Calling all junk food junkies...

Question

In the spirit of the "Can you help connect...?" threads that were very successful in connecting a bunch of state governors a while back, I'm working on a list of founders of fast food chains, but I'm running out of ideas. (Partly because several fast food chain founders are already connected to the main tree. Including one that I put up just the other day for the sake of this challenge! Some people are just way too impatient... )

So, I'm looking for more people to add to the list. Currently, I have ten chain founders, and I've found that 14 is a pretty good number for these challenges: if there are too few, the challenge isn't interesting; if there are too many, the challenge gets too intimidating.

Specifically, I'm looking for people who were founders or co-founders of restaurant chains which serve (or served) fast food (hamburgers, hot dogs, pizza, fried chicken, burek, cevapi, sate, tacos, burritos... Now I'm getting hungry...) The food can be eaten on the premises or takeaway, but if there is table service (as in, waiters), then it's not fast food. There should be at least a dozen locations in the chain, so there's half a chance that the founder(s) will have Wikipedia entries. (Although you wouldn't believe how many restaurant chains have Wikipedia entries, sometimes really detailed ones, but the founder might be mentioned only in passing, if at all.) And, of course, the founder needs to be, well, no longer with us.

I am particularly interested in fast food chains that were started outside the United States, because most of the founders I've already found were American, and it would be kind of nice to make this challenge a bit more inclusive.

Answer 1

Oh, yes. Regarding those governors: we now have a page specifically about connecting Unconnected Governors, so if that's something you're into, we have a list for you, and will restock it as those governors get connected. (Or, if you want to add all the unconnected governors from your state to the list, by all means go ahead.)

Answer 2

Try White Spot (Wikipedia) founder Nat Bailey in Vancouver, B.C. Canada.    Jack

Comments

Thanks, Jack. I created a profile for Nat Bailey and took the new challenge live. But if anybody has any more suggestions, ideally, I'd like three more founders.

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There was one chain that I tried to find information about, and came up totally empty: back in the 60s and very early 70s, there were maybe three burger joints in Vancouver called "Texan Burger" or "Texan Drive-In" or something like that. The post holding the sign was in the shape of a barbecue fork. One of them was on Georgia Street near Denman, and as we were coming home from the cottage, we'd drive from Horseshoe Bay along the Upper Levels, down Taylor Way, through Stanley Park, and (if us kids behaved ourselves) maybe stop in at the Texan for their 5 cent ice cream cones. I never knew whether the chain was more widespread or not. But by the early 70s, I think all of the ones in Vancouver were gone. Can anybody else remember that place?

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I wasn't in Vancouver enough to know the Texan although I certainly drove by the location.

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Do C-Lovers Fish and Chips, Church's Chicken and Baskin Robbins (ice-cream) fit in?

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I've added George Church to the challenge. I'll have to look into the others.

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I checked out the C-Lovers web site. There are 12 locations, so it fits into the challenge for size, but it was only started in 1984, so it seems likely to me that the founder(s) is/are still alive. And, in any case, the web site doesn't even't say who the founder(s) is/are/were. So you may need to make another investigative expedition, Jack.

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I'll weigh in on this one.....have room for a few more pounds.

Answer 3

I connected the CO-founder of DQ a while back...

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/McCullough-3432

Comments

I have added him to my spreadsheet under "Goodie Makers" as the inventor of soft-serve ice cream, which is how Wikipedia describes him. I may launch another Quest for Great-Grandparents: Goodie Edition challenge, including him, as there are several people from the Can you help connect a goodie maker? who weren't connected when I launched the great-grandparent challenge. If we can find a few more goodie inventors, that would be a challenge worth doing, I think.