Grills
Year Founded: 1934
City: Bloomington, Indiana
Founder: Edward Gold
Number of Locations at the Chain’s Peak: over 1,500 worldwide
Original Slogan: “The Glorified Hamburger”
▶The character of J. Wellington Wimpy from the Popeye cartoon series was the inspiration for the Wimpy Grills name.
▶Wimpy Grills were closely associated with Chicago, Illinois, but did not open their first location there until 1936. The number of Wimpy Grill restaurants in Chicago grew to twenty-six in 1947.
▶In 1954, Edward Gold licensed the use of the name to J. Lyons and Co. for an expansion in the United Kingdom. Three years later, he partnered with J. Lyons and Co to create Wimpy’s International, which grew to more than 1,500 locations. Gold later sold his shares in the partnership to Lyons.
▶1967 saw the first South African Wimpy location open in Durban. The South African restaurants were spun off and sold in the late 1970s. Famous Brands Limited acquired those locations in 2003, and then in 2007, acquired the Wimpy International Ltd. company.
▶By the time of the founder’s death in 1977, the number of locations in the US had dwindled to nine. No one purchased the businesses and trademark upon his passing, so Wimpy’s disappeared from the US burger scene.
▶Today, there are almost seventy restaurants in operation in the United Kingdom and nearly five hundred in South Africa.
Royal Castle
Year Founded: 1938 in Miami, 1940 in Cleveland
City: Miami, Florida
Founder: William Singer
Number of Locations at the Chain’s Peak: more than 200
Original Slogan: “Fit for a King!”
▶Many folks are familiar with the Royal Castle based out of Miami, which expanded to Georgia and Louisiana, but did not know there was a separate Royal Castle company operating in Cleveland, Ohio, run by William Singer’s brother Samuel.
▶During its opening week of sales in Miami, the first store grossed $245.
▶Upon entering most Royal Castles, you would find the Royal Castle “Fit for a King” slogan embedded in the terrazzo floor.
▶Royal Castles were also known for their breakfasts. All of their orange juice was squeezed to order, eggs were cooked in butter, and the coffee was served with heavy whipping cream.
▶Royal Castle ended up bottling their famous house-made Birch Beer and selling it in Florida supermarkets.
▶When he worked for Prince Castle, Ray Kroc of McDonald’s fame sold multimixer shake machines to Royal Castle.
▶In an effort to compete with the speed at which McDonald’s and their contemporaries could pump out burgers, Royal Castle began making the burgers in advance. The burgers would sit in a holding drawer, which affected the quality and taste.
▶Royal Castle sold the company to Performance Systems Inc., owners of Minnie Pearl Chicken, in February 1969. Performance Systems then became embroiled in a scandal with the Securities and Trade Commission over their method of reporting franchise fees. By the time that Performance Systems announced 1969 earnings as a loss of thirty-nine million in September 1970, they were in significant financial trouble. Performance Systems was forced to sell Royal Castle locations where the property value far exceeded the profit generated by the restaurant.
▶Royal Castle tried to diversify with Royal Carousel, an automated restaurant; Royal Sky Campgrounds; Criterion I Steakhouses; and Pizza Garden. None of them worked. The company attempted to rebrand and change the menu, but it was too late. In 1975, Royal Castle’s stockholders began to liquidate the company’s assets. The final liquidation payment came in October 1979.
▶The 2017 Best Picture Oscar winner Moonlight had a scene filmed in the last operating Royal Castle in Miami.
Grand Opening ad for Royal Castle from The Miami Herald on March 18, 1938.
No, this chapter isn’t about a particular show, but about some of the types of eating establishments that helped popularize the majestic burger.
Diners
Diners are usually smallish restaurants with laid-back atmospheres, serving what can be best described as comfort food. Diners should have counter seating and booths where you can enjoy some music via tabletop jukeboxes while you wait for your food. I just described my ideal version of one, but yours might differ slightly. Typically, there’s only one or two short-order cooks who handle all the cooking, an impressive thing to see up close. All good diners are open twenty-four-hours or at least into the wee hours of the night. I lump coffee shops into the same group as diners.
Many folks believe that the original diners were the lunch wagons of the late 1800s. Eventually, as the need for more seating arose, lunch wagons switched to prefabricated buildings. It wasn’t until the 1960s and the advent of highways crisscrossing the United States that diners took off nationwide. Before this, most diners were found in small towns and urban areas.
Drive-Ins
The drive-ins I’m referring to weren’t the theater kind. At a drive-in restaurant, you would park your car and a member of their staff would come out to meet you at your vehicle, take your order, and then return with your food. Depending on the efficiency of the spot, you might have a quick meal or a drawn-out affair. Drive-ins rose to prominence as car culture took over America during the 1950s and 1960s; as folks got more comfortable using their cars for traveling from point A to point B, their “wheels” also started to become an extension of who they were.
Drive-ins are commonly associated with women skating around from hot rod to jalopy in the parking lot, but most, if not all, of the original carhops were guys or “tray boys.” It wasn’t until after World War II that women replaced men, after American males were called up to join the military. While it’s true that having a pretty girl serve you food increased sales, in the long run it created problems with fellas loitering.
McDonald’s found a way to streamline food service and cut out the problems with drive-in service. Once that new system spread to restaurants nationwide, the popularity of drive-ins began to wane. But it was the even more popular drive-thru service that would deal a major blow to drive-ins.
I wasn’t around to experience the original drive-in. My first taste of it was watching Happy Days on TV. I dreamed of eating and hanging out at the Arnold’s Drive-In featured on the program.
Believe it or not, there are actually a few hundred drive-ins still around where you can have your in-car eating experience. To find a list of all active drive-in restaurants with carhops, go to my blog, Burger Beast.
Luncheonettes
