Arthur Treacher's

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Arthur Treacher's Fish and Chips
Type subsidiary of TruFoods Systems, Inc
Founded 1969
Headquarters Jacksonville, Florida
Industry Restaurant
Products Seafood
Revenue $ (Gross 2005)
Operating income $ (2005)
Net income $ (2005)
Employees (world wide)
Website http://www.arthurtreachers.com/

Arthur Treacher's Fish and Chips is a fast food seafood restaurant chain with, as of 2003, 177 stores which serve fish and chips. Like its main competitor Long John Silver's, Arthur Treacher's faced bankruptcy, and the brand has been acquired by TruFoods Systems, Inc. Nathan's Famous bought the exclusive rights to market the Arthur Treacher's trademark and sell their products co-branded with Nathan's own concepts Kenny Rogers Roasters and Miami Subs.

Arthur Treacher's Fish and Chips once had over 950 locations throughout the United States. The company was bought out by Orange Co. in the 1970s and later sold to Mrs. Paul's Seafood. The company was then bought by a group of investors and the corporate offices were relocated to Youngstown, Ohio. During the years of high growth customers would line up for hours to eat in the 27-50 seat restaurants with about 50% of the business as take out.

The chain started in 1969 with Long John Silver's; Captain D's, Skipper's and H. Salt Esquire all started about the same time. They introduced British fish and chips to America. Arthur Treacher's and Long John Silver's probably became the most prolific companies in the expansion of fish and chips in the late 1970s. By 1979, Arthur Treacher's had about 800 stores. In 1981, Britain and Iceland almost got into a war over fishing rights, and when they implemented the 200-mile (370 km) fishing limit it was called the 'cod wars.' Cod prices went from the low $2 range to the mid-$3 range, and it sent the industry into a death spiral, and all the companies retrenched. Treacher's was henceforth sold to Mrs. Paul's from Orange Co., a public company that was primarily in the orange futures trading business. They immediately replaced the Icelandic codfish with pollack, which was cheaper and inferior in quality. The company then went into bankruptcy in 1983, and emerged again in 1985. It was merged into a shell by Jim Catalan. From 1985 to 1993, Catalan started to grow the company again, albeit very slowly, followed in 1993 by an investment in the company by a group of investors. The investment was going to be used to bring out a new, more modern, and updated seafood concept. The money was used to buy a large number of stores and move the company from its base operations in Youngstown, Ohio to Jacksonville, Florida.

The chain is named for Arthur Treacher (1894 - 1975), an English character actor who was known as "the perfect butler" for his performances as Jeeves and as a butler in several Shirley Temple films. He served as a spokesman for the restaurant chain in its early years, underscoring the British character of its food. In America, Arthur Treacher is also remembered as the sidekick and announcer of The Merv Griffin Show in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Arthur Treacher was also the policeman who returned the Banks children home in the motion picture Mary Poppins.

This article or section needs sources or references that appear in reliable, third-party publications. Alone, primary sources and sources affiliated with the subject of the article are not sufficient for an accurate encyclopedia article. Please include more appropriate citations from reliable sources.
This article has been tagged since January 2007.
Advanced Search
Included Web Search Engines


Safe Search

close

Top Matching Results

Occasionally Search.com will highlight specialized results that are based on the context of your query. Examples of specialized results include specific links to news, images, or video.

Top Matching Results may highlight information from other Search.com pages, content from the CNET Network of sites, or third party content. The listings are based purely on relevance. Search.com does not receive payment for listings in this section but our partners that provide this data may get paid for listing these products.

Sponsored Links

This section contains paid listings which have been purchased by companies that want to have their sites appear for specific search terms and related content. These listings are administered, sorted and maintained by a third party and are not endorsed by Search.com.

Search Results

Search.com sends your search query to several search engines at one time and integrates the results into one list which has been sorted by relevance using Search.com's proprietary algorithm. You can customize the list of search engines included in your metasearch from the preferences.

The search engines that are used in your metasearch may allow companies to pay to have their Web sites included within the results. To view the Paid Inclusion policy for a specific search engine, please visit their Web site. Search.com does not accept payment or share revenue with any search engine partner for listings in this section.