or the Big Mac, instead the burger patties it uses in preparing its sandwiches are its signature item. The company also advertises that its burgers are made from fresh ground beef, not frozen.
Wendy's was founded by Dave Thomas on November 15, 1969 and was named after Dave's second daughter, Melinda Lou Thomas, then eight years old, whom her older siblings nicknamed "Wendy" (originally "Winda", stemming from the child's initial difficulty saying her own name), as Thomas stated in his A&E Biography show. The corporate headquarters is located in Dublin, Ohio. The first Wendy's restaurant was opened in 1969 and the chain grew rapidly to more than 3,000 restaurants by 1985. However, in the mid-1980s some under-performing Wendy's restaurants were closed. In 1986 Dave Thomas came out of retirement and started doing commercials for Wendy's and helped rebuild the restaurant until his death on January 8, 2002.
The first Wendy's Restaurant in Columbus, Ohio, opened by Dave Thomas in 1969, was closed on March 2, 2007.[5] The signs were removed from the building the morning after its last day in operation. Reasons cited for this closing included a lack of foot traffic by potential customers, the closure of museums within proximity of the restaurant, cost-prohibitive renovations that would have been needed, and the lack of an adequate parking lot in front of the facility.[6] Additionally, there have been several large closures of Wendy's franchise groups in the last few years; most noticeably the closure of its Australian operations and the bankruptcy of the WenAmerica franchise group and closure of its fifty locations in the Midwest region of the US.
In Canada and Maine, as a result of Wendy's 1995 corporate acquisition of the Canadian doughnut chain Tim Hortons, many locations were joint Wendy's–Tim Hortons restaurants (although with separate staff at separate order counters). This continued until Wendy's divested itself of Tim Hortons.
Burger King's first restaurant, originally called Insta Burger King, was opened on December 4, 1954 in a suburb of Miami, Florida by James McLamore and David Edgerton; both alumni of the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration. McLamore visited the original McDonald's hamburger stand belonging to Dick and Mac McDonald in San Bernardino, California; sensing potential in their innovative assembly line-based production system, he decided to create a version of his own. By 1959, BK had grown to five regional stores in and around the metropolitan Miami area. About this time, McLamore and Edgerton decided to expand BK nationally by using a franchising system; a popular method for expansion due to its low capital cost for the parent company. They formed Burger King Corporation as the parent and began selling territorial franchise licenses to private owners across the US.
In 1967, after eight years of private operation, the Pillsbury Company acquired Burger King and its parent company Burger King Corporation. At the time of the purchase, BK had grown to 274 restaurants in the United States. Even though Pillsbury owned and operated the company, BK was still the object of a series of failed and successful acquisitions and divestitures. In 1973, Chart House, owner of 350 BK restaurants at the time and one of BK's largest franchise groups, attempted to purchase the chain from Pillsbury for $100 million (USD). When Chart House's bid failed, its owners, Billy and Jimmy Trotter, suggested that Pillsbury and Chart House spin off their respective Burger King holdings and merge the two entities into a separate company, an offer Pillsbury also declined. After the failed attempts to acquire BK, the relationship with Chart House and the Trotters began to sour; in 1979 BK successfully sued Chart House for improperly acquiring locations in Boston and Houston. In 1984, Pillsbury purchased Chart House's successor DiversiFoods for $390 million (USD) after a separate, independent $525 million DiversiFoods management-backed leveraged buy-out of the company failed.
BK, and former corporate siblings, Bennigan's, Steak and Ale, Godfather's Pizza (part of the DiversiFoods acquisition), Quik Wok and Häagen Dazs ice cream shops, remained under the Pillsbury corporate umbrella until Pillsbury divested its restaurant holdings in 1989 and sold Burger King to British alcoholic beverage manufacturer and distributor Grand Metropolitan PLC. In 1989, under the ownership of Grand Met, Burger King acquired many locations of its major UK rival Wimpy when the parent company bought the Wimpy's brand from its previous owner United Biscuits and re-branded them as Burger King, giving it an even greater presence in that country. While other "Wimpy" locations are still in operation presently, they are now independent from BK and no longer have the presence they once did.[3] In 1997, Grand Metropolitan merged with Guinness to form a company called Diageo. Diageo maintained ownership of BKC until 2001 when Diageo decided to focus solely on their beverage products and divest itself of the chain.
By the time of the sale, Burger King's revenues and market share had declined significantly, Burger King had fallen to a near tie for second place with rival Wendy's in the US market for hamburger chain restaurants. For many years leading into the early 2000s Burger King and its various owners plus many of its larger franchises closed many under-performing stores.[8] Several of its largest franchises entered bankruptcy due to the issues surrounding the performance of the brand.[9][10]
In 2002, a troika of private equity firms led by TPG Capital, L.P with associates Bain Capital and Goldman Sachs Capital Partners agreed to purchase BK from Diageo for $1.5 billion (USD),[3] with the sale becoming complete in December of that year.[11] The new owners, through several new CEOs, have moved to revitalize and reorganize the company, the first major move was to re-name the BK parent as Burger King Brands.[12] The investment group initially planned to take BK public within the two years of the acquisition, this was delayed until 2006. On February 1, 2006, CEO Greg Brenneman announced TPG's plans to turn Burger King into a publicly traded company by issuing an Initial Public Offering (IPO). On February 16, the company announced it had filed its registration for the IPO with the Securities and Exchange Commission. On May 18, 2006, Burger King began trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol BKC and generated $425 million in revenue, the largest IPO of a US-based restaurant chain on record.
Founded in 1941 by industry pioneer Carl N. Karcher, Carl's Jr.® has consistently stood for quality and innovation. Operating under the essential philosophy that consumers will pay more for quality and taste, the Carl's Jr.® brand is a leader in both average guest check and gross margins. Carl's Jr.'s® long history of industry innovations have included enhancements to the customer experience, including partial table service, the dual-branding concept, and inventive restaurant design - not to mention the numerous industry-defining products that have graced the menu over the years. Carl's Jr.'s® dual-branding program with CKE Restaurants' quick-service Mexican brand, Green Burrito®, provides for increased variety and market share. Carl's Jr.® advertising has been a key part of its success in its ability to connect with the lifestyle and attitude of its target market and encourage sales of its higher-priced, higher-margin premium burgers.
California Pizza Kitchen Inc. is one of the most successful and fastest-growing chain restaurants that began operations in the United States within the last ten years. The company boasts one of the most innovative and distinctive menus of any eating establishment in America, including such items as Barbecue Chicken Pizza, Bacon-Lettuce-Tomato Pizza, and Moo Shu Chicken Calzone Pizza. Although California Pizza Kitchen offers more than just pizza, including pasta, salads, desserts, beer, wine, and soft drinks, it is the pizza that it is famous for. With sales in 1995 rapidly increasing over the 1994 figures, and with 78 restaurants operating in 18 states, the company intends to continue its aggressive expansion policy.
The founders of California Pizza Kitchen are Larry Flax and Rick Rosenfield. Flax, a native of Los Angeles, California, was educated at the University of Southern California Law School and served as an Assistant United States Attorney during the early 1970s. In that capacity, Flax worked as Chief of Civil Rights and as Assistant Chief of the Criminal Division for the United States Department of Justice. Rosenfield, a native of Chicago, worked as an attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., and as Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California. Having met while pursuing their respective careers as assistant federal prosecutors, the two men struck up a friendship during the early 1970s and decided to form their own law firm. Concentrating on criminal defense cases, in 1984 the two partners found themselves arguing a case before a Superior Court Judge in San Francisco. Flax and Rosenfield strongly believed that the facts of the case were in their favor, but the jury was unable to reach a verdict. Disillusioned by the hung jury, the two young men decided to leave the legal profession to seek a more rewarding career.
During their partnership, Flax and Rosenfield had offered legal services on a national basis, and in the course of their business travels they had sampled restaurants across the country and developed an enthusiasm for good food. Resolving to turn their enthusiasm into a business opportunity, they decided to open a restaurant. The two entrepreneurs took their lead from Wolfgang Puck, the master chef and owner of Spago restaurant in West Hollywood, who was known for creating pizzas with unusual toppings; the pair saw an opportunity to bring innovative pizza like Puck's to the mass market. The first California Pizza Kitchen was opened in Beverly Hills in 1985 and was an immediate success.
The strategy behind California Pizza Kitchen was simple. The owners wanted to provide a casual, upscale, family restaurant, with good food as the cornerstone of the enterprise. Most of the chain's kitchens are out in the open, so customers can watch the cooks preparing their pizzas. The restaurants are decorated with white tile to provide a clean, crisp atmosphere. The pizzas are baked in wood-burning ovens imported from Italy, whose designs had been perfected over a period of a few hundred years. The oven is fired to approximately 800 degrees Fahrenheit, and the pizza is cooked in three minutes in order to sear the ingredients. This results in a tastier--and, according to some cooks, a healthier--pizza. The partners were committed to creating designer pizzas with unusual toppings, such as duck sausage, Tandoori chicken, and goat cheese, an approach that not only attracted customers not normally inclined to eat pizza, but also enabled the company to take advantage of food trends within the industry. When the owners added pasta, salads, soft drinks, liquor, and desserts to the menu, California Pizza Kitchen was on the road to success.
Although the company struggled during its first few years of operation and incurred some debt, sales of its pizza were always increasing. The company's big break came in 1989 when the flamboyant chairman of Golden Nugget casinos, Steve Wynn, struck a deal with Flax and Rosenfield to put a California Pizza Kitchen in the Mirage Hotel and Casino. Located in Las Vegas, the heart of the U.S. gambling industry, the new restaurant garnered $5.5 million in sales during its first year of operation. On weekends, according to the restaurant's manager, tables were turning over between 16 to 25 times within a 13-hour period. Unfortunately for Flax and Rosenfield, they didn't own the restaurant in the Mirage Hotel and Casino. Wynn had arranged an unusual California Pizza Kitchen franchise. Yet the publicity that came from the success of the restaurant in Las Vegas opened doors to new opportunities in other parts of the country. Real estate developers were soon lobbying to place a California Pizza Kitchen in strategic locations for new malls and commercial developments.
In 1992 PepsiCo Inc., located in Purchase, New York, bought a 50 percent interest in California Pizza Kitchen, which it later increased to 67 percent. In addition to its line of soft drink products, PepsiCo owned Pizza Hut, KFC (formerly known as Kentucky Fried Chicken), and Taco Bell. Management at PepsiCo wanted to gain more experience in operating full-service, moderately priced, casual-dining restaurants. The deal was finalized for $97 million, with Flax and Rosenfield receiving $20 million apiece, and PepsiCo assumed two seats out of the four on California Pizza Kitchen's board of directors. Not surprisingly, two of Taco Bell's officers were chosen for the two seats on the board. Flax and Rosenfield remained as co-chairs of the board of directors with 50 percent voting control, and continued to direct the day-to-day operations of the company. The only change PepsiCo required in the agreement was for California Pizza to replace the sale of Coca-Cola products with PepsiCo's line of soft drinks.
The arrangement between PepsiCo and California Pizza Kitchen seemed to be a gift to Flax and Rosenfield. At the time of the deal, California Pizza Kitchen was generating approximately $60 million in annual sales from all its restaurants, with each one averaging a little over $3 million. The number of employees had reached 1,700, the number of operating restaurants had risen to 25, and the ambitious entrepreneurs were pursuing a strategy to open a new unit each month. Although the owners were contemplating a public stock offering in order to continue their expansion program, they decided to accept PepsiCo's offer due to the generous terms of the agreement. Flax and Rosenfield realized that PepsiCo management wanted to learn how to run an operation like theirs, and they were more than willing to teach people at PepsiCo what they knew in exchange for limitless expansion capital. Each new restaurant was costing nearly $1 million to open over an eight-month period, and Flax and Rosenfield did not want to interrupt their aggressive expansion plans.
California Pizza Kitchen was opening restaurants in upscale office buildings and pricey malls and as free-standing units in affluent areas. The company's restaurants were primarily located throughout the greater Los Angeles metropolitan area, but new units were opened on a monthly basis in major cities across the country, including Chicago and Atlanta. Except for two franchises in Las Vegas, and a limited partnership in Chicago, all of the restaurant units were owned by Flax and Rosenfield. Delighted by the chain's success, PepsiCo management was especially intrigued by the part played by the waitstaff in California Pizza Kitchen's achievement. When PepsiCo officials visited a number of California Pizza Kitchen units located in various areas of the country, they discovered an inordinately friendly and helpful staff of waiters and waitresses at each restaurant. Impressed by the process of selection, training, and retainment of employees, PepsiCo was determined to learn how to apply these techniques to its own restaurant operations.
The partnership between PepsiCo and California Pizza Kitchen flourished from the very beginning. By the end of 1993, Flax and Rosenfield were operating 35 restaurants across the country, and were planning an ambitious expansion drive of 50 new units per year in both 1994 and 1995. In 1993 the restaurant industry honored Flax and Rosenfield with the Golden Chain award, one of the plaudits that the partners found most satisfying out of all the accolades they received.
As their successes multiplied, Flax and Rosenfield began to devote even more attention than before to the development of personnel, which included over 3,000 workers, 160 of whom were kitchen managers and general managers. Not only were the two men driving forces behind better service, but through their constant concern with internal coaching and promotion, they enhanced their employees' career opportunities. A former waiter and cook who had joined the company when it was only one month old was promoted to vice-president of back-of-the-house operations; a unit-level assistant manager became front-of-the-house operations vice-president; and the company's first waitress in the Beverly Hills restaurant became vice-president of training. The former lawyers also worked to improve the pay scale and benefits of their workers, securing, for example, a $2.3 million deal in special compensation and bonuses for company executives through negotiations with parent PepsiCo.
Throughout all of these developments, the focus of California Pizza Kitchen remained the food. The company offered 29 different pizza flavors, including duck sausage pizza, Thai chicken pizza, two-sausage pizza, tuna-melt pizza, mixed grill vegetarian pizza, goat cheese pizza, and eggplant Parmesan pizza, with prices ranging from $6.95 to $11.95.
