Fast Food joints RIP

Around my area, Top Hat was another one that up and disappeared.

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They were along the lines of White Castle, and inhabited many street corners around the metro area. I don't know if they existed outside the Detroit area or beyond Michigan. There are still some of these buildings standing today, of course, having changed hands many times along the way, but keeping that same design intact. (Let me just say that today, they are not in the best of neighborhoods, and are not establishments any of us here would dare attempt to eat at. :D )

Burger Chef ... as I recall ... the burgers didn't taste like McD or Burger King. I think they became Hardees but that did not taste like the Chef ... as I recall.

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Red Barn ...

You can still see some of their old buildings around ... look like the picture below.

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Heh, this is not far from my house. It was an old Red Barn, from the 70s. It has changed hands several times since Red Barn left the area. It was redone outside now with brick, and a half-round facade to cover up the front, but check out the old familiar roofline...

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As for Burger Chef, we had one at the Hoover/Eleven plaza, about a mile and a half from my house. I think they went out of business because of the salad bar. :D Seriously. We used to see these "big" ladies come in there, buy a burger that was served in the styrofoam container, put the burger on a wrapper and then proceed to fill up the styrofoam containers with salad. (And hey, since Burger Chef had the "works bar" where you could load up your burger your own way, it was no stretch to reach over and put a few things from the salad bar on your burger.) Ours was the modern-styled version, similar to this:

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In Ames, IA in mid 1970's ate at "Sambos" - no wonder they went out of business with such an offensive name!

We briefly had one here in the east 'burbs of the Detroit area--on the southeast corner of Groesbeck Hwy. and 11 Mile/I-696 service drive. I don't think it lasted more than a year or two. Being younger, I didn't quite "get" the name until a few years later. Then I, too, wondered how they could get away with having a business with that name.

Couple locals that used to litter the area and disappeared a while back.

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Regular customer at both back in the day. Good stick to yer ribs kinda chow ...

I still see that "Clock Fine Food" signage around town. Numerous diners have come and gone in those locations, but that unique three-tiered sign still remains. I don't see any with the clock on it, though. Never ate at one, but they were all over the place here.

We still have a couple of A&Ws around, although I don't know if any of the drive-up outdoor A&Ws still exist around here. One of the last ones I recall was downriver in Trenton (on Jefferson Ave.) but that has changed hands now.
 
BTW, they weren't really fast food, but the Bonanza and Ponderosa chains evaporated rather quickly around here many years ago. My ex used to like Ponderosa; I dreaded every second in that place. :D Tough as nails, no?
 
There was a place in MI called Mr. Hotdog. I think it was a chain. I remember seeing a few battle of the bands it the parking lot in the late 60's
 
BTW, they weren't really fast food, but the Bonanza and Ponderosa chains evaporated rather quickly around here many years ago. My ex used to like Ponderosa; I dreaded every second in that place. :D Tough as nails, no?

Oh that brings back a memory. Back in my youth ... there was a customer who was arguing with the manager of a Ponderosa because it took them too long to cook his steak. The guy kept insisting that Ponderosa was Fast Food and the manager kept saying it was a family restaurant and took a little while to cook a steak.

You could have 50 good meals at a restaurant ... totally forget about it ... it's the stupid stuff that you never forget.
 
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We had one of these around here.

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Carrols, Yeah we had one round the old hood too. Closed in the early 70's and got turned into a Mickey D's if I remember correctly and later a Burger King.
Also had a Ponderosa and a York Steak House. The York Steak house was pretty good and not too expensive, plus no tipping allowed.
 
In Chicago on north Milwaukee Ave. there was a place named "Hasty Tasty" that had the biggest dogs and burgers on the planet.
A bunch of us guys would drive up there and PIG out there maybe once every 2 weeks and have a Goooood time.
Also a hangout of the Chi. Police Dept to look for hot rods, as they called them.
 
So many more keep coming to mind. When I lived in Columbus, OH, we had Chi-Chi's, Sisters Chicken and Biscuits, Victoria Station, Casa Gallardo and more. Seems like A&W and Sonic Drive-in are on death watch here.
 
So many more keep coming to mind. When I lived in Columbus, OH, we had Chi-Chi's, Sisters Chicken and Biscuits, Victoria Station, Casa Gallardo and more. Seems like A&W and Sonic Drive-in are on death watch here.
Sonic seems to be doing fine in the central and southern parts of the state.
 
Sonic seems to be doing fine in the central and southern parts of the state.
We had 3 of them near me until a couple years ago, now there is only one. Lots of competition here for my dining dollar. It is just survival of the fittest. A&W went from a stand alone to a combo with Long John Silver's. Now it closed and there is a Pretzel Stop in its place. That will not last IMO. Krispy Kreme stores are gone here, but the product is in every grocery store and gas station. Mr Donut is gone and Dunkin' is on life support.
 
