The Real Reasons These Chain Restaurants Failed

America has contributed a great many things to the world. The airplane. The telephone. RuPaul's Drag Race. But perhaps our greatest contribution to the world, and, dare we say the entire galaxy, is the widespread proliferation of the chain restaurant, where people can find the exact same meal whether they're in North Dakota or New York City. And for the country that also invented the long-distance road trip, that's especially helpful when you've got a car full of kids who aren't into "sampling the local culture."

Some chain restaurants have become part of our national identity, like McDonald's or Kentucky Fried Chicken. Others, however, have somehow fallen to the wayside. From burgers to Tex-Mex to roadside coffee shops filled with fried clams, plenty of chains have closed down without much explanation. Here's a look at some of our favorites from years gone by, and why you won't find them anymore.

That's not a typo there, and Nikita Khrushchev's first step in "burying" the United States was not forcing its most beloved fish and chips chain out of business. The spot named after the guy who played Jeeves in the Shirley Temple movies actually met its end thanks in large part to a cod war (no l) between Iceland and Great Britain, according to Kiplinger. Between the end of World War II and 1976, Great Britain and Iceland had ongoing disputes over fishing rights in the waters between their islands, according to Atlas Obscura, and the resulting "war" caused the price of Arthur Treacher's fish to double.

As a result, the chain filed for bankruptcy protection in the late 1970s, and it hasn't really been the same since. Kiplinger reported only seven Arthur Treacher's locations remaining in 2018, in New York City and northeast Ohio. Though you can still find them as stores-within-a-store at places like Nathan's Famous and Miami Subs Grill.

Not that there's ever a good time to be labeled as the source of a major hepatitis outbreak. But having it happen a year after you file for bankruptcy is a knockout punch nobody recovers from. Once upon a time, Chi-Chi's was a beloved Tex-Mex joint founded by former Green Bay Packer Max McGee, which grew to over 230 locations by 1986, according to Kiplinger. But then things went south. The chain was down to only 144 stores by 2002 and filed for bankruptcy in 2003.

But it got worse. A month after filing for bankruptcy, a batch of tainted green onions from Mexico infected nearly people who ate at a Chi-Chi's in Monaca, Penn., just outside Pittsburgh, with hepatitis A, according to an article from the Center for Infectious Disease and Policy at the University of Minnesota. The outbreak ultimately infected over 650 people and resulted in a class action lawsuit by nearly 5,000 claimants, according to Hepatitislitigation.com. Chi-Chi's settled for $800,000, the story reported, but the chain was never the same.

Hot Shoppes began as a small chain of root beer stands opened by J. Willard Marriott in 1927, according to the Burger Beast. And that restaurant ultimately grew to become the massive Marriott hotel chain known today. Its menu was highlighted by the Mighty Mo — a little hamburger with a big following. The following is so big, Eater DC found a Facebook group called Friends of the Mighty Mo and Hot Shoppes, devoted completely to memories of eating the burger at the long-gone root beer stand.

The Burger Beast reported the last Hot Shoppes location closed in 1999, after Marriott slowly shut them down to focus on their worldwide hotel empire. But the menu still lives on at Anthem, the restaurant inside the Marriott Marquis in Washington, DC. Eater found not only the Mighty Mo on the menu but also the Teen Twist ham sandwich and orange freeze desserts. So if customers are willing to travel for a little bit of nostalgia, Marriott is happy to oblige.

It doesn't get much more classically Florida than selling a chain restaurant to buy a casino. And that's exactly the tale of the once-mighty Lum's, a Florida-bred diner whose last location shut down in 2017, according to Omaha.com. It began as Lum's Hot Dog Stand in Miami Beach in 1956, run by brothers Stuart and Clifford Perlman. And before that last sad store in Bellevue, Neb., shut its doors, Lum's once numbered over 400 nationwide, serving up hot dogs to hungry patrons for over 60 years.

In 1971, the Perlman brothers sold Lum's to Kentucky Fried Chicken, just a couple of years after investing in Caesar's Palace Las Vegas. KFC introduced the Ollieburger to the menu and brought in Milton Berle as the spokesman. But the chain was sold to a Swiss holding company in 1978, who then went bankrupt in 1982. The original Lum's in Miami Beach went belly up in 1983, and today none remain.

If you find it hard to believe it took the Washington Redskins and Cleveland Indians this long to finally change their nicknames, consider the case of Sambo's. The original Santa Barbara location was named after founders Sam Battistone, Sr. and Newell Bohnett, according to Eater. But the décor was done up in images from The Story of Little Black Sambo, a children's book written in 1899. To say its depictions were outdated and offensive would be an understatement.

The restaurants were so offensive, in fact, that despite having over 1,100 locations in 47 states, Sambo's was the target of protests throughout the 1970s, according to an examination of the restaurant by KCET. Lawsuits followed, and though initially the owners were hesitant to change the name, by the late 1970s several Sambo's in the northeast and Midwest were rebranded as "Jolly Tiger" and "No Place Like Sam's." Still, the ill will festered, and in 1981 the company lost $50 million and shut down 450 Sambo's restaurants. All but the original location in Santa Barbara were gone by 1984. And in the wake of this summer's Black Lives Matter protests, it too agreed to change its name. It now goes by Chad's (via KEYT).

If you've ever showed up to your favorite restaurant and suddenly seen a "For Rent" sign in the window, you know the pain of Steak and Ale regulars in July of 2008. That month, Steak and Ale, along with Bennigan's, shut all their locations when parent company S&A Restaurant Group filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. According to the Dallas Morning News, it shuttered all 58 locations with almost no warning, leaving food to rot in refrigerators and employees suddenly out of a job.

Bennigan's has rebounded slightly, but rumors of a Steak and Ale comeback have been largely overstated. The Morning News reported in 2016 that a group in Mexico had agreed to bring multiple Steak and Ale's to that country in 2017. But as of December 2019, Fox5 New York reported the status of that deal was still unknown. But Legendary Restaurants, who still owns the rights to the brand, was apparently looking for any eager franchisees.

Golden arches look cool and all, but how about a chain of restaurants recognizable by their giant red barns. This was the look that made Red Barn famous, a chain of burger restaurants that began in Ohio in 1961 and lasted until about the mid-1980s, according to the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle. Though its signature burgers like the Barn Buster and the Big Barney have long since been forgotten, it did leave the fast food world one lasting legacy — the salad bar.

The Democrat & Chronicle cited a Red Barn-dedicated website that claimed Red Barn was the first fast food restaurant to offer a self-service salad bar. But it was not enough to keep a burger restaurant going. The chain was sold to Philip Khan in 1983, when half of its 100 remaining restaurants were already closed. By 1986, only 22 restaurants remained in New York, Ohio, and Washington, D.C. Though some of the signature red barns still remain standing, none house the one-time burger giant.