The year 1994 was one of the best to date for the company. California Pizza Kitchen added 28 restaurants to reach a total of 70 units operating in 15 states and the District of Columbia. Sales also shot up to the $120 million milepost, a dramatic increase of 60 percent over the previous year. Surprisingly, only 40 percent of revenues were coming from the company's pizza menu: other items such as corn soup and barbecue chopped chicken salad were selling just as well. Per unit annual sales were still hovering around the $3 million mark.
By the beginning of 1995, California Pizza Kitchen was operating 78 restaurants in 18 states and in the District of Columbia. New food toppings and combinations were continually being added to the pizza menu, as were as a host of new items such as Chicken Tequila Fettucine and Tuscan Bean Soup. Although Larry Flax and Richard Rosenfield remained firmly in control of the day-to-day operations of the restaurant chain, new management personnel from PepsiCo were becoming more and more an integral part of the company's decision-making process.
Kenny Rogers Roasters is a chicken restaurant that was started in 1991 in the United States by country music musician Kenny Rogers and former Kentucky Fried Chicken owner and original developer John Y. Brown, Jr. The menu was originally centered on wood-fired rotisserie chicken. By 1995, the menu had expanded to include turkey, ribs, and various side dishes, and the chain had expanded to over 350 restaurants, including locations in Canada, the Middle East, and Asia.
In 1998, the company went through a restructuring, which resulted in its acquisition by Nathan's Famous, Inc., completed on April 1, 1999; as a result of restructuring, many locations closed. Today, according to Nathan's Famous corporate web site, there is only one U.S. Kenny Rogers Roasters operating at the Ontario Mills mall in Ontario, California. Some of the company's Miami Subs Grill locations feature Kenny Rogers Roasters menu items, along with Nathan's Famous hot dogs and Arthur Treacher's fish items.
T.G.I. Friday's (often shortened to "Friday's") is an American restaurant chain focusing on casual dining, with over 800 restaurants in over 50 countries. The company is a unit of the Carlson Companies. Its name is taken from the expression "TGIF" (short for "Thank God it's Friday"). The chain is known for its appearance, with red-striped canopies, brass railings, Tiffany lamps, and frequent use of antiques as decor. The Friday's restaurant chain was founded in 1965 in New York City, featuring standard American cuisine, bar food, and alcoholic beverages. The restaurant was located at the corner of 63rd Street and First Avenue. The exterior featured a red-and-white striped awning, and blue paint, and the interior included wooden floors, Bentwood chairs, and striped tablecloth. The bar area added brass rails, and stained glass. The employees were young and wore wacky uniforms, and every time someone had a birthday, the entire restaurant crew came around with a cake and sang Friday's traditional birthday song. The location is now a British pub called "Baker Street"; the brass rails are still there.
The restaurant's second location was established in 1970 in Memphis, Tennessee's Overton Square district. That location has since closed.
The oldest continually operating Friday's is in Louisville, Kentucky on Linn Station Road. It opened in August 1977 and at the time was the 31st store in operation.
Friday's has also been used as a restaurant for hotels run by Country Inns & Suites by Carlson brand. On January 17, 2007, the owner of TGI Friday's UK, Whitbread PLC, sold their 45 restaurants back to TGI Friday's UK Limited (a consortium consisting of Carlson Restaurants Worldwide Inc. and ABN Amro Capital) thus exiting a partnership formed in 1986.
Historically, the chain's highest grossing location is at Haymarket Leicester Square, which opened in 1992 in Central London.
Outback Steakhouse is an American casual dining restaurant chain based in Tampa, Florida, with over 900 locations in 21 countries throughout North and South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. It specializes in USDA Choice and Prime steaks and other offerings in an Australian-inspired environment.
Founded in February 1988 in Tampa, Florida, by Bob Basham, Chris T. Sullivan, and Tim Gannon, it is owned and operated in the United States by OSI Restaurant Partners, and by franchise and venture agreements internationally. In 1997, it entered the South Korean market through the franchise agreement with Aussie Chung Inc. Currently, there are nearly 70 Outback Steakhouse locations throughout South Korea. On June 14, 2007, OSI Restaurant Partners completed a stock repurchase plan, and the company is now privately held.
Golden Corral is an American family-style restaurant chain that features a large buffet and grill offering 150 hot and cold items, a carving station and their Brass Bell Bakery. It is a privately held company headquartered in Raleigh, North Carolina, USA, with locations in 40 states.
Each location serves a buffet breakfast, lunch and dinner. A free copy of the local newspaper is available to read while in the restaurant, and complimentary coffee is offered during lunch and dinner service.
The restaurant is famous for its three-year "Frying Pan Man" advertising campaign in which a person is hit on the head with a frying pan resulting in a craving to go to the restaurant.
In 1971, James H. Maynard and William F. Carl conceived the idea that became Golden Corral after several unsuccessful attempts to acquire a franchise with other companies. Golden Corral was incorporated in 1972 and the first Golden Corral Family Steak House was opened January 3, 1973, in Fayetteville, North Carolina.
Within three months of opening the first restaurant, the company was on its way to getting a second location which opened September 17, 1973, in Raleigh, North Carolina. A third was built June 18, 1974, in Fayetteville. Since then, the company has expanded to over 475 locations across the United States, about 120 of them are company-owned, the others are franchised stores.[1] Gross sales are over 1.526 billion.
The company focused on freshness to separate it from other budget steakhouses. From the start, each Golden Corral cut its own USDA Choice beef, offering a variety of steaks, and they did not charge much more than their competitors charged for their frozen, imported steaks. They also opened the majority of their restaurants away from any direct competition, focusing on small-town America. And, by 1979, the company owned more than 100 restaurants. By the end of 1980, the total was up to 151.
In 1982, the company acquired 193 restaurants from Sirloin Stockade, a Kansas-based competitor. Approximately 100 of them became Golden Corral Family Steakhouses. There were 430 Golden Corral restaurants by the mid-1980s, each averaged approximately 5,000 square feet in size and about $1 million in annual sales.
The company had more than 500 restaurants, by 1987. That year, they decided to begin franchising by licensing 55 distressed restaurants to their most successful general managers. Because of poor training, nationwide concerns about the consumption of red meat, and a shift in market shares to upscale restaurants, sales were falling. Red meat was out, fresh fruits and vegetables were in. So Golden Corral added salad bars to all of their locations. They sacrificed seating in most, in others they sacrificed part of the parking lot to make an addition to the building. Despite their efforts, market shares and profit margins continued to fall and by 1989 87 money-losing restaurants had been cut.
In 1991, the first seven Metro Market concept restaurants opened. They were 10,000 square feet and seated between 400 and 450 guests. These new Golden Corral restaurants more than doubled the old, which were typically 5,000 square feet with a guest capacity of 175. There was the addition of the Brass Bell Bakery, named for the brass bell which rang every 15-minutes to signal that fresh bread, rolls and pastries were coming out of the oven, along with an expanded buffet, dubbed the Golden Choice Buffet, which also had a new layout to showcase its 170 items. The restaurants also continued to offer their USDA choice-grade steaks. The location of these new restaurants--the majority of which were in Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and North Carolina--was also a change for the company. They had moved away from small-towns and into metropolitan areas.
In 2001, the buffet was expanded with the addition of cook-to-order sirloin steaksand the system-wide annual sales exceeded $1 billion for the first time.
In January 2002, the National Arbitration Forum ordered that the domain http://www.goldencorralrest.com be transferred to Golden Corral from a Domain Service based in Russia.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Histoy of Restaurants in Philippines
Bacolod Chicken Inasal (BCI) is a fast growing popular restaurant chain in the Philippines that seeks to become a Filipino restaurant institution known for its tradition of providing a great food experience giving delightful and lasting memories to customers. We are a Filipino-themed, middle-priced range, casual dining restaurant chain that specializes in the delicious chicken barbecue known as "chicken inasal" as well as a wide selection of well-loved Filipino dishes and specialties from southern Philippines.
The "chicken inasal" is a local version of the Filipino barbecue that originated from Bacolod City in the Visayas islands south of the Philippines. It is a delicious dish of chicken parts marinated in local herbs and spices, skewered on bamboo sticks then grilled to juicy perfection. Chicken inasal is so popular in Bacolod City that there are street stands selling the chicken barbecue in almost every corner. Bacolod City and the surrounding region is well-known for its delicious cuisine that are popular favorites of most Filipinos.
BACOLOD CHICKEN INASAL does not however, just serve well-loved Filipino dishes but it also offers a great food experience, feelings of comfort and convenient eating. Our intensive market research efforts through surveys and focus group discussions show that our customers enjoy a great food experience with us due to our delicious tasting dishes, the outstanding service of our staff, the relaxed and comfortable ambience of our interiors and our reasonable prices. Surveys also show that we bring feelings of comfort to our customers through dishes that remind them of home. Lastly, studies show that the majority of our customers dine with us for the convenience of having good tasting food served quickly saving them from doing their own cooking.
In 1945, after World War II, American occupation troops stationed in Quezon City, Philippines were befriended by Maximo Gimenez, a Stanford University-educated teacher. A few came to his nearby house for a drink or two, until they insisted that they pay for their drinks.
Maximo decided to open a cafe which served chicken, steak and drinks. He was joined by Mercedes his wife, and Felipa, his sister-in-law. His niece Ruby managed the kitchen, joined by her husband Claro. Ruby concocted a special recipe for chicken that was adored by the G.I.s., and they kept coming back for more. Soon enough, the Filipino public heard about the delicious chicken -- tender, juicy, and crispy -- and they came too!
Encouraged by her mother to expand the menu and serve more Filipino food, Ruby set up the Baclaran branch along Roxas Boulevard in Parañaque. It was decided that the restaurant would be named "Max's" which was Maximo's nickname.
We started our life in 1958 when Frank and Dan Carney opened the first Hut in Wichita, Kansas. The first Pizza Hut restaurant was only small, with enough room for 25 seats; the restaurant sign only had space for nine letters. Frank and Dan wanted to have 'Pizza' in the name, which left space for just 3 more letters. Because the building looked like a hut... Pizza Hut was born! Fifteen years later, the first UK restaurant opened. Since then we have grown to become the biggest Pizza Company on the planet. We're the UK's leading pizza restaurant and delivery chain too, with over 600 outlets across the country. We are part of Yum Restaurants International (who also own KFC, Taco Bell, Long John Silver's, A & W and Pizza Hut Worldwide).
Red Ribbon BakeShop is a popular fast-food chain and bakery in the Philippines and the United States, offering a wide range of cakes and pastries. The chain began in 1979 in Quezon City along Timog Avenue and started franchising in 1999. In 1984, they opened their first US branch in West Covina, California. Today, there are more than 80 branches all over the Philippines, and there are now 20 stores all over California, two in Las Vegas, two in New Jersey, one in metro Phoenix, and an upcoming branch in New York. [2]. Other expansion plans continue to be worked out.
In 2005, Red Ribbon was acquired by Jollibee Foods Corporation, a conglomerate of popular fast-food chains in the
Alex III Restaurant’s beginnings started when Mr. Alex B. Reyes III, coming from a well known
family of restaurateurs, envisioned a restaurant which provides what he called the three needs
of Customers in a restaurant – quality food, excellent service and cleanliness. Armed with more
than 20 years of food business experience and knowing the needs of customers, he created one
of the first to come up with a mixture of Japanese, Chinese and Filipino cuisine in one roof.
Various food critics ridiculed this style but the seasoned restaurateur ignored such criticisms
and time has proven him right. ALEX III was an instant hit as customers “ keep coming back”.
The business began in 1940, with a restaurant opened by siblings Dick and Mac McDonald in San Bernardino, California. Their introduction of the "Speedee Service System" in 1948 established the principles of the modern fast-food restaurant. The original mascot of McDonald's was a man with a chef's hat on top of a hamburger shaped head whose name was "Speedee." Speedee was eventually replaced with Ronald McDonald in 1968.
The present corporation dates its founding to the opening of a franchised restaurant by Ray Kroc, in Des Plaines, Illinois on April 15, 1955[6] , the ninth McDonald's restaurant overall. Kroc later purchased the McDonald brothers' equity in the company and led its worldwide expansion and the company became listed on the public stock markets in 1965[7]. Kroc was also noted for predatory and unscrupulous business practices, forcing the McDonald's brothers to leave the fast food business and leave California to return to their state of origin, New Hampshire. The McDonald's brothers were forced by Ray Kroc to take their own name off of their restaurants, after being sued by Kroc. Kroc deliberately opened up McDonald's restaurants near every McDonald's brothers restaurants just to undercut their business in a feud documented in both Kroc's autobiography and in the McDonald brothers autobiography. The site of the McDonald brothers' original restaurant is now a monument.
With the expansion of McDonald's into many international markets, the company has become a symbol of globalization and the spread of the American way of life. Its prominence has also made it a frequent topic of public debates about obesity, corporate ethics and consumer responsibility.
Tony Tan Caktiong and his family opened a Magnolia Ice Cream parlor at Cubao in 1975 with Jolibe as the original name. Sometime in 1978, Tony Tan and his brothers and sisters, being partners, engaged the services of a management consultant in the person of Manuel C. Lumba. Consultant Lumba shifted the business focus from ice cream to hamburgers,after his studies showed that a much larger market was waiting to be exploited. Lumba became Tony Tan's first business and management mentor. Lumba next re-formed the name Jolibe to Jolly Bee and made the two words form a single name Jollibee, but changed the "y" to an "i". The Jollibee mascot was conceptualized by Lumba inspired by local and foreign children's books. Lumba next created the product name "Yumburger" as well as the name "Chickenjoy". He had the company incorporated in order to benefit from incorporation and leased a house on Main St. in Cubao, Quezon City as the first headquarters. Lumba also formulated a long-term marketing strategy, listing up a number of consumer promotions and traffic building schemes. Tony Tan stressed that developing internal strengths was critical. The stores were re-designed, the service transformed into a full self-service, fast-food operation with drive thrus. Not long after, Tony Tan and Manny Lumba went on an observation tour in the United States, attended food service and equipment conventions. Tony Tan placed Manny Lumba in charge of franchise development.
