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Arthur Treacher's Fish and Chips

Posted: 09 Apr 2006 10:58
by todd
Does anyone know about this place ....we had one near my home as a kid but it didn't stay open very long. It was build with a Mr. Donut, which closed along with it. It was not in the greatest of locations. I can't believe I've ever even seen another one. It was a "Long John Silver's" kind of place.

Posted: 09 Apr 2006 18:06
by Dave
We had one near me too, which only was open for a little while. It became an Arby's and then a dentist's office. I'll have to get you a picture, because they never changed the outside of the building much - it still sports a faux half-timbered "Tudor" look that was original to the Arthur Treacher's.

Apparently they still exist - there's a http://www.arthurtreachers.com and a Wikipedia article.

Of course, everyone knows who Arthur Treacher was, right? :)

Posted: 09 Apr 2006 20:19
by tesg
The Arthur Treacher's brand is currently owned by Nathan's Famous, who had exclusive rights to develop the brand for awhile, but just recently bought the brand outright.

About all I know otherwise is that the ones in Washington state were sold en masse to Ivar's, who used the locations to expand their fast food Ivar's Seafood Bar brand.

Alfie's Fish and Chips

Posted: 10 Apr 2006 00:24
by tkaye
How about Alfie's Fish and Chips? Researching a building on Sixth Avenue here in Tacoma, Wash. (that was recently demolished by the way), I found that it was formerly an Alfie's location, built in 1969. It had a pretty distinctive design, with a mansard roof, a white exterior and two large front windows with sort of a decorative ironwork. The pole sign out front was an odd six-sided shape with an arrow and "OPEN" made up of individual lightbulbs coming off of one side. I've never seen another one, but it looks too formulaic to not be a former chain location of some kind.

Posted: 10 Apr 2006 03:02
by Daniel
OK, while we're discussing defunct seafood places, how about Skipper's? There's one here that is operating as a Mexican restaurant, but the interior is EXACTLY like it was when it operated as Skipper's, down to the frosted glass fish on the dividers between the booths...

Posted: 10 Apr 2006 11:15
by Dave
Image

Here's the Arthur Treacher I referred to above. Built around 1972 or so. It made for a pretty unusual Arby's after it was Arthur Treacher's!

Posted: 10 Apr 2006 12:36
by tesg
Daniel wrote:OK, while we're discussing defunct seafood places, how about Skipper's? There's one here that is operating as a Mexican restaurant, but the interior is EXACTLY like it was when it operated as Skipper's, down to the frosted glass fish on the dividers between the booths...
I have a Skipper's page on my website.

http://www.99w.com/evilsam/ff/skippers.htm

They've just lost ground. They had 200 locations all over the west and midwest at one point, but are down to just being an operation concentrated in the Pacific Northwest. All but six locations are in Washington, Oregon, or Idaho. They have a new logo (which is stupid) and have tried putting different stuff on the menu...most notably grilled fish items.

On the upside, they're supposedly going to start offering franchises again, something they haven't done in awhile, and some longtime existing franchisees (still around since they DID franchise) are chomping at the bit to take advantage.

The official Skipper's site is at http://www.skippers.net

Posted: 10 Apr 2006 14:14
by Dave
tesg wrote:...The official Skipper's site is at http://www.skippers.net
For some folks around these parts, "skippers" is a slang term for maggots.

Posted: 11 Apr 2006 11:39
by rrr
I wonder how much the high cost of fish did to kill of AT's. There was also H. Salt's, sort of an imitation Treacher's. Looks like they're now confined exclusively to California.

Posted: 11 Apr 2006 14:46
by tkaye
The former Alfie's Fish and Chips location looked almost exactly like the photo Dave posted, BTW. A Google search shows that there are some (apparently independently owned) restaurants still using the Alfie's name. I wonder if they share this building style as well and if there was some relationship between Alfie's and Arthur Treacher's or if it was just a short-lived knock-off.

Posted: 11 Apr 2006 16:40
by Dave
tkaye wrote:The former Alfie's Fish and Chips location looked almost exactly like the photo Dave posted, BTW...
One odd thing I noticed yesterday driving by the building - if you look to the left, there's a brick chimney. That's not too unusual for small commercial buildings from this era on this strip of road, as it was developed way before there were gas lines and a lot of places had oil heat. What's unusual to me is that there's an ash cleanout door at the bottom of the chimney, which I would think meant that the building had a wood-burning fireplace at one time. I don't remeber if that was a feature when it was a restaurant - certainly not when it was converted into dentists' offices.

Posted: 15 Apr 2006 02:01
by rrr
Or it had a coal furnace, maybe? They were pretty common up thru the late 40's.

Posted: 15 Apr 2006 09:07
by Dave
r wrote:Or it had a coal furnace, maybe? They were pretty common up thru the late 40's.
Probably not, since it was built in the early 1970's.

Posted: 15 Apr 2006 11:35
by todd
Our A.T.'s was very different ....with a green back-lit sign across the front. The building is still there.... next time I'm there I'll try to photo it.

Posted: 10 Jun 2006 23:51
by Mr. Shopper
:D We had an Arthur Treacher's I believe in Suffern NY. In Rockland County. The strangest thing is I really don't remember it. It was here in the '70's. From what I remember my grandparents were crazy bout it. They went there about once a month. For some reason I don't remember going there. We had a Long John Silvers and a Chicken Unlimited in Nanuet. The Chicken Unlimited became Chicken 'n Things.