The last Arthur Treacher's

December 16, 2024 8:22 AM

There used to be 800 Arthur Treacher's Fish & Chips restaurants. Now there is only one.

The story of the chain's demise has its share of poor business decisions. But it also involves the Cod Wars.

posted by Lemkin (65 comments total)

The worst food poisoning I've ever had was due to Arthur Treacher's. Even worse, my husband and I both got it and we had a four-month-old exclusively breast-fed baby at the time, and no family nearby to help. One of our friends came over and stayed with us for the duration, giving the baby his very first bottles.

We haven't eaten fast food fish since then, and it was 27 years ago.
posted by cooker girl at 8:29 AM on December 16 [8 favorites]

Of all the places to have an Arthur Treacher's, one opened up here in Fargo, North Dakota, in the early 80s. My mom took us there once; I don't remember much about the food but I was intrigued by the fake-newspaper waxed paper it was served in. I'm not sure if it was me or my younger brother, but one of us misheard it as Arthur Creature's and that's what we called it when we drove by. It closed not long after.

That same little building -- a generic fast food "box" with a drive through -- had been numerous other restaurants, I think it was a Taco John's the longest, but in the early 2000s was a pizza delivery restaurant with buffet when I worked there. When the pizza place shut down, it sat vacant and was eventually torn down.
posted by AzraelBrown at 8:36 AM on December 16 [2 favorites]

The Once and Future Chips
posted by I-Write-Essays at 8:47 AM on December 16 [2 favorites]

A lovely nostalgia piece.
posted by davidmsc at 8:57 AM on December 16 [2 favorites]

a generic fast food "box"

Cuyahoga Falls has the iconic “London street lamp” sign.

(OK, maybe short of iconic, but with fond memories attached.)
posted by Lemkin at 9:03 AM on December 16 [2 favorites]

I thought there were still three of them. I keep meaning to go, as I haven't been to one since I was a kid, but on the occasions that I need fast food fish and chips there's a much closer Long John Silver's that has "all you can eat" on Sundays. Or did, before the pandemic.
posted by SystematicAbuse at 9:05 AM on December 16 [2 favorites]

The name Arthur Treacher is a trivia question no one under the age of 50 is likely to get. Ditto for the restaurant.
posted by tommasz at 9:05 AM on December 16 [1 favorite]

It wasn't until I was at a flea market and saw a copy of Songs of the British Music Hall that I learned Arthur Treacher was a real guy.

They basically took a random character actor & used him as the namesake of a restaurant chain. It would be as weird today as if they started selling Mads Mikkelsen Danish Butter Cookies at Christmas.
posted by jonp72 at 9:13 AM on December 16 [17 favorites]

We had one in Kansas City, when I was growing up. My dad liked going there. But then he would put malt vinegar on his fish and chips. The smell! Ugh.
posted by Windopaene at 9:15 AM on December 16

The name Arthur Treacher is a trivia question no one under the age of 50 is likely to get. Ditto for the restaurant.

I’m 57 and he was before my time, but I nevertheless wrote, I believe, every word in the “namesake” section of the restaurant’s Wikipedia article:

The chain is the namesake of Arthur Treacher (1894–1975), an English character actor typecast as "the perfect butler" for his performances as Jeeves, as a butler in several Shirley Temple films, and the role of Constable Jones in Walt Disney Productions' Mary Poppins. At the time the chain was founded, Treacher was best known as the announcer and sidekick to Merv Griffin on The Merv Griffin Show. Although Treacher never confirmed whether he had a financial involvement in the restaurants, he "served as a spokesman for the restaurant chain in its early years, underscoring the British character of its food." Treacher would sometimes visit the restaurants, arriving in a red double-decker bus. In a 1975 interview, New England franchise vice president M. John Elliott claimed the fish recipe to be the actor's own, brought over from the United Kingdom.

posted by Lemkin at 9:17 AM on December 16 [10 favorites]

It would be as weird today as if they started selling Mads Mikkelsen Danish Butter Cookies at Christmas.