Shakey's was founded in Sacramento, California, on April 30, 1954, by Sherwood "Shakey" Johnson and Ed Plummer. Johnson's nickname resulted from nerve damage following a bout of malaria suffered during World War II. The first weekend the parlor opened, only beer was served and Shakey took the profits from beer sales and bought ingredients for pizza the following Monday.
Shakey personally played dixieland jazz piano to entertain patrons. Shakey's initially became known outside Sacramento, not for its pizza, but for the jazz program it sponsored on a regional radio network. Shakey Johnson is honored in the Banjo Hall of Fame in Guthrie, Oklahoma, for his longtime use of banjo music at his pizza parlors. Other live music, including piano, was also a staple in the old Shakey's parlors.
The original store at 57th and J in Sacramento remained in business until the late 1990s.
The second Shakey's Pizza Parlor opened in Portland, Oregon, in 1956. Shakey's began franchising its restaurant to others in 1957. According to Johnson, Shakey's Pizza engaged in little market research and made most of its decisions on where to locate stores by going where Kinney Shoes opened stores. By the time Johnson sold his interest in 1967, there were 272 Shakey's Pizza Parlors in the United States. The first international store opened in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in 1968. By 1975, the company had expanded to the Pacific Rim, including Japan and the Philippines. The chain is now much bigger in the Philippines than in the United States.
Shakey Johnson sold his half of the company for $3 million to Colorado Milling and Elevator in 1967, which acquired Plummer's half for $9 million the next year. Shakey's was again sold to Hunt International Resources in 1974. Two franchisees bought the chain in 1984 and they sold out to Inno-Pacific Holdings of Singapore in 1989. Most of the U. S. stores closed during the time Inno-Pacific owned the chain (two Shakey's restaurants in the Houston, Texas metro area were shuttered). Some of the remaining franchisees took Inno-Pacific to court in 2003. Before this could come to trial, Shakey's was sold to Jacmar Companies of Alhambra, California, in 2004. Jacmar had been the franchisee of 19 Shakey's restaurants.
Shakey's has gone from 325 stores throughout the United States when Hunt International bought the company in 1974 to 63 stores as of 2008, 55 of them in California. There are two stores east of the Mississippi River: Warner Robins, Georgia and Auburn, Alabama. The West Allis, Wisconsin store closed on June 30, 2008. Only three Shakey's stores exist in the West outside California: Nogales, Arizona and two in suburban Seattle.
Greenwich started as an over-the-counter pizza store in the Greenhills Commercial Center in Metro Manila in 1971. In 1994, Jollibee Foods Corporation obtained a deal acquiring 80% of Greenwich shareholding. Then in 2006 Jollibee Foods Corp. bought out the remaining shares of its partners in Greenwich Pizza Corp., equivalent to a 20% stake, for P384 million in cash. The new company was called Greenwich Pizza Corporation, and the franchise experienced rapid expansion. From 50 stores in 1994, as of 2005 there are over 240 stores and an annual revenue of over P4 billion
In 1972, in a cozy neighborhood in North Miami, Florida, USA, Tony Roma opened Tony Roma’s Place. The alluring combination of warm ambience, genuine courtesy and sensational food was irresistible. Baby Back ribs emerged as the house specialty with people traveling from miles away just to sample the signature product. It wasn’t long before the word got out – Tony Roma’s is THE place for ribs.
Soon, Tony Roma’s Place became one of the most popular and successful restaurants in Miami. By the mid 80’s, Tony Roma’s restaurants took the west coast by storm and spread across the nation. Today, there are more than 260 Tony Roma’s restaurants in 27 countries.
The sensation Tony Roma started has become a world success story. Countless awards over the years for its ribs and signature sauces have been won. At Tony Roma’s, there are no customers; there are only guests, treated with the care and courtesy reserved for special friends.
Tony Roma’s may have come a long way since Miami, but the cozy ambience, sincere hospitality and the mouthwatering menu haven’t changed. So, no matter where you are in the world, when you visit Tony Roma’s, you can be assured of sampling its world famous ribs and a whole lot more!
Don Anastacio B. de Alba first set foot in the Philippines in 1952. He worked for the prestigious Casino Español until he opened his first restaurant, Alba Cocina Española, on Isaac Peral, now United Nations Avenue two years after. It was a modest eatery with only 5 tables to accommodate his clients.
A year after his first restaurant on Isaac Peral, Don Alba had become a byword among Spanish cuisine patrons, which could no longer be accommodated in the Isaac Peral eatery. He transferred to a bigger and better location on Florida Street, now Maria Orosa, closer to the Luneta. Don Alba was now popularly known as the man with the golden touch.
Top names in Philippine officialdom, politics, business, industry and the profession graced Alba's restaurant. Everybody who was somebody went to Alba. Cabinet members, justices, judges, fiscals and lawyers including students and young lovers, queued up at Florida's Alba. Opulent tourists from Europe, America and Asia made it a point to dine at Alba, now renowned as the authentic exponent of the best Spanish cuisine in Manila. Prince Juan Carlos of Spain and his wife Sofia dined at Alba when they visited Manila.
The overwhelming popularity of his eatery prompted Don Alba to expand -- and to incorporate. By 1961, he had two more high-class eateries: the Alba Restaurant and Supper Club on Dewey Boulevard and the Taberna Gitana in Quezon City, nightspots which offered exquisite Spanish music as interpreted by top-rate local and international artists.
Soon the Alba chain of restaurants included La Parilla and Patio Flamenco on Roxas Boulevard, the Alba Patio de Makati on the 11th floor of the Doña Narcisa Building and the Jardin de Alba in the Greenhills Complex.
Besides those, he ran two executive canteens: The Bull and Bear Club in the Makati Stock exchange and the DBP canteen. In 1966, he added a cocktail lounge and bar to Florida's Alba, called Las Cuevas, a unique nightclub for the discriminating Manileños. Don Alba was now on top of the world, his eateries and nightspots being run by two separate corporations.
But the greatest pride of his life was the La Mancha, which opened in December of 1975, in the Magallanes Commercial Center. It was the most elegant, ornate and prestigious restaurant cum nightclub that he had ever put up. A three-story tower with a huge windmill dominated La Mancha's facade, a picture straight out of Miguel de Cervantes' Don Quixote. It was Don Alba's quixotic dream come to life.
La Mancha was envisioned as "an exceptional tourist attraction that would offer the choicest Castilian dishes in the finest Spanish tradition of warmth and gaiety". Said Don Alba: "I wanted to bring to Manila a part of Spain and its cultural history. I offered innovative dishes: grilled, steamed, and charcoalbroiled. On the exposed beams of the ceiling, I had my favorite proverbs, taken from Don Cervantes' novel, inscribed in Gothic. I went all-out for La Mancha, which cost more than P4 million".
Unfortunately for Don Alba, the construction of the Magallanes overpass complex destroyed his dream. The heavy traffic that ensued, not to mention the thick cloud of dust that fell in the area, drove away La Mancha's patrons. Even after the Magallanes overpass was complete, La Mancha continued to suffer heavy losses. To salvage the situation, he sold all his holdings and, with his second wife, and seven children, left for Spain.
After two years, he decided to come back to the Philippines to start all over again. He put up Casa Colas on Polaris Street, off Makati Avenue, in Makati, not as classy an eatery but clean and cozy. His menu carried Alba favorites, like pollo al ajillo, solomillo a la pobre, lengua a la Sevillana, pescado en salsa verde, chipirones en su tinta, and paella Valenciana. He even included tuhod y batoc estofado and pato al Jerez, the choice of health freaks.
One could also order pato a la Naranja or venado breseado con castañas. Those who loved wine to go with their meal could ask for Alba's choices, like Señorio de Serria or Bodegas de Secizalia.
After having retired from his fabulous chain of Alba eateries, Don Alba is now priming up to regain his crown in his line of endeavor. His undiminished enthusiasm, energy and industry, not to mention his rich experience and wealth of friends, will serve him well in his quest to bring back quality and class to dining, threatened by fast food and the emerging eat-and-run sub-culture. After 49 years in the country, he is still the man with a dream.
Casa Colas, presently known as Alba Restaurante Español, is located in Polaris Street, in Bel-Air, Makati, which is practically a back alley, away from the center of the crowd. Many have already discovered it. Whenever Don Alba goes, it seems, so go his patrons and customers. Why? The great American Ralph Waldo Emerson, provides an answer to that. He says: "If a man has a good corn, or wood, or boards or pigs to sell, or can make better chairs or knives, or crucibles, or church organs, than anybody else, you will find a broad, hard-beaten road to his house, although it be in the woods".
Mario's Ranelagh, is located in a small village in a very central location with a pub across the road. It opened in 1991. Mario's was originally a delicatessen owned by Declan Muldoon. Declan was not happy with the delicatessen and wanted to change. With the help an advice of Caroline Gillespie and other friends he decided on a restaurant.
The original design was the brainchild of designer Angela Murphy who achieved a lovely cozy atmosphere with an Italian accent. Seating is for approximately for 50 people. The next thing to consider was the staff. The original chef is son of the owner of the well known"Quo Vadis" restaurant and with his help the original menu was conceived. Declan wanted to produce good, fresh, reasonably priced food with a distinctly Italian flavour coupled with good reasonably priced Italian and new world wines. The menu has been revamped on a number of occasions but in essence has changed little from the original. In the beginning the staff consisted of 6 people, they now employ 20. In 1998 the Wine Bar (designed by Sinead Moore of Moore Interiors) opened. This was to facilitate customers waiting for tables who did not wish to wait in a pub. The end result is a really popular haunt for locals and visitors alike.
In 1996 Declan with his brother Stephen decided it was time to replicate the success of Ranelagh and set about finding a similar location. They found what they wanted in Terenure. Mario's Terenure is once again located in a village, central location with a pub across the road. It opened in april 1997. It is totally different from Ranelagh being larger and more modern, yet it achieves the same cozy atmosphere. Once again the design was conceived by Sinead Moore. Seating accommodation is for 60 people. It started with key staff from Ranelagh and went from there. Originally it employed 10 people it now employs 31 the menu is the same as Ranelagh which has stood the test of time. Wines are again very similar. The Wine Bar opened in August 1999. Mario's Restaurant in Terenure situated in a village of restaurants is one of the most popular restaurants in Dublin In 1999 Stephen and Declan once again went Looking for a location for a restaurant and found another site in a village with a really central location and pub the next door. This time, however they started from scratch. They bought the premises, demolishing the original building and came up with a gem. The architects were Mahony Architecture and the design, down to cups and saucers came from Sinead Moore. This time the Wine Bar was incorporated in the restaurant. Mario's Sandymount opened in August 2000. Key original staff come from Terenure and Ranelagh. The number of staff for first week was 18, they now employ 35. The menu and wines once again are the same as both other restaurants. Mario's Restaurant in Sandymount has proved extremely popular in an area that badly needed a quality restaurant.
The light-beige building looking like a Tower, crowned with the tower shaped roof, was built at the end of the 20-th century. It differed much from its modern view The building has two floors and the restaurant and the cookery-shop are placed on its different levels.
The popularity came to "Aristocrat" very fast. The citizens of Bishkek and our guests, foreign tourists, representatives of many foreign firms and companies always look forward to visit "Aristocrat”. Always recherche and various kitchen, wonderful service, cozy halls attract constantly a great number of people of different generations to celebrate birthdays, weddings, family festivals, memorial dates, anniversaries ant just to have lunch or dinner together with close favorite friends.
"Aristocrat" has remained unsurpassed leader of the restaurant business for long. The best cookers and confectioners make our guests be pleased with their cookery experience: the legendary cakes and pastries, cold and hot plates, the first and second courses, the fruit and sweet desserts and certainly, their attention and charm.
You will always be able to mark making bargains, to have lunch with your business partner, to conduct important negotiations, or just to have dinner in the strict and cozy interior of our Banquet Hall. And who knows, if your most far-reaching projects are likely to be born here.
And what a chance you have in "Aristocrat" Restaurant: over the sounds of classic music with a glass of cold beer or a glass of fine French wine to relax and to go away from vanity and urgent troubles of the life in general.
And not by chance, here, in "Aristocrat" the most solemn occasions of the political and cultural life of our city are celebrated.
Kentucky Fried Chicken, or KFC, is a chain of fast food restaurants based in Louisville, Kentucky. KFC has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Yum! Brands since 2002. The chain also advertises itself as Poulet Frit du Kentucky or PFK in the province of Quebec in Canada.
The company was founded as Kentucky Fried Chicken by Colonel Harland Sanders in 1952. The company adopted the abbreviated form of its name in 1991. Starting in April 2007, the company began using its original appellation of Kentucky Fried Chicken again for its signage, packaging and advertisements in the United States as part of a new corporate re-branding program;[3][4] newer and remodeled restaurants will have the new logo and name while older stores will continue to use the 1991 signage. Additionally, the company continues to use the abbreviation KFC freely in its advertising. Internationally the company is still known as KFC.
KFC primarily sells chicken in form of pieces, wraps, salads and burgers. While its primary focus is fried chicken KFC also offers a line of roasted chicken products, sides and desserts. Outside of North America, KFC offers beef based products such as burgers or kebabs, pork based products such as ribs and other regional fare. The popularity and novelty of KFC has led to the general formula of the fried chicken fast-food restaurant being copied by restaurant owners worldwide.
