Long John Silver's
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Long John Silver's is a United States-based fast-food restaurant that specializes in seafood and "fish and chips." It is named after the fictional pirate Long John Silver from the Robert Louis Stevenson book "Treasure Island".
The restaurant was known for its Cape Cod look buildings, blue roofs, small steeples, and nautically-themed decorations. Most early restaurants featured separate entrance and exit doors, corridor-like line area, food heaters that were transparent so you could see the food waiting to be served, and a bell by the exit you were to ring if you got good service. Many also featured dock-like walkways lined with pilings and thick ropes that wrapped around the outside of the building. Newer restaurants kept the basic structural design and theme, but eliminated most of these other features. The modern Multi-brand outlets do not use the blue roofed Cape Cod style buildings.
The restaurant, which has over 1200 units worldwide, is a division of Yum! Brands, Inc. The company purchased it from Yorkshire Global Restaurants, which originally acquired it from Fleet Boston Bank after its having gained control of the restaurants due to bankruptcy. Yum! appears to intend to combine the brand with its chain of A&W Restaurants; most Long John Silver's locations that have opened in recent years are cobranded Long John Silver's/A&W restaurants. YUM has recently announced (2005) that it is expanding the multi-brand concept and will pair Long John Silver's with KFC, just as they have paired Taco Bell and Pizza Hut along with A&W. The parent corporation of the chain's Canadian franchises, which have no connection with A&W in Canada, is Priszm Brandz.
The first restaurant was opened in 1969 in Lexington, Kentucky. Until its bankruptcy in 1998, Long John Silver's was a privately owned corporation. The chain began as a division of Jerrico, Inc., which also operated Jerry's Restaurants, a chain of casual dining restaurants which also began in Lexington, and was very similar to Big Boy restaurants. Jerry's was located in the Midwest and South. When the company was sold in 1989, the Long John Silver's concept had far outgrown the Jerry's chain. Most of Jerry's 46 remaining locations were converted to Denny's by the new owners, with a handful staying under the original name, usually because there was already an existing Denny's nearby. Only a dozen or so, now called Jerry's J-Boy Restaurants, are still open in Kentucky and southern Indiana. LJS stores were largely unaffected by this move. (Many original LJS franchisees were also operator's of Jerry's locations).
The first LJS restaurant to open in New England was a co-branded LJS/KFC, converted from a KFC. This restaurant opened in Lawrence, Massachusetts, in July 2004, though there was a Jerrico-era LJS restaurant that operated for several years in Wareham in the 1970s.
Celebrity connections
Wayne Coyne, lead singer of the band The Flaming Lips, has said to have worked at a Long John Silver's for over ten years. As a sign of gratitude for his long service to "The Captain", he was awarded a special badge, which he reportedly still possesses.External links
- [Official Web Site]
- [Nutritional Information about Long John Silver's Battered Fish]
- [Nutritional Information about Long John Silver's Fish Sandwich]
| Yum! Brands, Inc. |
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| Pizza Hut | Taco Bell | KFC | A&W Restaurants | Long John Silver's |
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