I would buy the HELL out of those cookies.
posted by Dr. Wu at 9:25 AM on December 16 [17 favorites]

Huh, my husband managed one of these during his misspent youth. He knew they were almost extinct but I don't think he realized it was down to one.
posted by PussKillian at 9:26 AM on December 16 [1 favorite]

I remember that, when Arthur Treacher died, there was a saying that went around to the effect that "Now there'll be a little piece of Arthur Treacher in all the meals." I don't know if that was meant literally or not.
posted by the sobsister at 9:33 AM on December 16 [3 favorites]

The article is from 2021. Since then, it appears via Google search that Nathan’s (mentioned in the article as owning the Treacher’s brand) has been busy. I see five or six locations open in the Northeast, including one that’s a combo of Treacher’s and Nathan’s under one roof.
posted by JimInSYR at 9:35 AM on December 16 [2 favorites]

In a 1975 interview, New England franchise vice president M. John Elliott claimed the fish recipe to be the actor's own, brought over from the United Kingdom.

Why would an actor have a recipe for fast food fish? That would be like asking Jerry Seinfeld how he makes his pepperoni pizza.

I think I only had Arthur Treacher's once or twice, probably in a shopping mall food court, and it was notably bad. I guess fish and chips is generally one of those things that is either delicious or vile.

I am curious about the frozen yogurt dessert in the YouTube ad in the article—what flavor is it and why is it that bright orange color? I thought it was a dipping sauce at first.
posted by smelendez at 9:40 AM on December 16 [1 favorite]

Things have changed a bit since the article's writing in 2021. One free-standing restaurant reopened in 2023. A third was supposed to have opened a week or two ago. (And, as JimInSYR mentioned, there are some combo stores out there too.)
posted by orthicon halo at 9:41 AM on December 16 [3 favorites]

There appear to be five or six locations open in the Northeast, including one that’s a combo of Treacher’s and Nathan’s under one roof.

I believe all the northeast things are examples of “co-branding”. To my mind, those are Nathan’s restaurants that offer “Arthur Treacher’s seafood” the way McDonad’s used to offer Otis Spunkmeyer cookies.
posted by Lemkin at 9:43 AM on December 16 [1 favorite]

I will never not be fascinated by retail and fast food nostalgia trips. This reminds me of the Rak's saga with the brothers Green. Also strangely the last one there was also in Ohio.
posted by finalbroadcast at 10:05 AM on December 16 [1 favorite]

I never had the fish and chips, but now “The Old Kent Road” from Shirley Temple’s “A Little Princess” is retrieved from my childhood TV memories and running through my head.
posted by elphaba at 10:16 AM on December 16 [1 favorite]

There's a few H Salt Esq shops around here, which was founded around the same time, I guess fish and chips was seen as a promising market in America at the time. They are no longer part of a chain, though the couple I have been in still retain peeling remnants of the faux-UK nostalgia branding.
posted by tavella at 10:18 AM on December 16 [2 favorites]

It would be as weird today as if they started selling Mads Mikkelsen Danish Butter Cookies at Christmas.

There are tons of food products that get a celebrity endorsement, (Rap Snax chips with CardiB is my most random) but it makes one wonder if Arthur Treacher was the modern first one?

The overall weirdest one is the Ryan Reynolds Cell Phone company as a tacked on celebrity product. More of those (celebrity cell phone networks) are coming I have heard.
posted by The_Vegetables at 10:20 AM on December 16 [1 favorite]

Talk to me when Howard Johnson's reopens and the all you can eat fish fry. I hated the stuff, but my mom and Dad loved it so I would get a hot dog on a buttered toasted top split bun. Can't remember what my brothers ate, but it was not the fish.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 10:36 AM on December 16 [2 favorites]

I have a vague memory of our local Arthur Treacher's having a waterfall in the front window, and after it closed the businesses that took over kept it for a while.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 10:39 AM on December 16 [1 favorite]

That joke in The Simpsons about Judy Dench's Fish & Chips suddenly makes a tiny bit of sense. Like a lot of jokes in the later seasons, it's still not funny, but at least know I can credit the writers for actually trying instead of phoning in a lazy non-sequitur.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 10:45 AM on December 16 [7 favorites]

Its drive-thru has speakers on two different levels, to accommodate passengers on the upper deck of double-decker buses.