Born and raised in Henryville, Indiana, Sanders passed through several professions in his lifetime. Sanders first served his fried chicken in 1930 in the midst of the Great Depression at a gas station he owned in North Corbin, Kentucky. The dining area was named "Sanders Court & Café" and was so successful that in 1936 Kentucky Governor Ruby Laffoon granted Sanders the title of honorary Kentucky Colonel, in recognition of his contribution to the state's cuisine. The following year Sanders expanded his restaurant to 142 seats, and added a motel he bought across the street. When Sanders prepared his chicken in his original restaurant in North Corbin, he prepared the chicken in an iron skillet, which took about 30 minutes to do, too long for a restaurant operation. In 1939, Sanders altered the cooking process for his fried chicken to use a pressure fryer, resulting in a greatly reduced cooking time comparable to that of deep frying.[7] In 1940 Sanders devised what came to be known as his Original Recipe.
The Sanders Court & Café generally served travelers, often those headed to Florida, so when the route planned in the 1950s for what would become Interstate 75 bypassed Corbin, he sold his properties and traveled the U.S. to sell his chicken to restaurant owners. Sanders entered into franchise agreements paying him five cents for each piece of chicken sold.[citation needed] The first to take him up on the offer was Pete Harman in South Salt Lake, Utah; together, they opened the first "Kentucky Fried Chicken" outlet in 1952. By the early 1960s Kentucky Fried Chicken was sold in over 600 franchised outlets in both the United States and Canada. One of the longest-lived franchisees of the older Col. Sanders' chicken concept, as opposed to the KFC chain, was the Kenny Kings chain. The company owned many Northern Ohio diner-style restaurants, the last of which closed in 2004. Sanders sold the entire KFC franchising operation in 1964 for $2 million USD [10] Since that time, the chain has been sold three more times, most recently to PepsiCo, which made it part of its Tricon Global Restaurants division, which in turn was spun off in 1997, and has now been renamed to Yum! Brands. Additionally, Colonel Sanders' nephew, Lee Cummings, took his own Kentucky Fried Chicken franchises (and a chicken recipe of his own) and converted them to his own "spin-off" restaurant chain, Lee's Famous Recipe Chicken.
Today, some of the older KFC restaurants have become famous in their own right. One such restaurant is located in Marietta, Georgia. This store is notable for a 56-foot (17 m) tall sign that looks like a chicken. The sign, known locally as the Big Chicken, was built for an earlier fast-food restaurant on the site called Johnny Reb's Chick, Chuck and Shake. It is often used as a travel reference point in the Atlanta area by locals and pilots.[11]
Wendy's is an international chain of fast food restaurants founded by Dave Thomas in 1969 in Columbus, Ohio. As of December 2006 Wendy's was the third largest hamburger fast food chain with approximately 6,700 locations after McDonald's (31,000 locations) and Burger King (11,200 locations).[1][2] On April 24, 2008, the company announced a merger with Triarc, the parent of Arby's. Under the new owner the company will remain headquartered in Dublin, Ohio.[3]
Wendy's International is the parent company of Wendy's, and is a publicly traded company. Approximately 77% of Wendy's restaurants are franchised, the majority of which are located in North America. Wendy's and its affiliates employs more than 46,000 people in its global operations. In fiscal year 2006, the firm had $9.45 billion (USD) in total sales. While Wendy's sets standards for exterior store appearance, food quality and menu, individual owners have control over hours of operations, interior decor, pricing and staff uniforms and wages.
In response to the 1986 slowdown, Wendy's restructured its cleanliness standards, menu and other operational details to ensure that stores met the goals and standards of the parent company so that its franchises were competitive in the market.
Wendy's menu consists primarily of hamburgers, chicken sandwiches, French fries and beverages. The company does not have a signature product such as the Whopper or the Big Mac, instead the burger patties it uses in preparing its sandwiches are its signature item. The company also advertises that its burgers are made from fresh ground beef, not frozen.
Wendy's was founded by Dave Thomas on November 15, 1969 and was named after Dave's second daughter, Melinda Lou Thomas, then eight years old, whom her older siblings nicknamed "Wendy" (originally "Winda", stemming from the child's initial difficulty saying her own name), as Thomas stated in his A&E Biography show. The corporate headquarters is located in Dublin, Ohio. The first Wendy's restaurant was opened in 1969 and the chain grew rapidly to more than 3,000 restaurants by 1985. However, in the mid-1980s some under-performing Wendy's restaurants were closed. In 1986 Dave Thomas came out of retirement and started doing commercials for Wendy's and helped rebuild the restaurant until his death on January 8, 2002.
The first Wendy's Restaurant in Columbus, Ohio, opened by Dave Thomas in 1969, was closed on March 2, 2007.[5] The signs were removed from the building the morning after its last day in operation. Reasons cited for this closing included a lack of foot traffic by potential customers, the closure of museums within proximity of the restaurant, cost-prohibitive renovations that would have been needed, and the lack of an adequate parking lot in front of the facility.[6] Additionally, there have been several large closures of Wendy's franchise groups in the last few years; most noticeably the closure of its Australian operations and the bankruptcy of the WenAmerica franchise group and closure of its fifty locations in the Midwest region of the US.
In Canada and Maine, as a result of Wendy's 1995 corporate acquisition of the Canadian doughnut chain Tim Hortons, many locations were joint Wendy's–Tim Hortons restaurants (although with separate staff at separate order counters). This continued until Wendy's divested itself of Tim Hortons.
Burger King's first restaurant, originally called Insta Burger King, was opened on December 4, 1954 in a suburb of Miami, Florida by James McLamore and David Edgerton; both alumni of the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration. McLamore visited the original McDonald's hamburger stand belonging to Dick and Mac McDonald in San Bernardino, California; sensing potential in their innovative assembly line-based production system, he decided to create a version of his own. By 1959, BK had grown to five regional stores in and around the metropolitan Miami area. About this time, McLamore and Edgerton decided to expand BK nationally by using a franchising system; a popular method for expansion due to its low capital cost for the parent company. They formed Burger King Corporation as the parent and began selling territorial franchise licenses to private owners across the US.
In 1967, after eight years of private operation, the Pillsbury Company acquired Burger King and its parent company Burger King Corporation. At the time of the purchase, BK had grown to 274 restaurants in the United States. Even though Pillsbury owned and operated the company, BK was still the object of a series of failed and successful acquisitions and divestitures. In 1973, Chart House, owner of 350 BK restaurants at the time and one of BK's largest franchise groups, attempted to purchase the chain from Pillsbury for $100 million (USD). When Chart House's bid failed, its owners, Billy and Jimmy Trotter, suggested that Pillsbury and Chart House spin off their respective Burger King holdings and merge the two entities into a separate company, an offer Pillsbury also declined. After the failed attempts to acquire BK, the relationship with Chart House and the Trotters began to sour; in 1979 BK successfully sued Chart House for improperly acquiring locations in Boston and Houston. In 1984, Pillsbury purchased Chart House's successor DiversiFoods for $390 million (USD) after a separate, independent $525 million DiversiFoods management-backed leveraged buy-out of the company failed.
BK, and former corporate siblings, Bennigan's, Steak and Ale, Godfather's Pizza (part of the DiversiFoods acquisition), Quik Wok and Häagen Dazs ice cream shops, remained under the Pillsbury corporate umbrella until Pillsbury divested its restaurant holdings in 1989 and sold Burger King to British alcoholic beverage manufacturer and distributor Grand Metropolitan PLC. In 1989, under the ownership of Grand Met, Burger King acquired many locations of its major UK rival Wimpy when the parent company bought the Wimpy's brand from its previous owner United Biscuits and re-branded them as Burger King, giving it an even greater presence in that country. While other "Wimpy" locations are still in operation presently, they are now independent from BK and no longer have the presence they once did.[3] In 1997, Grand Metropolitan merged with Guinness to form a company called Diageo. Diageo maintained ownership of BKC until 2001 when Diageo decided to focus solely on their beverage products and divest itself of the chain.
By the time of the sale, Burger King's revenues and market share had declined significantly, Burger King had fallen to a near tie for second place with rival Wendy's in the US market for hamburger chain restaurants. For many years leading into the early 2000s Burger King and its various owners plus many of its larger franchises closed many under-performing stores.[8] Several of its largest franchises entered bankruptcy due to the issues surrounding the performance of the brand.[9][10]
In 2002, a troika of private equity firms led by TPG Capital, L.P with associates Bain Capital and Goldman Sachs Capital Partners agreed to purchase BK from Diageo for $1.5 billion (USD),[3] with the sale becoming complete in December of that year.[11] The new owners, through several new CEOs, have moved to revitalize and reorganize the company, the first major move was to re-name the BK parent as Burger King Brands.[12] The investment group initially planned to take BK public within the two years of the acquisition, this was delayed until 2006. On February 1, 2006, CEO Greg Brenneman announced TPG's plans to turn Burger King into a publicly traded company by issuing an Initial Public Offering (IPO). On February 16, the company announced it had filed its registration for the IPO with the Securities and Exchange Commission. On May 18, 2006, Burger King began trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol BKC and generated $425 million in revenue, the largest IPO of a US-based restaurant chain on record.
Founded in 1941 by industry pioneer Carl N. Karcher, Carl's Jr.® has consistently stood for quality and innovation. Operating under the essential philosophy that consumers will pay more for quality and taste, the Carl's Jr.® brand is a leader in both average guest check and gross margins. Carl's Jr.'s® long history of industry innovations have included enhancements to the customer experience, including partial table service, the dual-branding concept, and inventive restaurant design - not to mention the numerous industry-defining products that have graced the menu over the years. Carl's Jr.'s® dual-branding program with CKE Restaurants' quick-service Mexican brand, Green Burrito®, provides for increased variety and market share. Carl's Jr.® advertising has been a key part of its success in its ability to connect with the lifestyle and attitude of its target market and encourage sales of its higher-priced, higher-margin premium burgers.
California Pizza Kitchen Inc. is one of the most successful and fastest-growing chain restaurants that began operations in the United States within the last ten years. The company boasts one of the most innovative and distinctive menus of any eating establishment in America, including such items as Barbecue Chicken Pizza, Bacon-Lettuce-Tomato Pizza, and Moo Shu Chicken Calzone Pizza. Although California Pizza Kitchen offers more than just pizza, including pasta, salads, desserts, beer, wine, and soft drinks, it is the pizza that it is famous for. With sales in 1995 rapidly increasing over the 1994 figures, and with 78 restaurants operating in 18 states, the company intends to continue its aggressive expansion policy.
The founders of California Pizza Kitchen are Larry Flax and Rick Rosenfield. Flax, a native of Los Angeles, California, was educated at the University of Southern California Law School and served as an Assistant United States Attorney during the early 1970s. In that capacity, Flax worked as Chief of Civil Rights and as Assistant Chief of the Criminal Division for the United States Department of Justice. Rosenfield, a native of Chicago, worked as an attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., and as Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California. Having met while pursuing their respective careers as assistant federal prosecutors, the two men struck up a friendship during the early 1970s and decided to form their own law firm. Concentrating on criminal defense cases, in 1984 the two partners found themselves arguing a case before a Superior Court Judge in San Francisco. Flax and Rosenfield strongly believed that the facts of the case were in their favor, but the jury was unable to reach a verdict. Disillusioned by the hung jury, the two young men decided to leave the legal profession to seek a more rewarding career.
During their partnership, Flax and Rosenfield had offered legal services on a national basis, and in the course of their business travels they had sampled restaurants across the country and developed an enthusiasm for good food. Resolving to turn their enthusiasm into a business opportunity, they decided to open a restaurant. The two entrepreneurs took their lead from Wolfgang Puck, the master chef and owner of Spago restaurant in West Hollywood, who was known for creating pizzas with unusual toppings; the pair saw an opportunity to bring innovative pizza like Puck's to the mass market. The first California Pizza Kitchen was opened in Beverly Hills in 1985 and was an immediate success.
The strategy behind California Pizza Kitchen was simple. The owners wanted to provide a casual, upscale, family restaurant, with good food as the cornerstone of the enterprise. Most of the chain's kitchens are out in the open, so customers can watch the cooks preparing their pizzas. The restaurants are decorated with white tile to provide a clean, crisp atmosphere. The pizzas are baked in wood-burning ovens imported from Italy, whose designs had been perfected over a period of a few hundred years. The oven is fired to approximately 800 degrees Fahrenheit, and the pizza is cooked in three minutes in order to sear the ingredients. This results in a tastier--and, according to some cooks, a healthier--pizza. The partners were committed to creating designer pizzas with unusual toppings, such as duck sausage, Tandoori chicken, and goat cheese, an approach that not only attracted customers not normally inclined to eat pizza, but also enabled the company to take advantage of food trends within the industry. When the owners added pasta, salads, soft drinks, liquor, and desserts to the menu, California Pizza Kitchen was on the road to success.
Although the company struggled during its first few years of operation and incurred some debt, sales of its pizza were always increasing. The company's big break came in 1989 when the flamboyant chairman of Golden Nugget casinos, Steve Wynn, struck a deal with Flax and Rosenfield to put a California Pizza Kitchen in the Mirage Hotel and Casino. Located in Las Vegas, the heart of the U.S. gambling industry, the new restaurant garnered $5.5 million in sales during its first year of operation. On weekends, according to the restaurant's manager, tables were turning over between 16 to 25 times within a 13-hour period. Unfortunately for Flax and Rosenfield, they didn't own the restaurant in the Mirage Hotel and Casino. Wynn had arranged an unusual California Pizza Kitchen franchise. Yet the publicity that came from the success of the restaurant in Las Vegas opened doors to new opportunities in other parts of the country. Real estate developers were soon lobbying to place a California Pizza Kitchen in strategic locations for new malls and commercial developments.
