 | |
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Restaurants Franchising |
| Founded | 1949 |
| Headquarters | Villa Park, Illinois, United States |
| Website | brownschicken |
Brown's Chicken & Pasta, also known simply as Brown's Chicken, is a chain of fast food restaurants specializing in fried chicken. It is based in the Chicago metropolitan area.
The chain traces its origins to 1949, when John and Belva Brown opened a restaurant in Bridgeview, Illinois. Brown's expanded to many locations throughout the United States in the 1970s. In the 1980s, pasta was added to the menu and eventually to the name of the company. In the 1990s, a traditional grill named "The Chicago Way" was added to all Brown's restaurants. After 2005, the company contracted their locations to exclusively within the Chicago metropolitan area. Former company president Frank Portillo is the brother of Dick Portillo, founder and former owner of The Portillo Restaurant Group, which was sold to Berkshire Partners in 2014. According to the company's website, there are 22 restaurants in 2024.
On January 8, 1993, the Brown's Chicken massacre occurred at a Palatine, Illinois, branch. Seven people were killed, including both owners and five employees, all of whom were found bound in the walk-in freezer. In 2002, James Degorski and Juan Luna were arrested for the murders. [1] In May 2007, Luna was convicted for his part in the murders and sentenced to life imprisonment. [1] On September 28, 2009, James Degorski was found guilty of the murders. [2] The massacre had an adverse effect on the entire Brown's Chicken chain. Sales at all restaurants dropped by 35 percent within months of the incident, and the company eventually closed 100 restaurants in the Chicago area. [3]
A fast-food restaurant, also known as a quick-service restaurant (QSR) within the industry, is a specific type of restaurant that serves fast-food cuisine and has minimal table service. The food served in fast-food restaurants is typically part of a "meat-sweet diet", offered from a limited menu, cooked in bulk in advance and kept hot, finished and packaged to order, and usually available for take away, though seating may be provided. Fast-food restaurants are typically part of a restaurant chain or franchise operation that provides standardized ingredients and/or partially prepared foods and supplies to each restaurant through controlled supply channels. The term "fast food" was recognized in a dictionary by Merriam–Webster in 1951.
Swiss Chalet is a Canadian chain of casual dining restaurants founded in 1954 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Swiss Chalet has locations in most Canadian provinces, but about 80% are in Ontario and there are currently none in Quebec or British Columbia. Swiss Chalet is among the holdings of Recipe Unlimited, which also owns the fast food chain Harvey's. Swiss Chalet and Harvey's franchises share many locations.
Roy Rogers Franchise Company, LLC is a chain of fast food restaurants primarily located in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States. The chain originated as the rebranding of the RoBee's House of Beef chain of Fort Wayne, Indiana, acquired by the Marriott Corporation in February 1968. However, Marriott first used the Roy Rogers Roast Beef name on conversions of the company's Junior Hot Shoppes in the Washington, D.C. area in April 1968, then the existing RoBee's stores. An aggressive nationwide franchising campaign was launched. At its peak, the chain included over 600 locations. The chain now has 41 locations in five states, either company owned or franchised.
Chick-fil-A, Inc. is an American fast food restaurant chain and the largest chain specializing in chicken sandwiches. Headquartered in College Park, Georgia, Chick-fil-A operates 3,164 restaurants across 48 states, as well as in the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. The company also has operations in Canada, and previously had restaurants in the United Kingdom and South Africa. The restaurant has a breakfast menu, as well as a lunch and dinner menu. The chain also provides catering services. Chick-fil-A calls its specialty the "original chicken sandwich". It is a piece of deep-fried breaded boneless chicken breast served on a toasted bun with two slices of dill pickle, or with lettuce, tomato, and cheese.
Marie Callender's is an American restaurant chain. Its headquarters are in the Marie Callender's Corporate Support Center in Mission Viejo, Orange County, California. As of April 2024, the company operates 24 locations in California, Idaho, Nevada, and Utah.
