The Deleted Scenes - Hook, Line, and Sinker
It’s the last week of Lent, so this one’s fitting. You wouldn’t think this, in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, was a notable building or business, would you? And yet:
That’s from a photo essay detailing the last original standalone Arthur Treacher’s fish and chips restaurant in America—which this generic-looking building on a commercial strip outside Akron, Ohio is. This is possible because Vittoria is a franchisee, not a corporate manager. Most chains would have pulled the plug long before being diminished to a single location. But as a franchisee one man can basically go it alone. It also means, at this point, that if you don’t quite keep everything just so as stipulated by the franchise agreement, nobody will be the wiser. But he does. It might even mean—as it appears to mean here—that the business can outlive itself, with the Arthur Treacher’s company as it was known for decades effectively ceasing to exist in one sense while ongoing in another sense. It would be like the papacy going extinct, but a lone Catholic parish continuing the faith somewhere. See this bit:
And this:
That special fish grate in the fryer. That’s so cool to me. This is the kind of thing that makes me excited to write about old businesses and buildings. When you look closely, there’s so much specificity and tacit knowledge. So much that distinguishes these enterprises as having been founded by real people at certain moments in time. And then there’s this:
When a recipe or a business enterprise goes extinct, so does a whole lineage. The exact trajectory and fate of the company is kind of complicated. The brand, but not any of the old company itself, is owned by Nathan’s, which serves some Arthur Treacher’s menu items as a delivery-only “ghost kitchen” concept and had or maybe still has some co-branded stores. (They’re said to have been nixed, but this location, in South Bound Brook, New Jersey, claims to be one, has its own website, and misspells the name in its online delivery menu.) A photo in the Google reviews from seven months ago still shows the Arthur Treacher’s sign on the exterior. It’s tempting to wonder if the decline of the fish-on-Friday practice for Catholics is part of why the chain floundered (heh)—indeed, that custom is considered part of why it succeeded—but Long John Silver’s, a similar fast-food restaurant, still has hundreds of locations. Who really knows. The 1970s “Cod Wars,” which spiked the price of cod and resulted in the chain switching to pollock, are seen as a turning point (down) in the chain’s fortunes. Ben Vittoria, quoted in another article, says:
In one final twist, remember the two stores Vittoria owned in Ohio? He closed one and sold it, to focus on the last remaining freestanding legacy location. And that’s what prompted a raft of “Last Arthur Treacher’s in America” articles. But the buyer of that shuttered location, a man named George Simon, apparently closed the real estate deal with Vittoria at his restaurant—that last Arthur Treacher’s—and was so inspired by its success and hopping atmosphere that he decided to reopen the closed location!
I’m not sure we’ve any seen anything like this with a near-dead chain. As of March 2023, when the article about Simon was written, the drive-thru was going to reopen and the full menu, reduced to fish, chips, and chicken, was going to return. The article also states, “What’s more, the owner [Simon] has ambitious plans to expand the brand throughout Ohio.” The legal ability to open a new franchise still exists, because of TruFoods Systems owning franchising rights in certain places. But that’s separate from Nathan’s, which as far as I can understand owns the idea of the brand but not whatever remains of the legacy company, which after a number of acquisitions ended up with TruFoods.
So you basically have the remnants of the old company split off from the IP of the company, meaning Nathan’s can bring back Arthur Treacher’s restaurants, and George Simon can bring them back in the states where franchising rights remain, and these would be two totally separate branches. And with those old fish-frying grates and specially made steel vats out of production for decades, who’s to say how “truly” any of these locations, except Vittoria’s, really is an Arthur Treacher’s. (It’s kind of like that “last Howard Johnson’s” in upstate New York, that existed only through a quirk of the law. Had the rights and brand prospects been slightly different, we might have ended up with two successor chains to the Host of the Highways.) But then again, it’s just fried fish. Bonus: here’s an Arthur Treacher’s in Fairfax just captured by Google Street View (2009) before the sign was taken down. But the building still stands. And here’s one I photographed myself in suburban Alexandria, with both the sign and the shingle roof intact! Notice the lantern sign here is kind of flat, not a full cube. It was like that when it was still an Arthur Treacher’s too. So what could explain that? A later revision of the sign? A single replacement after the old sign was no longer being mass produced? I love these kinds of questions. But that’s enough for today. Related Reading: The Last Buffet, Or The First New One? The Curious Case of the Last Record Changer Thank you for reading! Please consider upgrading to a paid subscription to help support this newsletter. You’ll get a weekly subscribers-only piece, plus full access to the archive: over 900 pieces and growing. And you’ll help ensure more like this! You're currently a free subscriber to The Deleted Scenes. For the full experience, upgrade your subscription. |
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