I find this reasonably funny.
posted by Lemkin at 10:56 AM on December 16 [1 favorite]

This is the one in Cuyahoga Falls that we used to go to when I was growing up in the 70s. I LOVED it. Years later when I lived somewhere else and was pregnant I craved it so much! I think it was the malt vinegar, IDK, but I couldn’t find fish n chips anywhere and I was very sad.
posted by waving at 11:01 AM on December 16 [3 favorites]

Wow, I would have never guessed the last one was in my hometown! My friend worked there in high school. And since the statute of limitations is up, I can tell you he sometimes deep-fried his fingers to eat the breading off them.

Right down the street, they also have a semi(in)famous abandoned tower, built and quickly abandoned by an early televangelist doofus. We called it "Rex's erection", for obvious reasons.
posted by SaltySalticid at 11:19 AM on December 16 [6 favorites]

On the topic of dubiously cashing in on celebrity names, there's also Dick VanDyke's Appliance-world, which we call DVDA.
posted by SaltySalticid at 11:22 AM on December 16 [3 favorites]

Why would an actor have a recipe for fast food fish? That would be like asking Jerry Seinfeld how he makes his pepperoni pizza.

You could always ask Alan Hale about his surf and turf!
posted by AzraelBrown at 11:24 AM on December 16 [2 favorites]

The Opening of Hulk Hogan’s Pastamania Restaurant at the Mall of America (1995)
posted by Lemkin at 11:27 AM on December 16

I've told this to people before, not sure if it was here. There is a Southern-style restaurant called Grandy's. In the 80s they expanded to over 200 stores, but in the 90s they began contracting. Now there's just 23 Grandy's locations, and where Wikipedia lists Georgia among places that have Grandy's locations, it's because of the one Grandy's store anywhere east of the Mississippi River, the one in my home town of Brunswick, GA, still chugging along today.

One of the fun elements of the postmodern comedy talk show Hangin' With Doctor Z is the fake ads in the middle of the show, and often they're for celebrity-fronted restaurants like Arthur Treacher's. My favorite is Tor Johnson's House of Liver and Onions, its motto: "Time For Go To Eat!"
posted by JHarris at 11:30 AM on December 16 [9 favorites]

Apropos of nothing but George Foreman didn't invent a portable grill either.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 12:07 PM on December 16 [1 favorite]

When I lived in northeast Ohio and Arthur Treacher's was still a bit of a thing, I remember deciding that between them and Long John Silver, one had hushpuppies that were better hot and the other's were better cold. I don't remember which was which at this point. I'm glad they're still there, though... will be stopping by on our trip to Cleveland that I have been trying to take since March 2020, that will hopefully happen next year.

Also strangely the last one there was also in Ohio.

Assuming you mean Rax, both chains were born in Ohio, so it kind of fits they would end up with their last units there. (Although Rax has also rebounded a bit, now boasting 7 locations in 3 states.)
posted by tubedogg at 12:15 PM on December 16 [2 favorites]

The Once and Future Chips

And all the fillets were sliced using a Gerber 'Excalibur' as unwieldy as that certainly must have been.
posted by jamjam at 12:16 PM on December 16

Malin’s in Bow is recognized as the inventor of fish & chips, period. They opened the first fish & chips shop in London all the way back in 1865. A century later, in 1969, they sold the exclusive rights to their recipe to Arthur Treacher’s.

I had no idea that they supposedly got the original recipe from the original fish and chips shop in the UK.
posted by tubedogg at 12:19 PM on December 16 [4 favorites]

I vandalized a billboard once, in 1973, in the middle of the night, by the Highway 40 bridge over the Whitewater River in Richmond, Indiana. It said "Give up hamburger for Lent," and at the bottom it said "Arthur Treacher's Fish and Chips." On a ladder, with a can of black spray paint, I painted over the "Arthur Treacher's Fish and Chips" part. I didn't get caught, and the now useless billboard stayed up for another month.
posted by kozad at 12:39 PM on December 16 [5 favorites]

Anybody else concerned about the weird fascist vibe of the magazine that this article is from?

