Faded Away, But Not Gone....

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By Kevin Williams

CAPTION:  Rax Roast Beef, almost gone, but not totally....

I've written before about favorite old restaurants that are choc full of childhood memories, but they they couldn't stay afloat.  Bill Knapps, a Midwestern chain, is probably at the top of the heap in terms of ones that I miss.  But there are others:  Chi Chi's,  The Cooker,  Burger Chef, and others.

But some restaurant chains you just THINK have died, but they haven't really. Not completely.  Think Rax Roast Beef shuttered its doors?   Nope.  They are still around. Barely.  Click here to read a fascinating article about the "second life" some restaurant chains receive.

By the way, who eats at Hardees regularly or even sometimes?  Hardees was one of the few western fast-food chains to crack the market in the Middle East when I lived there back in the early 1980s, we were so happy to see a "burger and fries" type chain open over there at the time.  Of course now, I think, all the regulars are in Saudi Arabia and the UAE.  Our hometown had a Hardees for a long time but it pulled up stakes years ago.  We just can't seem to keep fast food chains in our town, the list of ones that couldn't survive here is long: Fazoli's, Quiznos, Hardees, Boston Market, and I could go on...