Shoney's is a privately held restaurant chain headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. Operating primarily in the South, Shoney's also has restaurants in the Midwest and Lower Mid-Atlantic states. Founder Alex Schoenbaum opened the first Parkette Drive-In in 1947, and became a licensee of Big Boy Restaurants in 1952. Two years later the name was changed to Shoney's, and aggressive subfranchising followed. Thirty years later, having outgrown its Big Boy territory, Shoney's dropped the Big Boy affiliation.
The current corporate entity is Shoney's North America Corp., with David Davoudpour as chairman and chief executive officer. Davoudpour acquired Shoney's in 2006 through Royal Hospitality Corp. in Atlanta. He is the founder and chairman of Royal Hospitality. As of 2016, there were around 150 company-owned and franchised Shoney's restaurants in 17 states, stretching from Maryland to Florida in the east, and from Missouri to Texas in the west, with the northernmost location being in Ohio.
Video Shoney's
History
In 1947, Alex Schoenbaum opened the Parkette Drive-In next to his father's bowling alley in Charleston, West Virginia. After meeting with Big Boy founder Bob Wian in 1951, Schoenbaum became a Big Boy franchisee on February 7, 1952, now calling his several locations the Parkette Big Boy Shoppes. In May 1954, a public "Name the Parkette Big Boy Contest" was announced, and in June 1954 Schoenbaum's five Parkette Drive-Ins were rebranded as Shoney's.
Shoney's (the Parkette) was originally the Big Boy franchisee for West Virginia; however, Schoenbaum rapidly grew the chain through subfranchising, expanding his Big Boy territory through the southeastern United States, excluding Florida only because the rights already belonged to fellow Big Boy franchisee Frisch's.
Schoenbaum's earliest subfranchisees operated under their own names. In 1955, Leonard Goldstein became a subfranchisee in Roanoke, Virginia. Originally operating as Shoney's, he eventually changed to Lendy's Big Boy after another Shoney's subfranchisee called Yoda's Big Boy opened across town. In 1956 a subfranchise was sold to the Boury brothers in northern West Virginia, who operated as Elby's. Elby's, Lendy's, and Yoda's units were originally listed with Shoney's units on the back of the Shoney's menu. Also in 1956, Schoenbaum sold a subfranchise to Abe Becker in Rochester, New York, for Becker's Big Boy. Two Philadelphia area subfranchises, Tunes and Arnold's, were opened during this period as well. In 1959 Shap's Big Boy was subfranchised in Chattanooga, Tennessee, later assuming the Shoney's name. After this, all subfranchises went by the name Shoney's.
Doubling in size every four years, Shoney's became the largest Big Boy franchisee, operating over one third of the Big Boy restaurants nationwide. As Shoney's dominated Big Boy, a 1959 franchisee named Raymond Danner would dominate Shoney's, acquiring the company in 1971.
Ray Danner
In 1969, the Nashville Shoney's Big Boy franchisee Danner Foods created a fast-food seafood concept called Mr. D's, named after owner, Ray Danner. The name was later changed to Captain D's and grew to more than 100 restaurants. Shoney's, Inc. went public in 1971 and was listed as "SHO" on the New York Stock Exchange. At various times, the corporate portfolio also included a lodging chain (Shoney's Inns), four casual dining concepts (Fifth Quarter, the Sailmaker, Barbwire's, and Pargo's), and Lee's Famous Recipe Chicken.
Also in 1969, Danner opened his first family restaurant in the Louisville, Kentucky area. Because Frisch's owned the Big Boy trademark in Kentucky, the restaurant was called "Danner's Family Restaurant" After merging with Shoney's in 1971 these units legally became part of Shoney's and by 1977, with several Louisville locations, the units were renamed as "Danner's Towne and Country". In 1982, these restaurants, and two new units in Florida, also Frisch's Big Boy territory, opened as "Shoney's Towne and Country". This caused Frisch's to sue for trademark infringement, claiming a strong association of the "Shoney's" name with "Big Boy". While these lawsuits failed, similar suits by Frisch's against Elby's complicated Elby's Big Boy advertising in the upper Ohio Valley. Therefore, in 1984 Shoney's broke affiliation with Big Boy. At the time it was the largest Big Boy franchisee, with 392 Shoney's Big Boy restaurants. As a result, the Big Boy sandwich was renamed the "All-American Hamburger," and Shoney Bear was created as a corporate mascot.
At its peak in 1998, the restaurant chain operated or franchised over 1,300 restaurants in 34 states. None of those businesses remains a part of the Shoney's restaurant enterprise today.
In 2000, the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and was acquired by Texas-based investment group Lone Star Funds two years later. On January 1, 2007, Lone Star announced that the Shoney's chain - at this point down to 282 restaurants - was being sold to David Davoudpour, founder and CEO of the Atlanta-based Royal Capital Corporation, the largest franchisee of Church's Chicken restaurants. Davoudpour set up a new company, Shoney's North America, LLC, as a subsidiary of Royal and currently serves as its chairman and CEO. Lone Star had originally planned to sell the chain to Centrum Properties, a Brentwood, Tennessee, investment group, but Centrum later sued to get out of the deal.
In January 2014, Shoney's opened its first mall-based location, in Sugarloaf Mills in Lawrenceville, Georgia. It includes a full bar.
Racial discrimination
In April 1989, a class action lawsuit was filed in Pensacola, Florida charging Shoney's with widespread racial discrimination where African American applicants were denied employment, and African American employees were denied promotion, harassed or terminated without cause, based on race, and that white managers were harassed or terminated for objecting to the practices. The case, joined by the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, was filed by nine named plaintiffs: five black employees and four white managers.
The lawsuit claimed that racial policies were systemic, involving upper management including chairman Ray Danner, who was named individually as a co-defendant. On restaurant visits, Danner would allegedly tell managers to "lighten the place up" if he felt too many blacks were employed at the location, as "the number of blacks [needed] to coincide with [the] neighborhood ethnic group". Restaurant managers testified that Danner didn't want blacks seen by customers, because no one wanted to eat at a restaurant where "a bunch of niggers" were working. (Danner responded that he could not remember making such statements, and denied use of the racial epithet, and having such racial policies.) Managers also testified that company officials instructed them to "blacken the 'o'" in the Shoney's logo (or the "A" in Application) on job applications of African Americans.
In 1993, the court approved an award of $105 million, ($132.5 million including costs and fees) the largest discrimination settlement at the time. Danner, who in the interim became a member of the NAACP, surrendered 2.9 million shares of company stock worth $60 to $65 million toward the settlement, and resigned from Shoney's board of directors. The court also ordered a detailed company-wide affirmative action program, including training and educational programs.
Among an estimated 40 thousand persons in the class, compensation was awarded to every African American person employed at Shoney's company-owned restaurants between February 4, 1985 and November 3, 1992. Eleven persons received the maximum $100,000, (equivalent to $169,000 in 2017). The suit included company-owned food service operations such as Shoney's, Captain D's and Lee's Famous Recipe, but excluded franchised restaurants.
Maps Shoney's
Shoney's Inn
In 1975, the restaurant chain founded Shoney's Inn, a motel chain. After the motels were sold off in 1991, Shoney's continued to collect royalties on the name. Between 2002 and 2006, the last remaining Shoney's Inns were re-branded as GuestHouse.
References
External links
- Official website
- Early Shoney's franchise history - http://lendys.oldroanoke.online
Source of article : Wikipedia
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