We had 3 of them near me until a couple years ago, now there is only one. Lots of competition here for my dining dollar. It is just survival of the fittest. A&W went from a stand alone to a combo with Long John Silver's. Now it closed and there is a Pretzel Stop in its place. That will not last IMO. Krispy Kreme stores are gone here, but the product is in every grocery store and gas station. Mr Donut is gone and Dunkin' is on life support.

Sonic has opened a few new locations here in Springfield lately, as well as building larger replacement locations for several other stores. One of the two Krispy Kreme stores here was replaced by a Panda Express, but Dunkin' recently moved in.
 
Not a dead chain, but they did close down all the curb service drive ins quite some time back.

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That was THE place to meet up on a Saturday nite back in the day.

I miss the counters too. You'd run into some of the strangest people pulling up a stool ... like me, fer instance. <G>
 
On the note of curbside/carhop service, Springfield has two of the oldest remaining Steak 'n' Shake restaurants in the country (and the sign from a third, which had to be torn down and replaced as the building had become too decrepit - all three were built in 1962. St. Louis has one that dates back to 1961). The store that's on the original 1926 Route 66 alignment still offers carhop service and has no drive through.
 
Sonic is doing well here. I don't eat fast food anymore so I wouldn't know if it's life threatening or not. :D Dunkin Donuts is also doing OK here also, although for the coffee drinkers, Tim Horton's has grown to be more popular. We have a lot more of those here.

Can't figure out what happened here, though--someone came in and refurbished a building, poured a new parking lot, added a drive-thru, and opened a Biggby Coffee. Several months later? Closed. All that money dumped into the building was a waste, and it has sat empty now.

@sKiZo We have Elias Bros. Big Boy on this side of the state. Can't say I care to eat there--the few I'd been to over the years had gotten sort of dumpy. Ram's Horn was another one--they closed up their restaurants around here, and then reopened a small number of them.

What I noticed yesterday was Denny's over in Livonia--it has closed. Others around have slowly been closing down. There is one near the house here that appears to be doing OK, but it makes me wonder if they are on the way out, as this one is the only Denny's I know of in the area now.
 
Yup, Sister's Chicken and Biscuits. In Columbus/Grandview, on the corner of Grandview and 5th. Site of one of only two or three murders in recent memory. Guy and his family were in the drive-thru line on an early Sunday afternoon. Balked at being robbed, so the perp shot him in his car. Yikes.

Zantigos, an early competitor to Taco Bell. My college roommate and I (hi, Gary!) walked in to the tail end of a robbery there late one night, at High St. and Dodridge, maybe? Passed the perp as he was on his way out. We walked in to a seemingly empty restaurant -- then the manager and the cashiers got up off the floor behind the counter and asked "Are they gone now?" Yikes again. We had waited at the drive thru for a few minutes, got impatient, and came inside instead.

Baja Fresh, and Fresh Bite -- Big Bite wanna-be's.

Arthur Treacher's, of course. Friendly's (still alive a little bit)

Blimpie's (gone from here) and Quizno's (they have a pepper bar, I've heard.) Quizno's must be a hard franchise to keep, because I see more equipment packages on CL from there than any other place, by far.

And of course, Jerry's Drive-In. You literally. can't. miss. it. Corner of North High St. and Morse Rd. Sign has stayed through three or four subsequent restaurants.

Ok, now I'm hungry.

Chip
 
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Chili's failed in Australia. Pity because it was one of my favorite chain restaurants, they piled on the peppers if you asked for them!

it was always busy Friday and Saturday nights, not so much at lunch time and during the week.
 
I lost 10 pounds when they closed down ... :(:p

And who could forget the Arf 'n Barf?

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One of the kids in our neighborhood family had an Arf & Barf.

He got mad at his Dad and decided to burn it down.

He grabbed a can of gas and splashed it around.

Unfortunately he forgot about the pilot lights.

My first loss of a friend my age.
 
Chicken Unlimited. Stores in/around Chicago, portions of Wisconsin, and Florida. All of 'em gone by now I should think.

CU disappeared around the same time as Lum's.
 
CU disappeared around the same time as Lum's.
The Lum's name sounds vaguely familiar. I think we may have had one around these parts when I was a kidlet.

That reminds, me the first fast food place I ever ate at was Jack-In-The-Box, which appeared about a mile from home. I guess my mother was less than impressed, since we never went back there. :D It lasted quite a few years until they shut down their Michigan locations. The last time I ate at one was in 1998 when I was in vacation in California.

That building is still standing BTW--the local Thrifty Florist chain has used it as a storefront for many years now. The familiar Jack-In-The-Box shape of the building remains...

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It looked similar to this:

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