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Need to have Roy Rogers return to Raleigh and Greensboro. Much better quality real roast beef, sliced fresh, topped with au jus. And variety toppings from the fixin's bar. Also famous fried chicken and hamburgers. Nearest locations remain in Northern Virginia, although they also recently returned to Ohio. Better food quality than Arby's.
Back in the 90's, Hardee's acquired Roy Rogers from Marriott and served their Roy Rogers recipe famous fried chicken. Today a few random franchise Hardee's locations still serve fried chicken. I think near Burlington. Today Hardee's is owned by CKE-Carl's Jr, and Roy Rogers is now a separate Maryland based corporation.
Back in the 90's, Hardee's acquired Roy Rogers from Marriott and served their Roy Rogers recipe famous fried chicken. Today a few random franchise Hardee's locations still serve fried chicken. I think near Burlington. Today Hardee's is owned by CKE-Carl's Jr, and Roy Rogers is now a separate Maryland based corporation.
THis just came up in discussion with a friend this week. He was telling me that Hardees apparently spun off their Fried Chicken and another company ran with it. Whatever he was telling me did not seem to ring a bell, but he seemed pretty confident. He's from near Rocky Mount, so I guess that makes him an expert.
In searching for the details (which I never found), I learned today that Hardee's also used to own RAX, another Roast Beef FF Company. There was one in Boone in the late 80's, I recall.
Marriott had big ambitions for Roy Rogers when it bought them. The Marriott at Tysons Corner, Va. where I used to stay on business in the early 1980s had a Roy Rogers right out front. But Marriott was run by smart people who saw that Roy Rogers wasn't going to be the gold mine they expected. Marriott management was not afraid to admit a mistake and moved quickly to rectify it by selling Roy Rogers to the Canadian tobacco conglomerate Imasco that owned Hardees at the time. Even with the additional purchase of Rax, Hardee's didn't turn out any better for Imasco than it had for Marriott. Over time, Hardee's pretty much wrecked the value of the Roy Rogers brand, and Imasco pulled the plug by selling Hardees to Carl's. A different company bought the rights to the Roy Rogers brand and has a small number of restaurants. I've never been to one of them.
Marriott had big ambitions for Roy Rogers when it bought them. The Marriott at Tysons Corner, Va. where I used to stay on business in the early 1980s had a Roy Rogers right out front. But Marriott was run by smart people who saw that Roy Rogers wasn't going to be the gold mine they expected. Marriott management was not afraid to admit a mistake and moved quickly to rectify it by selling Roy Rogers to the Canadian tobacco conglomerate Imasco that owned Hardees at the time. Even with the additional purchase of Rax, Hardee's didn't turn out any better for Imasco than it had for Marriott. Over time, Hardee's pretty much wrecked the value of the Roy Rogers brand, and Imasco pulled the plug by selling Hardees to Carl's. A different company bought the rights to the Roy Rogers brand and has a small number of restaurants. I've never been to one of them.
Roy Rogers was actually very successful under Marriott, with about 650 locations in the Mid Atlantic and Northeast, as well as expanding to the Midwest. They chose to exit the restaurant business and focus more on their namesake hotels, especially after their Bob's Big Boy division became more of a challenge to operate, as a result of dealing with regional franchisees such as Shoney's, Elby's, and Frisch's.
Roy's was sold to Imasco, parent of Hardee's and units were converted. The Hardee's conversion failed and Imasco restored the Roy Rogers menu and brand. Hardee's was acquired by Carl's Jr. and Roy's was sold to the largest Maryland franchisee, where about 50 units remain today. They are slowly expanding again and recently returned to a suburb of Cincinnati, Ohio. Would be nice to see them return to Raleigh, Greensboro, and even Charlotte.
Roy Rogers was actually very successful under Marriott, with about 650 locations in the Mid Atlantic and Northeast, as well as expanding to the Midwest.
650 is not that many, when you consider that 180 of them were conversions from Gino's which Marriott acquired to bolster the operation. After acquiring Roy Rogers, Marriott's original target was 870 stores by 1973. They achieved only one-quarter of the objective, in part because franchisees couldn't turn a profit. It was a slow slog after that. Marriott wasn't entirely disenchanted with food service; their Host operation was retained after the 1993 restructuring
When I lived in Northern Virginia in the late 80's and mid 90's, I enjoyed dining at Marriott owned restaurants. From the Hot Shoppes to Bob's Big Boy and Roy Rogers. They all had good quality food and were well managed and reasonably priced. I was disappointed when Marriott sold off most of their food service divisions to focus more on their namesake hotels. They retained Host Marriott Services in travel plazas and food courts, although today's HMS Host may no longer be operated by Marriott.
Bob's Big Boy and Frisch's Big Boy remain in a scaled down version independent of Marriott, and Roy Rogers is now operated by a longstanding Maryland franchisee who helped operate the brand under Marriott. Shoney's long ago separated from Big Boy and continues to decline. I would love to see a return of Big Boy and Roy Rogers for nostalgic reasons, not to mention a Big Boy burger and Roy Rogers roast beef sandwich.
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