Thursday Nostalgia: G.D. Ritzy, Rax, Showbiz, and More!

By Kevin Williams

Regulars here know my penchant for 70, 80s, and 90s nostalgia.  I've written before about favorite restaurants and stores that are no longer around...anyone remember the Hot Shoppe or Farrell's?  What about Bill Knapp's or Bresler's?

It's odd how chains come and go, rise and fall....I suppose some of them were mismanaged and others just couldn't keep up with societal shifts.  I wonder if someday my now 2 1 /2 year old daughterAster will wax nostalgic about once eating at a place called "The Cracker Barrel" and this faux Italian place with unlimited breadsticks called "The Olive Garden."?  Time will tell.

In the meantime, here are a few more restaurants and businesses that might tickle your nostalgic bone.

G.D RITZY’S:  Does anyone remember this fast-food classic?  They did have quite a few locations, if I remember correctly. One of them was in my hometown.  One of the few places I’ve ever been that an adult (as opposed to being relegated to the kids menu) could go in and order a PB & J off the menu.  The chain closed in my hometown probably 20 years ago and is now a Chinese fast-food joint. Gone but not forgotten.....

Showbiz Pizza Place, gone, but not forgotten....

SHOWBIZ PIZZA: Every business needs a worthy competitor and when I was a kid Showbiz Pizza place was the alternative to noisy, festive Chuck E. Cheese.  Showbiz seemed slightly more “upscale” than Chuck E. Cheese, although I’m not sure there’s any way to spin cheap pizza, game tokens and a talking character named Billy Bob as upscale, but it seemed slightly quieter that Chuck E. Cheese....now it is really quiet, gone....

 IGA: Okay, this isn't a restaurant, it is a grocery. And obviously IGAs are not gone.  There are still some around but, wow they are a dying breed.  There was a time when southwest Ohio/Greater Cincinnati was filled with neighborhood IGAs.  And my hometown alone had about 3 – 4 of them, wonderfully convenient full-service neighborhood markets. Today? Gone.  I was in Lovejoy’s IGA recently in Plain City, Ohio and that was a wonderfully nostalgic experience.

RAX ROAST BEEF:  This was a roast beef chain that was once in my hometown.  I remembered they offered up piles of roast beef on a sesame seed bun, but what I really remember were their baked potatoes.  Massive baked potatoes slathered in sour cream and butter. Yum.

WIMPY BURGER:  This is a chain that I remember seeing in the United Kingdom more than the United States, but there were some locations here.  I don’t think there are any more.  The chain evoked a certain comforting nostalgia when I was a kid, because I LOVED the cartoon Popeye (like, disturbingly so in retrospect, I think on occasion I’d put a can of spinach down my shirt….but it never worked like on Popeye where he’d pop open the can with his bare hands, guzzle the spinach and then get huge muscles….and did he ever punch the Sea Hag?  That seems rather distasteful in retrospect…but loved watching him foil Brutus…or was it Bluto?…man, I could do a whole post about Popeye)….but amid all the Popeye chaos there was always Wimpy and his insatiable love for hamburgers….so it is only fitting that there would be a chain named after lovable Wimpy...