In 1992 PepsiCo Inc., located in Purchase, New York, bought a 50 percent interest in California Pizza Kitchen, which it later increased to 67 percent. In addition to its line of soft drink products, PepsiCo owned Pizza Hut, KFC (formerly known as Kentucky Fried Chicken), and Taco Bell. Management at PepsiCo wanted to gain more experience in operating full-service, moderately priced, casual-dining restaurants. The deal was finalized for $97 million, with Flax and Rosenfield receiving $20 million apiece, and PepsiCo assumed two seats out of the four on California Pizza Kitchen's board of directors. Not surprisingly, two of Taco Bell's officers were chosen for the two seats on the board. Flax and Rosenfield remained as co-chairs of the board of directors with 50 percent voting control, and continued to direct the day-to-day operations of the company. The only change PepsiCo required in the agreement was for California Pizza to replace the sale of Coca-Cola products with PepsiCo's line of soft drinks.
The arrangement between PepsiCo and California Pizza Kitchen seemed to be a gift to Flax and Rosenfield. At the time of the deal, California Pizza Kitchen was generating approximately $60 million in annual sales from all its restaurants, with each one averaging a little over $3 million. The number of employees had reached 1,700, the number of operating restaurants had risen to 25, and the ambitious entrepreneurs were pursuing a strategy to open a new unit each month. Although the owners were contemplating a public stock offering in order to continue their expansion program, they decided to accept PepsiCo's offer due to the generous terms of the agreement. Flax and Rosenfield realized that PepsiCo management wanted to learn how to run an operation like theirs, and they were more than willing to teach people at PepsiCo what they knew in exchange for limitless expansion capital. Each new restaurant was costing nearly $1 million to open over an eight-month period, and Flax and Rosenfield did not want to interrupt their aggressive expansion plans.
California Pizza Kitchen was opening restaurants in upscale office buildings and pricey malls and as free-standing units in affluent areas. The company's restaurants were primarily located throughout the greater Los Angeles metropolitan area, but new units were opened on a monthly basis in major cities across the country, including Chicago and Atlanta. Except for two franchises in Las Vegas, and a limited partnership in Chicago, all of the restaurant units were owned by Flax and Rosenfield. Delighted by the chain's success, PepsiCo management was especially intrigued by the part played by the waitstaff in California Pizza Kitchen's achievement. When PepsiCo officials visited a number of California Pizza Kitchen units located in various areas of the country, they discovered an inordinately friendly and helpful staff of waiters and waitresses at each restaurant. Impressed by the process of selection, training, and retainment of employees, PepsiCo was determined to learn how to apply these techniques to its own restaurant operations.
The partnership between PepsiCo and California Pizza Kitchen flourished from the very beginning. By the end of 1993, Flax and Rosenfield were operating 35 restaurants across the country, and were planning an ambitious expansion drive of 50 new units per year in both 1994 and 1995. In 1993 the restaurant industry honored Flax and Rosenfield with the Golden Chain award, one of the plaudits that the partners found most satisfying out of all the accolades they received.
As their successes multiplied, Flax and Rosenfield began to devote even more attention than before to the development of personnel, which included over 3,000 workers, 160 of whom were kitchen managers and general managers. Not only were the two men driving forces behind better service, but through their constant concern with internal coaching and promotion, they enhanced their employees' career opportunities. A former waiter and cook who had joined the company when it was only one month old was promoted to vice-president of back-of-the-house operations; a unit-level assistant manager became front-of-the-house operations vice-president; and the company's first waitress in the Beverly Hills restaurant became vice-president of training. The former lawyers also worked to improve the pay scale and benefits of their workers, securing, for example, a $2.3 million deal in special compensation and bonuses for company executives through negotiations with parent PepsiCo.
Throughout all of these developments, the focus of California Pizza Kitchen remained the food. The company offered 29 different pizza flavors, including duck sausage pizza, Thai chicken pizza, two-sausage pizza, tuna-melt pizza, mixed grill vegetarian pizza, goat cheese pizza, and eggplant Parmesan pizza, with prices ranging from $6.95 to $11.95.
The year 1994 was one of the best to date for the company. California Pizza Kitchen added 28 restaurants to reach a total of 70 units operating in 15 states and the District of Columbia. Sales also shot up to the $120 million milepost, a dramatic increase of 60 percent over the previous year. Surprisingly, only 40 percent of revenues were coming from the company's pizza menu: other items such as corn soup and barbecue chopped chicken salad were selling just as well. Per unit annual sales were still hovering around the $3 million mark.
By the beginning of 1995, California Pizza Kitchen was operating 78 restaurants in 18 states and in the District of Columbia. New food toppings and combinations were continually being added to the pizza menu, as were as a host of new items such as Chicken Tequila Fettucine and Tuscan Bean Soup. Although Larry Flax and Richard Rosenfield remained firmly in control of the day-to-day operations of the restaurant chain, new management personnel from PepsiCo were becoming more and more an integral part of the company's decision-making process.
Kenny Rogers Roasters is a chicken restaurant that was started in 1991 in the United States by country music musician Kenny Rogers and former Kentucky Fried Chicken owner and original developer John Y. Brown, Jr. The menu was originally centered on wood-fired rotisserie chicken. By 1995, the menu had expanded to include turkey, ribs, and various side dishes, and the chain had expanded to over 350 restaurants, including locations in Canada, the Middle East, and Asia.
In 1998, the company went through a restructuring, which resulted in its acquisition by Nathan's Famous, Inc., completed on April 1, 1999; as a result of restructuring, many locations closed. Today, according to Nathan's Famous corporate web site, there is only one U.S. Kenny Rogers Roasters operating at the Ontario Mills mall in Ontario, California. Some of the company's Miami Subs Grill locations feature Kenny Rogers Roasters menu items, along with Nathan's Famous hot dogs and Arthur Treacher's fish items.
T.G.I. Friday's (often shortened to "Friday's") is an American restaurant chain focusing on casual dining, with over 800 restaurants in over 50 countries. The company is a unit of the Carlson Companies. Its name is taken from the expression "TGIF" (short for "Thank God it's Friday"). The chain is known for its appearance, with red-striped canopies, brass railings, Tiffany lamps, and frequent use of antiques as decor. The Friday's restaurant chain was founded in 1965 in New York City, featuring standard American cuisine, bar food, and alcoholic beverages. The restaurant was located at the corner of 63rd Street and First Avenue. The exterior featured a red-and-white striped awning, and blue paint, and the interior included wooden floors, Bentwood chairs, and striped tablecloth. The bar area added brass rails, and stained glass. The employees were young and wore wacky uniforms, and every time someone had a birthday, the entire restaurant crew came around with a cake and sang Friday's traditional birthday song. The location is now a British pub called "Baker Street"; the brass rails are still there.
The restaurant's second location was established in 1970 in Memphis, Tennessee's Overton Square district. That location has since closed.
The oldest continually operating Friday's is in Louisville, Kentucky on Linn Station Road. It opened in August 1977 and at the time was the 31st store in operation.
Friday's has also been used as a restaurant for hotels run by Country Inns & Suites by Carlson brand. On January 17, 2007, the owner of TGI Friday's UK, Whitbread PLC, sold their 45 restaurants back to TGI Friday's UK Limited (a consortium consisting of Carlson Restaurants Worldwide Inc. and ABN Amro Capital) thus exiting a partnership formed in 1986.
Historically, the chain's highest grossing location is at Haymarket Leicester Square, which opened in 1992 in Central London.
Outback Steakhouse is an American casual dining restaurant chain based in Tampa, Florida, with over 900 locations in 21 countries throughout North and South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. It specializes in USDA Choice and Prime steaks and other offerings in an Australian-inspired environment.
Founded in February 1988 in Tampa, Florida, by Bob Basham, Chris T. Sullivan, and Tim Gannon, it is owned and operated in the United States by OSI Restaurant Partners, and by franchise and venture agreements internationally. In 1997, it entered the South Korean market through the franchise agreement with Aussie Chung Inc. Currently, there are nearly 70 Outback Steakhouse locations throughout South Korea. On June 14, 2007, OSI Restaurant Partners completed a stock repurchase plan, and the company is now privately held.
Golden Corral is an American family-style restaurant chain that features a large buffet and grill offering 150 hot and cold items, a carving station and their Brass Bell Bakery. It is a privately held company headquartered in Raleigh, North Carolina, USA, with locations in 40 states.
Each location serves a buffet breakfast, lunch and dinner. A free copy of the local newspaper is available to read while in the restaurant, and complimentary coffee is offered during lunch and dinner service.
The restaurant is famous for its three-year "Frying Pan Man" advertising campaign in which a person is hit on the head with a frying pan resulting in a craving to go to the restaurant.
In 1971, James H. Maynard and William F. Carl conceived the idea that became Golden Corral after several unsuccessful attempts to acquire a franchise with other companies. Golden Corral was incorporated in 1972 and the first Golden Corral Family Steak House was opened January 3, 1973, in Fayetteville, North Carolina.
Within three months of opening the first restaurant, the company was on its way to getting a second location which opened September 17, 1973, in Raleigh, North Carolina. A third was built June 18, 1974, in Fayetteville. Since then, the company has expanded to over 475 locations across the United States, about 120 of them are company-owned, the others are franchised stores.[1] Gross sales are over 1.526 billion.
The company focused on freshness to separate it from other budget steakhouses. From the start, each Golden Corral cut its own USDA Choice beef, offering a variety of steaks, and they did not charge much more than their competitors charged for their frozen, imported steaks. They also opened the majority of their restaurants away from any direct competition, focusing on small-town America. And, by 1979, the company owned more than 100 restaurants. By the end of 1980, the total was up to 151.
In 1982, the company acquired 193 restaurants from Sirloin Stockade, a Kansas-based competitor. Approximately 100 of them became Golden Corral Family Steakhouses. There were 430 Golden Corral restaurants by the mid-1980s, each averaged approximately 5,000 square feet in size and about $1 million in annual sales.
The company had more than 500 restaurants, by 1987. That year, they decided to begin franchising by licensing 55 distressed restaurants to their most successful general managers. Because of poor training, nationwide concerns about the consumption of red meat, and a shift in market shares to upscale restaurants, sales were falling. Red meat was out, fresh fruits and vegetables were in. So Golden Corral added salad bars to all of their locations. They sacrificed seating in most, in others they sacrificed part of the parking lot to make an addition to the building. Despite their efforts, market shares and profit margins continued to fall and by 1989 87 money-losing restaurants had been cut.
In 1991, the first seven Metro Market concept restaurants opened. They were 10,000 square feet and seated between 400 and 450 guests. These new Golden Corral restaurants more than doubled the old, which were typically 5,000 square feet with a guest capacity of 175. There was the addition of the Brass Bell Bakery, named for the brass bell which rang every 15-minutes to signal that fresh bread, rolls and pastries were coming out of the oven, along with an expanded buffet, dubbed the Golden Choice Buffet, which also had a new layout to showcase its 170 items. The restaurants also continued to offer their USDA choice-grade steaks. The location of these new restaurants--the majority of which were in Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and North Carolina--was also a change for the company. They had moved away from small-towns and into metropolitan areas.
In 2001, the buffet was expanded with the addition of cook-to-order sirloin steaksand the system-wide annual sales exceeded $1 billion for the first time.
In January 2002, the National Arbitration Forum ordered that the domain http://www.goldencorralrest.com be transferred to Golden Corral from a Domain Service based in Russia.
The "chicken inasal" is a local version of the Filipino barbecue that originated from Bacolod City in the Visayas islands south of the Philippines. It is a delicious dish of chicken parts marinated in local herbs and spices, skewered on bamboo sticks then grilled to juicy perfection. Chicken inasal is so popular in Bacolod City that there are street stands selling the chicken barbecue in almost every corner. Bacolod City and the surrounding region is well-known for its delicious cuisine that are popular favorites of most Filipinos.
BACOLOD CHICKEN INASAL does not however, just serve well-loved Filipino dishes but it also offers a great food experience, feelings of comfort and convenient eating. Our intensive market research efforts through surveys and focus group discussions show that our customers enjoy a great food experience with us due to our delicious tasting dishes, the outstanding service of our staff, the relaxed and comfortable ambience of our interiors and our reasonable prices. Surveys also show that we bring feelings of comfort to our customers through dishes that remind them of home. Lastly, studies show that the majority of our customers dine with us for the convenience of having good tasting food served quickly saving them from doing their own cooking.
In 1945, after World War II, American occupation troops stationed in Quezon City, Philippines were befriended by Maximo Gimenez, a Stanford University-educated teacher. A few came to his nearby house for a drink or two, until they insisted that they pay for their drinks.
Maximo decided to open a cafe which served chicken, steak and drinks. He was joined by Mercedes his wife, and Felipa, his sister-in-law. His niece Ruby managed the kitchen, joined by her husband Claro. Ruby concocted a special recipe for chicken that was adored by the G.I.s., and they kept coming back for more. Soon enough, the Filipino public heard about the delicious chicken -- tender, juicy, and crispy -- and they came too!
Encouraged by her mother to expand the menu and serve more Filipino food, Ruby set up the Baclaran branch along Roxas Boulevard in Parañaque. It was decided that the restaurant would be named "Max's" which was Maximo's nickname.
We started our life in 1958 when Frank and Dan Carney opened the first Hut in Wichita, Kansas. The first Pizza Hut restaurant was only small, with enough room for 25 seats; the restaurant sign only had space for nine letters. Frank and Dan wanted to have 'Pizza' in the name, which left space for just 3 more letters. Because the building looked like a hut... Pizza Hut was born! Fifteen years later, the first UK restaurant opened. Since then we have grown to become the biggest Pizza Company on the planet. We're the UK's leading pizza restaurant and delivery chain too, with over 600 outlets across the country. We are part of Yum Restaurants International (who also own KFC, Taco Bell, Long John Silver's, A & W and Pizza Hut Worldwide).
Red Ribbon BakeShop is a popular fast-food chain and bakery in the Philippines and the United States, offering a wide range of cakes and pastries. The chain began in 1979 in Quezon City along Timog Avenue and started franchising in 1999. In 1984, they opened their first US branch in West Covina, California. Today, there are more than 80 branches all over the Philippines, and there are now 20 stores all over California, two in Las Vegas, two in New Jersey, one in metro Phoenix, and an upcoming branch in New York. [2]. Other expansion plans continue to be worked out.