Ironic-"ironic" (i.e., full unironic) use of the terms "based" and "chad"?

Loving profile of a local right-wing troll entitled "Meet the Crusader Knight Who Fights Communists at Protests"?

Full interview of Alexander Dugin?

Long editorial advocating for "a return to the Monroe Doctrine" and "Protestant American work ethic, family values, connection with nature, and 'one nation under God'"?

Fawning interview with MythoAmerica, featuring, as its cover photo, a cross limned in neon red, burning flamelessly on a dark suburban lawn?

An article about Easter in Quito, Ecuador, featuring, as its cover photo, children wearing traditional purple festive garb complete with robes, and pointy hoods, "reminiscent," as the article says, of "a certain US extremist group"?

Like, I'm all for the interest in fish and chips, but what the ever loving fuck is going on here?
posted by what does it eat, light? at 1:44 PM on December 16 [9 favorites]

Hey, as my dad used to say, even a blind hog finds an acorn once in a while!
posted by JimInSYR at 1:50 PM on December 16 [3 favorites]

Holy shit! I came in here to ask, Is it on State Road in Cuyahoga Falls? Cuz there's one on State Road in Cuyahoga Falls.

Then I clicked the link. Holy shit! It's the one on State Road in Cuyahoga Falls!
posted by slogger at 2:12 PM on December 16 [6 favorites]

I literally drive past it weekly to go to the dispensary that has a drive thru window.
posted by slogger at 2:21 PM on December 16 [1 favorite]

Like, I'm all for the interest in fish and chips, but what the ever loving fuck is going on here?

I see nothing right-wingy at the actual link when using Chrome on iOS. So it never occurred to me to investigate the rest of the site.

Maybe Treacher was a Mosley brownshirt or something.
posted by Lemkin at 2:31 PM on December 16 [5 favorites]

I was raised as a Roman Catholic. I'm old enough to remember "no meat on Fridays," so, of course, "Fish Stick Friday." I hated fish. Goddam. It took until my early adult years to finally choose to eat fish, and hey! guess what? fish ain't bad!

That said, I strongly suspect that fast-food-fish is an artifact of a time when Jesus would damn you to hell for eating baloney on a Friday. Now that Jesus is all "all that? Nah!" on starvation as a sign-of-faith, there's less reason for Treacher's or Captain Kidd's (is that still a thing) to exist.
posted by SPrintF at 3:29 PM on December 16 [1 favorite]

I was raised as a Roman Catholic. I'm old enough to remember "no meat on Fridays," so, of course

Calvin Trillin’s essay on the origin of the Buffalo chicken wing:

According to Dom, it was late on a Friday night in 1964, a time when Roman Catholics still confined themselves to fish and vegetables on Friday. He was tending the bar. Some regulars had been spending a lot of money, and Dom asked his mother to make something special to pass around gratis at the stroke of midnight. Teressa Bellissimo picked up some chicken wings — parts of a chicken that most people do not consider even good enough to give away to barflies — and the Buffalo chicken wing was born.

posted by Lemkin at 3:39 PM on December 16 [1 favorite]

Those under 50 may have seen Mary Poppins, where Arthur plays the iconic London bobbie.
posted by ackptui at 4:42 PM on December 16 [1 favorite]

And yet, somehow, Long John Silvers survives, despite it tasting of burned grease.
posted by JustSayNoDawg at 4:44 PM on December 16 [3 favorites]

I guess it's the same way that Harry Ramsden's was a huge chain in the UK for a short while, and then wasn't.

There's a big [citation needed] from me about Malin's being the inventor of fish and chips.

Also, re Cuyahoga Falls, ISTR it has a really good donut shop. We have friends in Kent, and it's worth the drive
posted by scruss at 5:46 PM on December 16

Ate at one in Far Rockaway with my grandpa when I was a kid. Surprised there's not a metal song about it, because it would be a rager. [cookie monster voice]ARTHUR TREACHER'S FISH AND CHIPS!!!![destroys fingers on guitar strings like it's a cheese slicer]
posted by phooky at 7:13 PM on December 16 [2 favorites]

There's a few H Salt Esq shops around here, which was founded around the same time, I guess fish and chips was seen as a promising market in America at the time.