Boston Market Corporation, known as Boston Chicken until 1995, is an American fast casual restaurant chain headquartered in Newtown Township, Pennsylvania. Since 2020, it has been owned by Engage Brands, LLC, a company of Rohan Group. From 1985 to 1995, Boston Market was known as Boston Chicken, which rapidly expanded to over a thousand locations. By the late 1990s, the chain filed for bankruptcy and closed many stores until a few hundred remained. McDonald's purchased the chain in 2000. It was sold again in 2007, then in 2020. As of November 2020, the chain had approximately 342 company-owned restaurant locations in 28 states and Puerto Rico. In the 2020s the chain encountered legal troubles and went into a rapid decline to end 2024 with only 16 remaining stores. At its peak, Boston Market had its greatest presence in the Northeastern and Midwestern United States, as well as California, Florida, and Texas.
The Brown's Chicken massacre was a mass murder that occurred on January 8, 1993, in Palatine, Illinois, when two robbers shot and killed seven employees at a Brown's Chicken fast-food restaurant.
Burger Chef was an American fast-food restaurant chain. It began operating in 1954 in Indianapolis, Indiana, expanded throughout the United States, and at its peak in 1973 had 1,050 locations, including some in Canada. The chain featured several signature items, such as the Big Shef and Super Shef hamburgers.
Noodles & Company is an American fast-casual restaurant that offers international and American noodle dishes in addition to soups and salads. Noodles & Company was founded in 1995 by Aaron Kennedy and is headquartered in Broomfield, Colorado. The company went public in 2013 and recorded a $457 million revenue in 2017. In mid-2022, there were 458 Noodles & Company locations across 31 states.
Portillo's Restaurant Group, Inc. is an American fast casual restaurant chain based in the Chicago area that specializes in serving Chicago-style food such as hot dogs, Maxwell Street Polish, and Italian beef. The company was founded by Dick Portillo on April 9, 1963, in Villa Park, Illinois, under the name "The Dog House".
CBC Restaurant Corporation, doing business as Corner Bakery Cafe is an American chain of cafes that specialize in pastries, breads, breakfast dishes, gourmet sandwiches, homemade soups, salads, and pasta. Corner Bakery Cafe is considered to be a part of the fast casual market segment of the food service industry, offering a somewhat higher quality of food and atmosphere than a typical fast food restaurant, and offering limited table service.
Marrybrown Sdn Bhd is a Malaysian-owned multinational chain of quick service restaurants originated in Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia. Being one of the largest global halal fast food-establishments, the chain has since expanded to over 250 locations throughout Malaysia and across several countries. The restaurant focuses on Malaysian and western dishes.
Golden Skillet is a fast-food chain that mainly sells fried chicken originating in Richmond, Virginia. The first Golden Skillet chicken was sold in 1963 at the downtown Richmond department store Thalhimer's. The fried chicken recipe was created by Clifton W. Guthrie, the original owner and founder of Golden Skillet.
Mary Brown's Chicken, is a Canadian fast food restaurant with approximately 300 locations across Canada. The chain specializes in fried chicken.
Paul Dennis Reid Jr., known as The Fast Food Killer, was an American serial killer, convicted and sentenced to death for seven murders during three fast-food restaurant robberies in Metropolitan Nashville, Tennessee and Clarksville, Tennessee between the months of February and April 1997. At the time of the murders, Reid lived with roommate Brian Fozzard at a boarding house, and he was on parole from a 1983 conviction in Texas on charges relating to the aggravated armed robbery of a Houston steakhouse. He had served seven years of a 20-year sentence, and was paroled in 1990. Originally from Richland Hills, Texas, a suburb of Fort Worth, Reid went to Nashville to pursue a career as a country music singer.
A fried chicken restaurant is a fast food restaurant that serves (mainly) fried chicken—usually chunks of chicken, battered or breaded and deep-fried.
Paul Modrowski is an autistic, Polish-American man formerly serving a life sentence for the murder of Dean Fawcett, until his sentence commutation and release in July 2024. From 2009 to 2015 Modrowski produced a prison blog titled "Paul Modrowski- On the Inside", which was featured in a four-part series of episodes of the Reply All podcast in 2016.
El Pollo Loco, Inc., is a restaurant chain based in the United States, specializing in Mexican-style grilled chicken. Restaurant service consists of: dine-in and take-out, with some locations offering drive-through options. The company is headquartered in Costa Mesa, California, and operates about 500 company-owned and franchised restaurants in the Southwestern United States.
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