In 2005, Red Ribbon was acquired by Jollibee Foods Corporation, a conglomerate of popular fast-food chains in the
Alex III Restaurant’s beginnings started when Mr. Alex B. Reyes III, coming from a well known
family of restaurateurs, envisioned a restaurant which provides what he called the three needs
of Customers in a restaurant – quality food, excellent service and cleanliness. Armed with more
than 20 years of food business experience and knowing the needs of customers, he created one
of the first to come up with a mixture of Japanese, Chinese and Filipino cuisine in one roof.
Various food critics ridiculed this style but the seasoned restaurateur ignored such criticisms
and time has proven him right. ALEX III was an instant hit as customers “ keep coming back”.
The business began in 1940, with a restaurant opened by siblings Dick and Mac McDonald in San Bernardino, California. Their introduction of the "Speedee Service System" in 1948 established the principles of the modern fast-food restaurant. The original mascot of McDonald's was a man with a chef's hat on top of a hamburger shaped head whose name was "Speedee." Speedee was eventually replaced with Ronald McDonald in 1968.
The present corporation dates its founding to the opening of a franchised restaurant by Ray Kroc, in Des Plaines, Illinois on April 15, 1955[6] , the ninth McDonald's restaurant overall. Kroc later purchased the McDonald brothers' equity in the company and led its worldwide expansion and the company became listed on the public stock markets in 1965[7]. Kroc was also noted for predatory and unscrupulous business practices, forcing the McDonald's brothers to leave the fast food business and leave California to return to their state of origin, New Hampshire. The McDonald's brothers were forced by Ray Kroc to take their own name off of their restaurants, after being sued by Kroc. Kroc deliberately opened up McDonald's restaurants near every McDonald's brothers restaurants just to undercut their business in a feud documented in both Kroc's autobiography and in the McDonald brothers autobiography. The site of the McDonald brothers' original restaurant is now a monument.
With the expansion of McDonald's into many international markets, the company has become a symbol of globalization and the spread of the American way of life. Its prominence has also made it a frequent topic of public debates about obesity, corporate ethics and consumer responsibility.
Tony Tan Caktiong and his family opened a Magnolia Ice Cream parlor at Cubao in 1975 with Jolibe as the original name. Sometime in 1978, Tony Tan and his brothers and sisters, being partners, engaged the services of a management consultant in the person of Manuel C. Lumba. Consultant Lumba shifted the business focus from ice cream to hamburgers,after his studies showed that a much larger market was waiting to be exploited. Lumba became Tony Tan's first business and management mentor. Lumba next re-formed the name Jolibe to Jolly Bee and made the two words form a single name Jollibee, but changed the "y" to an "i". The Jollibee mascot was conceptualized by Lumba inspired by local and foreign children's books. Lumba next created the product name "Yumburger" as well as the name "Chickenjoy". He had the company incorporated in order to benefit from incorporation and leased a house on Main St. in Cubao, Quezon City as the first headquarters. Lumba also formulated a long-term marketing strategy, listing up a number of consumer promotions and traffic building schemes. Tony Tan stressed that developing internal strengths was critical. The stores were re-designed, the service transformed into a full self-service, fast-food operation with drive thrus. Not long after, Tony Tan and Manny Lumba went on an observation tour in the United States, attended food service and equipment conventions. Tony Tan placed Manny Lumba in charge of franchise development.
Shakey's was founded in Sacramento, California, on April 30, 1954, by Sherwood "Shakey" Johnson and Ed Plummer. Johnson's nickname resulted from nerve damage following a bout of malaria suffered during World War II. The first weekend the parlor opened, only beer was served and Shakey took the profits from beer sales and bought ingredients for pizza the following Monday.
Shakey personally played dixieland jazz piano to entertain patrons. Shakey's initially became known outside Sacramento, not for its pizza, but for the jazz program it sponsored on a regional radio network. Shakey Johnson is honored in the Banjo Hall of Fame in Guthrie, Oklahoma, for his longtime use of banjo music at his pizza parlors. Other live music, including piano, was also a staple in the old Shakey's parlors.
The original store at 57th and J in Sacramento remained in business until the late 1990s.
The second Shakey's Pizza Parlor opened in Portland, Oregon, in 1956. Shakey's began franchising its restaurant to others in 1957. According to Johnson, Shakey's Pizza engaged in little market research and made most of its decisions on where to locate stores by going where Kinney Shoes opened stores. By the time Johnson sold his interest in 1967, there were 272 Shakey's Pizza Parlors in the United States. The first international store opened in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in 1968. By 1975, the company had expanded to the Pacific Rim, including Japan and the Philippines. The chain is now much bigger in the Philippines than in the United States.
Shakey Johnson sold his half of the company for $3 million to Colorado Milling and Elevator in 1967, which acquired Plummer's half for $9 million the next year. Shakey's was again sold to Hunt International Resources in 1974. Two franchisees bought the chain in 1984 and they sold out to Inno-Pacific Holdings of Singapore in 1989. Most of the U. S. stores closed during the time Inno-Pacific owned the chain (two Shakey's restaurants in the Houston, Texas metro area were shuttered). Some of the remaining franchisees took Inno-Pacific to court in 2003. Before this could come to trial, Shakey's was sold to Jacmar Companies of Alhambra, California, in 2004. Jacmar had been the franchisee of 19 Shakey's restaurants.
Shakey's has gone from 325 stores throughout the United States when Hunt International bought the company in 1974 to 63 stores as of 2008, 55 of them in California. There are two stores east of the Mississippi River: Warner Robins, Georgia and Auburn, Alabama. The West Allis, Wisconsin store closed on June 30, 2008. Only three Shakey's stores exist in the West outside California: Nogales, Arizona and two in suburban Seattle.
Greenwich started as an over-the-counter pizza store in the Greenhills Commercial Center in Metro Manila in 1971. In 1994, Jollibee Foods Corporation obtained a deal acquiring 80% of Greenwich shareholding. Then in 2006 Jollibee Foods Corp. bought out the remaining shares of its partners in Greenwich Pizza Corp., equivalent to a 20% stake, for P384 million in cash. The new company was called Greenwich Pizza Corporation, and the franchise experienced rapid expansion. From 50 stores in 1994, as of 2005 there are over 240 stores and an annual revenue of over P4 billion
In 1972, in a cozy neighborhood in North Miami, Florida, USA, Tony Roma opened Tony Roma’s Place. The alluring combination of warm ambience, genuine courtesy and sensational food was irresistible. Baby Back ribs emerged as the house specialty with people traveling from miles away just to sample the signature product. It wasn’t long before the word got out – Tony Roma’s is THE place for ribs.
Soon, Tony Roma’s Place became one of the most popular and successful restaurants in Miami. By the mid 80’s, Tony Roma’s restaurants took the west coast by storm and spread across the nation. Today, there are more than 260 Tony Roma’s restaurants in 27 countries.
The sensation Tony Roma started has become a world success story. Countless awards over the years for its ribs and signature sauces have been won. At Tony Roma’s, there are no customers; there are only guests, treated with the care and courtesy reserved for special friends.
Tony Roma’s may have come a long way since Miami, but the cozy ambience, sincere hospitality and the mouthwatering menu haven’t changed. So, no matter where you are in the world, when you visit Tony Roma’s, you can be assured of sampling its world famous ribs and a whole lot more!
Don Anastacio B. de Alba first set foot in the Philippines in 1952. He worked for the prestigious Casino Español until he opened his first restaurant, Alba Cocina Española, on Isaac Peral, now United Nations Avenue two years after. It was a modest eatery with only 5 tables to accommodate his clients.
A year after his first restaurant on Isaac Peral, Don Alba had become a byword among Spanish cuisine patrons, which could no longer be accommodated in the Isaac Peral eatery. He transferred to a bigger and better location on Florida Street, now Maria Orosa, closer to the Luneta. Don Alba was now popularly known as the man with the golden touch.
Top names in Philippine officialdom, politics, business, industry and the profession graced Alba's restaurant. Everybody who was somebody went to Alba. Cabinet members, justices, judges, fiscals and lawyers including students and young lovers, queued up at Florida's Alba. Opulent tourists from Europe, America and Asia made it a point to dine at Alba, now renowned as the authentic exponent of the best Spanish cuisine in Manila. Prince Juan Carlos of Spain and his wife Sofia dined at Alba when they visited Manila.
The overwhelming popularity of his eatery prompted Don Alba to expand -- and to incorporate. By 1961, he had two more high-class eateries: the Alba Restaurant and Supper Club on Dewey Boulevard and the Taberna Gitana in Quezon City, nightspots which offered exquisite Spanish music as interpreted by top-rate local and international artists.
Soon the Alba chain of restaurants included La Parilla and Patio Flamenco on Roxas Boulevard, the Alba Patio de Makati on the 11th floor of the Doña Narcisa Building and the Jardin de Alba in the Greenhills Complex.
Besides those, he ran two executive canteens: The Bull and Bear Club in the Makati Stock exchange and the DBP canteen. In 1966, he added a cocktail lounge and bar to Florida's Alba, called Las Cuevas, a unique nightclub for the discriminating Manileños. Don Alba was now on top of the world, his eateries and nightspots being run by two separate corporations.
But the greatest pride of his life was the La Mancha, which opened in December of 1975, in the Magallanes Commercial Center. It was the most elegant, ornate and prestigious restaurant cum nightclub that he had ever put up. A three-story tower with a huge windmill dominated La Mancha's facade, a picture straight out of Miguel de Cervantes' Don Quixote. It was Don Alba's quixotic dream come to life.
La Mancha was envisioned as "an exceptional tourist attraction that would offer the choicest Castilian dishes in the finest Spanish tradition of warmth and gaiety". Said Don Alba: "I wanted to bring to Manila a part of Spain and its cultural history. I offered innovative dishes: grilled, steamed, and charcoalbroiled. On the exposed beams of the ceiling, I had my favorite proverbs, taken from Don Cervantes' novel, inscribed in Gothic. I went all-out for La Mancha, which cost more than P4 million".
Unfortunately for Don Alba, the construction of the Magallanes overpass complex destroyed his dream. The heavy traffic that ensued, not to mention the thick cloud of dust that fell in the area, drove away La Mancha's patrons. Even after the Magallanes overpass was complete, La Mancha continued to suffer heavy losses. To salvage the situation, he sold all his holdings and, with his second wife, and seven children, left for Spain.
After two years, he decided to come back to the Philippines to start all over again. He put up Casa Colas on Polaris Street, off Makati Avenue, in Makati, not as classy an eatery but clean and cozy. His menu carried Alba favorites, like pollo al ajillo, solomillo a la pobre, lengua a la Sevillana, pescado en salsa verde, chipirones en su tinta, and paella Valenciana. He even included tuhod y batoc estofado and pato al Jerez, the choice of health freaks.
One could also order pato a la Naranja or venado breseado con castañas. Those who loved wine to go with their meal could ask for Alba's choices, like Señorio de Serria or Bodegas de Secizalia.
After having retired from his fabulous chain of Alba eateries, Don Alba is now priming up to regain his crown in his line of endeavor. His undiminished enthusiasm, energy and industry, not to mention his rich experience and wealth of friends, will serve him well in his quest to bring back quality and class to dining, threatened by fast food and the emerging eat-and-run sub-culture. After 49 years in the country, he is still the man with a dream.
Casa Colas, presently known as Alba Restaurante Español, is located in Polaris Street, in Bel-Air, Makati, which is practically a back alley, away from the center of the crowd. Many have already discovered it. Whenever Don Alba goes, it seems, so go his patrons and customers. Why? The great American Ralph Waldo Emerson, provides an answer to that. He says: "If a man has a good corn, or wood, or boards or pigs to sell, or can make better chairs or knives, or crucibles, or church organs, than anybody else, you will find a broad, hard-beaten road to his house, although it be in the woods".
Mario's Ranelagh, is located in a small village in a very central location with a pub across the road. It opened in 1991. Mario's was originally a delicatessen owned by Declan Muldoon. Declan was not happy with the delicatessen and wanted to change. With the help an advice of Caroline Gillespie and other friends he decided on a restaurant.
The original design was the brainchild of designer Angela Murphy who achieved a lovely cozy atmosphere with an Italian accent. Seating is for approximately for 50 people. The next thing to consider was the staff. The original chef is son of the owner of the well known"Quo Vadis" restaurant and with his help the original menu was conceived. Declan wanted to produce good, fresh, reasonably priced food with a distinctly Italian flavour coupled with good reasonably priced Italian and new world wines. The menu has been revamped on a number of occasions but in essence has changed little from the original. In the beginning the staff consisted of 6 people, they now employ 20. In 1998 the Wine Bar (designed by Sinead Moore of Moore Interiors) opened. This was to facilitate customers waiting for tables who did not wish to wait in a pub. The end result is a really popular haunt for locals and visitors alike.
In 1996 Declan with his brother Stephen decided it was time to replicate the success of Ranelagh and set about finding a similar location. They found what they wanted in Terenure. Mario's Terenure is once again located in a village, central location with a pub across the road. It opened in april 1997. It is totally different from Ranelagh being larger and more modern, yet it achieves the same cozy atmosphere. Once again the design was conceived by Sinead Moore. Seating accommodation is for 60 people. It started with key staff from Ranelagh and went from there. Originally it employed 10 people it now employs 31 the menu is the same as Ranelagh which has stood the test of time. Wines are again very similar. The Wine Bar opened in August 1999. Mario's Restaurant in Terenure situated in a village of restaurants is one of the most popular restaurants in Dublin In 1999 Stephen and Declan once again went Looking for a location for a restaurant and found another site in a village with a really central location and pub the next door. This time, however they started from scratch. They bought the premises, demolishing the original building and came up with a gem. The architects were Mahony Architecture and the design, down to cups and saucers came from Sinead Moore. This time the Wine Bar was incorporated in the restaurant. Mario's Sandymount opened in August 2000. Key original staff come from Terenure and Ranelagh. The number of staff for first week was 18, they now employ 35. The menu and wines once again are the same as both other restaurants. Mario's Restaurant in Sandymount has proved extremely popular in an area that badly needed a quality restaurant.
The light-beige building looking like a Tower, crowned with the tower shaped roof, was built at the end of the 20-th century. It differed much from its modern view The building has two floors and the restaurant and the cookery-shop are placed on its different levels.
The popularity came to "Aristocrat" very fast. The citizens of Bishkek and our guests, foreign tourists, representatives of many foreign firms and companies always look forward to visit "Aristocrat”. Always recherche and various kitchen, wonderful service, cozy halls attract constantly a great number of people of different generations to celebrate birthdays, weddings, family festivals, memorial dates, anniversaries ant just to have lunch or dinner together with close favorite friends.
"Aristocrat" has remained unsurpassed leader of the restaurant business for long. The best cookers and confectioners make our guests be pleased with their cookery experience: the legendary cakes and pastries, cold and hot plates, the first and second courses, the fruit and sweet desserts and certainly, their attention and charm.
You will always be able to mark making bargains, to have lunch with your business partner, to conduct important negotiations, or just to have dinner in the strict and cozy interior of our Banquet Hall. And who knows, if your most far-reaching projects are likely to be born here.
And what a chance you have in "Aristocrat" Restaurant: over the sounds of classic music with a glass of cold beer or a glass of fine French wine to relax and to go away from vanity and urgent troubles of the life in general.
And not by chance, here, in "Aristocrat" the most solemn occasions of the political and cultural life of our city are celebrated.
Kentucky Fried Chicken, or KFC, is a chain of fast food restaurants based in Louisville, Kentucky. KFC has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Yum! Brands since 2002. The chain also advertises itself as Poulet Frit du Kentucky or PFK in the province of Quebec in Canada.
The company was founded as Kentucky Fried Chicken by Colonel Harland Sanders in 1952. The company adopted the abbreviated form of its name in 1991. Starting in April 2007, the company began using its original appellation of Kentucky Fried Chicken again for its signage, packaging and advertisements in the United States as part of a new corporate re-branding program;[3][4] newer and remodeled restaurants will have the new logo and name while older stores will continue to use the 1991 signage. Additionally, the company continues to use the abbreviation KFC freely in its advertising. Internationally the company is still known as KFC.
KFC primarily sells chicken in form of pieces, wraps, salads and burgers. While its primary focus is fried chicken KFC also offers a line of roasted chicken products, sides and desserts. Outside of North America, KFC offers beef based products such as burgers or kebabs, pork based products such as ribs and other regional fare. The popularity and novelty of KFC has led to the general formula of the fried chicken fast-food restaurant being copied by restaurant owners worldwide.
Born and raised in Henryville, Indiana, Sanders passed through several professions in his lifetime. Sanders first served his fried chicken in 1930 in the midst of the Great Depression at a gas station he owned in North Corbin, Kentucky. The dining area was named "Sanders Court & Café" and was so successful that in 1936 Kentucky Governor Ruby Laffoon granted Sanders the title of honorary Kentucky Colonel, in recognition of his contribution to the state's cuisine. The following year Sanders expanded his restaurant to 142 seats, and added a motel he bought across the street. When Sanders prepared his chicken in his original restaurant in North Corbin, he prepared the chicken in an iron skillet, which took about 30 minutes to do, too long for a restaurant operation. In 1939, Sanders altered the cooking process for his fried chicken to use a pressure fryer, resulting in a greatly reduced cooking time comparable to that of deep frying.[7] In 1940 Sanders devised what came to be known as his Original Recipe.
The Sanders Court & Café generally served travelers, often those headed to Florida, so when the route planned in the 1950s for what would become Interstate 75 bypassed Corbin, he sold his properties and traveled the U.S. to sell his chicken to restaurant owners. Sanders entered into franchise agreements paying him five cents for each piece of chicken sold.[citation needed] The first to take him up on the offer was Pete Harman in South Salt Lake, Utah; together, they opened the first "Kentucky Fried Chicken" outlet in 1952. By the early 1960s Kentucky Fried Chicken was sold in over 600 franchised outlets in both the United States and Canada. One of the longest-lived franchisees of the older Col. Sanders' chicken concept, as opposed to the KFC chain, was the Kenny Kings chain. The company owned many Northern Ohio diner-style restaurants, the last of which closed in 2004. Sanders sold the entire KFC franchising operation in 1964 for $2 million USD [10] Since that time, the chain has been sold three more times, most recently to PepsiCo, which made it part of its Tricon Global Restaurants division, which in turn was spun off in 1997, and has now been renamed to Yum! Brands. Additionally, Colonel Sanders' nephew, Lee Cummings, took his own Kentucky Fried Chicken franchises (and a chicken recipe of his own) and converted them to his own "spin-off" restaurant chain, Lee's Famous Recipe Chicken.
Today, some of the older KFC restaurants have become famous in their own right. One such restaurant is located in Marietta, Georgia. This store is notable for a 56-foot (17 m) tall sign that looks like a chicken. The sign, known locally as the Big Chicken, was built for an earlier fast-food restaurant on the site called Johnny Reb's Chick, Chuck and Shake. It is often used as a travel reference point in the Atlanta area by locals and pilots.[11]
Wendy's is an international chain of fast food restaurants founded by Dave Thomas in 1969 in Columbus, Ohio. As of December 2006 Wendy's was the third largest hamburger fast food chain with approximately 6,700 locations after McDonald's (31,000 locations) and Burger King (11,200 locations).[1][2] On April 24, 2008, the company announced a merger with Triarc, the parent of Arby's. Under the new owner the company will remain headquartered in Dublin, Ohio.[3]
Wendy's International is the parent company of Wendy's, and is a publicly traded company. Approximately 77% of Wendy's restaurants are franchised, the majority of which are located in North America. Wendy's and its affiliates employs more than 46,000 people in its global operations. In fiscal year 2006, the firm had $9.45 billion (USD) in total sales. While Wendy's sets standards for exterior store appearance, food quality and menu, individual owners have control over hours of operations, interior decor, pricing and staff uniforms and wages.
In response to the 1986 slowdown, Wendy's restructured its cleanliness standards, menu and other operational details to ensure that stores met the goals and standards of the parent company so that its franchises were competitive in the market.
Wendy's menu consists primarily of hamburgers, chicken sandwiches, French fries and beverages. The company does not have a signature product such as the Whopper or the Big Mac, instead the burger patties it uses in preparing its sandwiches are its signature item. The company also advertises that its burgers are made from fresh ground beef, not frozen.
Wendy's was founded by Dave Thomas on November 15, 1969 and was named after Dave's second daughter, Melinda Lou Thomas, then eight years old, whom her older siblings nicknamed "Wendy" (originally "Winda", stemming from the child's initial difficulty saying her own name), as Thomas stated in his A&E Biography show. The corporate headquarters is located in Dublin, Ohio. The first Wendy's restaurant was opened in 1969 and the chain grew rapidly to more than 3,000 restaurants by 1985. However, in the mid-1980s some under-performing Wendy's restaurants were closed. In 1986 Dave Thomas came out of retirement and started doing commercials for Wendy's and helped rebuild the restaurant until his death on January 8, 2002.
The first Wendy's Restaurant in Columbus, Ohio, opened by Dave Thomas in 1969, was closed on March 2, 2007.[5] The signs were removed from the building the morning after its last day in operation. Reasons cited for this closing included a lack of foot traffic by potential customers, the closure of museums within proximity of the restaurant, cost-prohibitive renovations that would have been needed, and the lack of an adequate parking lot in front of the facility.[6] Additionally, there have been several large closures of Wendy's franchise groups in the last few years; most noticeably the closure of its Australian operations and the bankruptcy of the WenAmerica franchise group and closure of its fifty locations in the Midwest region of the US.
In Canada and Maine, as a result of Wendy's 1995 corporate acquisition of the Canadian doughnut chain Tim Hortons, many locations were joint Wendy's–Tim Hortons restaurants (although with separate staff at separate order counters). This continued until Wendy's divested itself of Tim Hortons.
Burger King's first restaurant, originally called Insta Burger King, was opened on December 4, 1954 in a suburb of Miami, Florida by James McLamore and David Edgerton; both alumni of the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration. McLamore visited the original McDonald's hamburger stand belonging to Dick and Mac McDonald in San Bernardino, California; sensing potential in their innovative assembly line-based production system, he decided to create a version of his own. By 1959, BK had grown to five regional stores in and around the metropolitan Miami area. About this time, McLamore and Edgerton decided to expand BK nationally by using a franchising system; a popular method for expansion due to its low capital cost for the parent company. They formed Burger King Corporation as the parent and began selling territorial franchise licenses to private owners across the US.
In 1967, after eight years of private operation, the Pillsbury Company acquired Burger King and its parent company Burger King Corporation. At the time of the purchase, BK had grown to 274 restaurants in the United States. Even though Pillsbury owned and operated the company, BK was still the object of a series of failed and successful acquisitions and divestitures. In 1973, Chart House, owner of 350 BK restaurants at the time and one of BK's largest franchise groups, attempted to purchase the chain from Pillsbury for $100 million (USD). When Chart House's bid failed, its owners, Billy and Jimmy Trotter, suggested that Pillsbury and Chart House spin off their respective Burger King holdings and merge the two entities into a separate company, an offer Pillsbury also declined. After the failed attempts to acquire BK, the relationship with Chart House and the Trotters began to sour; in 1979 BK successfully sued Chart House for improperly acquiring locations in Boston and Houston. In 1984, Pillsbury purchased Chart House's successor DiversiFoods for $390 million (USD) after a separate, independent $525 million DiversiFoods management-backed leveraged buy-out of the company failed.
BK, and former corporate siblings, Bennigan's, Steak and Ale, Godfather's Pizza (part of the DiversiFoods acquisition), Quik Wok and Häagen Dazs ice cream shops, remained under the Pillsbury corporate umbrella until Pillsbury divested its restaurant holdings in 1989 and sold Burger King to British alcoholic beverage manufacturer and distributor Grand Metropolitan PLC. In 1989, under the ownership of Grand Met, Burger King acquired many locations of its major UK rival Wimpy when the parent company bought the Wimpy's brand from its previous owner United Biscuits and re-branded them as Burger King, giving it an even greater presence in that country. While other "Wimpy" locations are still in operation presently, they are now independent from BK and no longer have the presence they once did.[3] In 1997, Grand Metropolitan merged with Guinness to form a company called Diageo. Diageo maintained ownership of BKC until 2001 when Diageo decided to focus solely on their beverage products and divest itself of the chain.
By the time of the sale, Burger King's revenues and market share had declined significantly, Burger King had fallen to a near tie for second place with rival Wendy's in the US market for hamburger chain restaurants. For many years leading into the early 2000s Burger King and its various owners plus many of its larger franchises closed many under-performing stores.[8] Several of its largest franchises entered bankruptcy due to the issues surrounding the performance of the brand.[9][10]
In 2002, a troika of private equity firms led by TPG Capital, L.P with associates Bain Capital and Goldman Sachs Capital Partners agreed to purchase BK from Diageo for $1.5 billion (USD),[3] with the sale becoming complete in December of that year.[11] The new owners, through several new CEOs, have moved to revitalize and reorganize the company, the first major move was to re-name the BK parent as Burger King Brands.[12] The investment group initially planned to take BK public within the two years of the acquisition, this was delayed until 2006. On February 1, 2006, CEO Greg Brenneman announced TPG's plans to turn Burger King into a publicly traded company by issuing an Initial Public Offering (IPO). On February 16, the company announced it had filed its registration for the IPO with the Securities and Exchange Commission. On May 18, 2006, Burger King began trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol BKC and generated $425 million in revenue, the largest IPO of a US-based restaurant chain on record.
Founded in 1941 by industry pioneer Carl N. Karcher, Carl's Jr.® has consistently stood for quality and innovation. Operating under the essential philosophy that consumers will pay more for quality and taste, the Carl's Jr.® brand is a leader in both average guest check and gross margins. Carl's Jr.'s® long history of industry innovations have included enhancements to the customer experience, including partial table service, the dual-branding concept, and inventive restaurant design - not to mention the numerous industry-defining products that have graced the menu over the years. Carl's Jr.'s® dual-branding program with CKE Restaurants' quick-service Mexican brand, Green Burrito®, provides for increased variety and market share. Carl's Jr.® advertising has been a key part of its success in its ability to connect with the lifestyle and attitude of its target market and encourage sales of its higher-priced, higher-margin premium burgers.
California Pizza Kitchen Inc. is one of the most successful and fastest-growing chain restaurants that began operations in the United States within the last ten years. The company boasts one of the most innovative and distinctive menus of any eating establishment in America, including such items as Barbecue Chicken Pizza, Bacon-Lettuce-Tomato Pizza, and Moo Shu Chicken Calzone Pizza. Although California Pizza Kitchen offers more than just pizza, including pasta, salads, desserts, beer, wine, and soft drinks, it is the pizza that it is famous for. With sales in 1995 rapidly increasing over the 1994 figures, and with 78 restaurants operating in 18 states, the company intends to continue its aggressive expansion policy.
The founders of California Pizza Kitchen are Larry Flax and Rick Rosenfield. Flax, a native of Los Angeles, California, was educated at the University of Southern California Law School and served as an Assistant United States Attorney during the early 1970s. In that capacity, Flax worked as Chief of Civil Rights and as Assistant Chief of the Criminal Division for the United States Department of Justice. Rosenfield, a native of Chicago, worked as an attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., and as Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California. Having met while pursuing their respective careers as assistant federal prosecutors, the two men struck up a friendship during the early 1970s and decided to form their own law firm. Concentrating on criminal defense cases, in 1984 the two partners found themselves arguing a case before a Superior Court Judge in San Francisco. Flax and Rosenfield strongly believed that the facts of the case were in their favor, but the jury was unable to reach a verdict. Disillusioned by the hung jury, the two young men decided to leave the legal profession to seek a more rewarding career.
During their partnership, Flax and Rosenfield had offered legal services on a national basis, and in the course of their business travels they had sampled restaurants across the country and developed an enthusiasm for good food. Resolving to turn their enthusiasm into a business opportunity, they decided to open a restaurant. The two entrepreneurs took their lead from Wolfgang Puck, the master chef and owner of Spago restaurant in West Hollywood, who was known for creating pizzas with unusual toppings; the pair saw an opportunity to bring innovative pizza like Puck's to the mass market. The first California Pizza Kitchen was opened in Beverly Hills in 1985 and was an immediate success.
The strategy behind California Pizza Kitchen was simple. The owners wanted to provide a casual, upscale, family restaurant, with good food as the cornerstone of the enterprise. Most of the chain's kitchens are out in the open, so customers can watch the cooks preparing their pizzas. The restaurants are decorated with white tile to provide a clean, crisp atmosphere. The pizzas are baked in wood-burning ovens imported from Italy, whose designs had been perfected over a period of a few hundred years. The oven is fired to approximately 800 degrees Fahrenheit, and the pizza is cooked in three minutes in order to sear the ingredients. This results in a tastier--and, according to some cooks, a healthier--pizza. The partners were committed to creating designer pizzas with unusual toppings, such as duck sausage, Tandoori chicken, and goat cheese, an approach that not only attracted customers not normally inclined to eat pizza, but also enabled the company to take advantage of food trends within the industry. When the owners added pasta, salads, soft drinks, liquor, and desserts to the menu, California Pizza Kitchen was on the road to success.
Although the company struggled during its first few years of operation and incurred some debt, sales of its pizza were always increasing. The company's big break came in 1989 when the flamboyant chairman of Golden Nugget casinos, Steve Wynn, struck a deal with Flax and Rosenfield to put a California Pizza Kitchen in the Mirage Hotel and Casino. Located in Las Vegas, the heart of the U.S. gambling industry, the new restaurant garnered $5.5 million in sales during its first year of operation. On weekends, according to the restaurant's manager, tables were turning over between 16 to 25 times within a 13-hour period. Unfortunately for Flax and Rosenfield, they didn't own the restaurant in the Mirage Hotel and Casino. Wynn had arranged an unusual California Pizza Kitchen franchise. Yet the publicity that came from the success of the restaurant in Las Vegas opened doors to new opportunities in other parts of the country. Real estate developers were soon lobbying to place a California Pizza Kitchen in strategic locations for new malls and commercial developments.
In 1992 PepsiCo Inc., located in Purchase, New York, bought a 50 percent interest in California Pizza Kitchen, which it later increased to 67 percent. In addition to its line of soft drink products, PepsiCo owned Pizza Hut, KFC (formerly known as Kentucky Fried Chicken), and Taco Bell. Management at PepsiCo wanted to gain more experience in operating full-service, moderately priced, casual-dining restaurants. The deal was finalized for $97 million, with Flax and Rosenfield receiving $20 million apiece, and PepsiCo assumed two seats out of the four on California Pizza Kitchen's board of directors. Not surprisingly, two of Taco Bell's officers were chosen for the two seats on the board. Flax and Rosenfield remained as co-chairs of the board of directors with 50 percent voting control, and continued to direct the day-to-day operations of the company. The only change PepsiCo required in the agreement was for California Pizza to replace the sale of Coca-Cola products with PepsiCo's line of soft drinks.
The arrangement between PepsiCo and California Pizza Kitchen seemed to be a gift to Flax and Rosenfield. At the time of the deal, California Pizza Kitchen was generating approximately $60 million in annual sales from all its restaurants, with each one averaging a little over $3 million. The number of employees had reached 1,700, the number of operating restaurants had risen to 25, and the ambitious entrepreneurs were pursuing a strategy to open a new unit each month. Although the owners were contemplating a public stock offering in order to continue their expansion program, they decided to accept PepsiCo's offer due to the generous terms of the agreement. Flax and Rosenfield realized that PepsiCo management wanted to learn how to run an operation like theirs, and they were more than willing to teach people at PepsiCo what they knew in exchange for limitless expansion capital. Each new restaurant was costing nearly $1 million to open over an eight-month period, and Flax and Rosenfield did not want to interrupt their aggressive expansion plans.
California Pizza Kitchen was opening restaurants in upscale office buildings and pricey malls and as free-standing units in affluent areas. The company's restaurants were primarily located throughout the greater Los Angeles metropolitan area, but new units were opened on a monthly basis in major cities across the country, including Chicago and Atlanta. Except for two franchises in Las Vegas, and a limited partnership in Chicago, all of the restaurant units were owned by Flax and Rosenfield. Delighted by the chain's success, PepsiCo management was especially intrigued by the part played by the waitstaff in California Pizza Kitchen's achievement. When PepsiCo officials visited a number of California Pizza Kitchen units located in various areas of the country, they discovered an inordinately friendly and helpful staff of waiters and waitresses at each restaurant. Impressed by the process of selection, training, and retainment of employees, PepsiCo was determined to learn how to apply these techniques to its own restaurant operations.
The partnership between PepsiCo and California Pizza Kitchen flourished from the very beginning. By the end of 1993, Flax and Rosenfield were operating 35 restaurants across the country, and were planning an ambitious expansion drive of 50 new units per year in both 1994 and 1995. In 1993 the restaurant industry honored Flax and Rosenfield with the Golden Chain award, one of the plaudits that the partners found most satisfying out of all the accolades they received.
As their successes multiplied, Flax and Rosenfield began to devote even more attention than before to the development of personnel, which included over 3,000 workers, 160 of whom were kitchen managers and general managers. Not only were the two men driving forces behind better service, but through their constant concern with internal coaching and promotion, they enhanced their employees' career opportunities. A former waiter and cook who had joined the company when it was only one month old was promoted to vice-president of back-of-the-house operations; a unit-level assistant manager became front-of-the-house operations vice-president; and the company's first waitress in the Beverly Hills restaurant became vice-president of training. The former lawyers also worked to improve the pay scale and benefits of their workers, securing, for example, a $2.3 million deal in special compensation and bonuses for company executives through negotiations with parent PepsiCo.
Throughout all of these developments, the focus of California Pizza Kitchen remained the food. The company offered 29 different pizza flavors, including duck sausage pizza, Thai chicken pizza, two-sausage pizza, tuna-melt pizza, mixed grill vegetarian pizza, goat cheese pizza, and eggplant Parmesan pizza, with prices ranging from $6.95 to $11.95.
The year 1994 was one of the best to date for the company. California Pizza Kitchen added 28 restaurants to reach a total of 70 units operating in 15 states and the District of Columbia. Sales also shot up to the $120 million milepost, a dramatic increase of 60 percent over the previous year. Surprisingly, only 40 percent of revenues were coming from the company's pizza menu: other items such as corn soup and barbecue chopped chicken salad were selling just as well. Per unit annual sales were still hovering around the $3 million mark.
By the beginning of 1995, California Pizza Kitchen was operating 78 restaurants in 18 states and in the District of Columbia. New food toppings and combinations were continually being added to the pizza menu, as were as a host of new items such as Chicken Tequila Fettucine and Tuscan Bean Soup. Although Larry Flax and Richard Rosenfield remained firmly in control of the day-to-day operations of the restaurant chain, new management personnel from PepsiCo were becoming more and more an integral part of the company's decision-making process.
Kenny Rogers Roasters is a chicken restaurant that was started in 1991 in the United States by country music musician Kenny Rogers and former Kentucky Fried Chicken owner and original developer John Y. Brown, Jr. The menu was originally centered on wood-fired rotisserie chicken. By 1995, the menu had expanded to include turkey, ribs, and various side dishes, and the chain had expanded to over 350 restaurants, including locations in Canada, the Middle East, and Asia.
In 1998, the company went through a restructuring, which resulted in its acquisition by Nathan's Famous, Inc., completed on April 1, 1999; as a result of restructuring, many locations closed. Today, according to Nathan's Famous corporate web site, there is only one U.S. Kenny Rogers Roasters operating at the Ontario Mills mall in Ontario, California. Some of the company's Miami Subs Grill locations feature Kenny Rogers Roasters menu items, along with Nathan's Famous hot dogs and Arthur Treacher's fish items.
T.G.I. Friday's (often shortened to "Friday's") is an American restaurant chain focusing on casual dining, with over 800 restaurants in over 50 countries. The company is a unit of the Carlson Companies. Its name is taken from the expression "TGIF" (short for "Thank God it's Friday"). The chain is known for its appearance, with red-striped canopies, brass railings, Tiffany lamps, and frequent use of antiques as decor. The Friday's restaurant chain was founded in 1965 in New York City, featuring standard American cuisine, bar food, and alcoholic beverages. The restaurant was located at the corner of 63rd Street and First Avenue. The exterior featured a red-and-white striped awning, and blue paint, and the interior included wooden floors, Bentwood chairs, and striped tablecloth. The bar area added brass rails, and stained glass. The employees were young and wore wacky uniforms, and every time someone had a birthday, the entire restaurant crew came around with a cake and sang Friday's traditional birthday song. The location is now a British pub called "Baker Street"; the brass rails are still there.
The restaurant's second location was established in 1970 in Memphis, Tennessee's Overton Square district. That location has since closed.
The oldest continually operating Friday's is in Louisville, Kentucky on Linn Station Road. It opened in August 1977 and at the time was the 31st store in operation.
Friday's has also been used as a restaurant for hotels run by Country Inns & Suites by Carlson brand. On January 17, 2007, the owner of TGI Friday's UK, Whitbread PLC, sold their 45 restaurants back to TGI Friday's UK Limited (a consortium consisting of Carlson Restaurants Worldwide Inc. and ABN Amro Capital) thus exiting a partnership formed in 1986.
Historically, the chain's highest grossing location is at Haymarket Leicester Square, which opened in 1992 in Central London.
Outback Steakhouse is an American casual dining restaurant chain based in Tampa, Florida, with over 900 locations in 21 countries throughout North and South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. It specializes in USDA Choice and Prime steaks and other offerings in an Australian-inspired environment.
Founded in February 1988 in Tampa, Florida, by Bob Basham, Chris T. Sullivan, and Tim Gannon, it is owned and operated in the United States by OSI Restaurant Partners, and by franchise and venture agreements internationally. In 1997, it entered the South Korean market through the franchise agreement with Aussie Chung Inc. Currently, there are nearly 70 Outback Steakhouse locations throughout South Korea. On June 14, 2007, OSI Restaurant Partners completed a stock repurchase plan, and the company is now privately held.
Golden Corral is an American family-style restaurant chain that features a large buffet and grill offering 150 hot and cold items, a carving station and their Brass Bell Bakery. It is a privately held company headquartered in Raleigh, North Carolina, USA, with locations in 40 states.
Each location serves a buffet breakfast, lunch and dinner. A free copy of the local newspaper is available to read while in the restaurant, and complimentary coffee is offered during lunch and dinner service.
The restaurant is famous for its three-year "Frying Pan Man" advertising campaign in which a person is hit on the head with a frying pan resulting in a craving to go to the restaurant.
In 1971, James H. Maynard and William F. Carl conceived the idea that became Golden Corral after several unsuccessful attempts to acquire a franchise with other companies. Golden Corral was incorporated in 1972 and the first Golden Corral Family Steak House was opened January 3, 1973, in Fayetteville, North Carolina.
Within three months of opening the first restaurant, the company was on its way to getting a second location which opened September 17, 1973, in Raleigh, North Carolina. A third was built June 18, 1974, in Fayetteville. Since then, the company has expanded to over 475 locations across the United States, about 120 of them are company-owned, the others are franchised stores.[1] Gross sales are over 1.526 billion.
The company focused on freshness to separate it from other budget steakhouses. From the start, each Golden Corral cut its own USDA Choice beef, offering a variety of steaks, and they did not charge much more than their competitors charged for their frozen, imported steaks. They also opened the majority of their restaurants away from any direct competition, focusing on small-town America. And, by 1979, the company owned more than 100 restaurants. By the end of 1980, the total was up to 151.
In 1982, the company acquired 193 restaurants from Sirloin Stockade, a Kansas-based competitor. Approximately 100 of them became Golden Corral Family Steakhouses. There were 430 Golden Corral restaurants by the mid-1980s, each averaged approximately 5,000 square feet in size and about $1 million in annual sales.
The company had more than 500 restaurants, by 1987. That year, they decided to begin franchising by licensing 55 distressed restaurants to their most successful general managers. Because of poor training, nationwide concerns about the consumption of red meat, and a shift in market shares to upscale restaurants, sales were falling. Red meat was out, fresh fruits and vegetables were in. So Golden Corral added salad bars to all of their locations. They sacrificed seating in most, in others they sacrificed part of the parking lot to make an addition to the building. Despite their efforts, market shares and profit margins continued to fall and by 1989 87 money-losing restaurants had been cut.
In 1991, the first seven Metro Market concept restaurants opened. They were 10,000 square feet and seated between 400 and 450 guests. These new Golden Corral restaurants more than doubled the old, which were typically 5,000 square feet with a guest capacity of 175. There was the addition of the Brass Bell Bakery, named for the brass bell which rang every 15-minutes to signal that fresh bread, rolls and pastries were coming out of the oven, along with an expanded buffet, dubbed the Golden Choice Buffet, which also had a new layout to showcase its 170 items. The restaurants also continued to offer their USDA choice-grade steaks. The location of these new restaurants--the majority of which were in Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and North Carolina--was also a change for the company. They had moved away from small-towns and into metropolitan areas.
In 2001, the buffet was expanded with the addition of cook-to-order sirloin steaksand the system-wide annual sales exceeded $1 billion for the first time.
In January 2002, the National Arbitration Forum ordered that the domain http://www.goldencorralrest.com be transferred to Golden Corral from a Domain Service based in Russia.
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