Oh wow, H. Salt, esq was the first place I ever had fish and chips as a kid. It too had the faux newpaper print wrap, and only malt vinegar as a condiment (as far as I knew, that's how my family ate fish and chips). I had no idea it still existed somewhere. Still fascinated by restaurants with those post modern names.
posted by oneirodynia at 7:47 PM on December 16 [2 favorites]

We didn't do much fast food as a kid (I more than made up for lost time as a teen), but I feel confident we must have had fish and chips at least once. Was Treacher's a thing in eastern CT in the early 1970s? I don't think they were a thing out here in Puget Sound in the mid-80s, we had Skipper's as the local fast-food fish chain. Just wondering if I've possibly eaten at ATF&C.
posted by maxwelton at 12:12 AM on December 17 [1 favorite]

Here’s where the stakes grow: Malin’s in Bow is recognized as the inventor of fish & chips, period

Period? People in the North of England may disagree.
posted by BinaryApe at 12:17 AM on December 17

maxwelton, I grew up in Ballard in the 80s, and Skipper's was very much the big corporate brand fish&chips franchise. The real local chain was of course Ivar's, which was a late offshoot of Ivar Haglund's famous seafood restaurants (which were still the jewel in the crown for the company, at the time: Acres of Clams, Captain's Table, and we even went to The Longhouse where we got kind of a classroom lecture from some Duwamish folks that basically tried to get us to a base level of "We didn't live in teepees, but in big log cabins just like the white people of the time did.").
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 2:23 AM on December 17

We were also raised Greek/Russian Orthodox (same religion: services in lots of different languages around the world), and there's no meat on wednesdays, fridays, 54 days before Easter, 15 days before Christmas, etc etc etc. You end up vegetarian about ⅔ of the year, but the Byzantines didn't know that shellfish were animals (no blood, no face, whatever: they just thought they were poor people's food and therefore fine for a lenten fast). So we ate a lot of prawns, to the point where even before I finally went Full Vegetarian, I couldn't stand the things.

But as kids, we were given a more lax set of rules, and ate a lot of fish&chips. Lots of memories of sitting at the Skipper's or Ivar's on 15th Ave, watching the retro-neon Bardahl's sign advertising its obsolete motor oil additive to the motorists on Aurora. We were forbidden to have the New England clam chowder, because that had bacon, but the Manhattan chowder was allowed.

Skipper's had more heavily breaded/oiled/salted food likely as a result of the longer supply chain. Ivar's had much higher quality fish (understandable given their connections to the great fishmongers of Puget Sound), but I never grew a taste for fish so I liked the salty breading more than the actual substance of the meal.

I live in London now, and occasionally I'll stop at the chip shop for a chip butty.
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 3:01 AM on December 17

One slight note: there was a lot of issues in the 1970s between Britain and Ireland, but the Cod Wars weren't one of them, being between Britain and Iceland instead.

Also agree that fish and chips has the greatest disparity between good and bad. (There is a a perfectly fine one 500m from my house, but my partner virtually always makes me do a 20 minute round drive to a shop that generally has a 25 minute+ waiting time just because it's slightly better). Would need to be very short on options to eat in a Treacher's.
posted by Hartster at 4:25 AM on December 17 [1 favorite]

Would need to be very short on options to eat in a Treacher's

If you measure distances in meters, it’s a dilemma you won’t have to face.
posted by Lemkin at 6:24 AM on December 17

scruss: Do you happen to know the name of the donut place? I'm always looking for more!
posted by slogger at 9:50 AM on December 17

They basically took a random character actor & used him as the namesake of a restaurant chain.

He was on TV every night for many years, as the sidekick on the Merv Griffin Show. I don't know, but he might have been the most famous Englishman in the US at the time when the chain was launched.
posted by Umami Dearest at 9:56 AM on December 17 [2 favorites]

Catholic Mom used to love to eat at our local Treachers (and season hers with malt vinegar) as often as we could afford (not often). When that spot closed, we switched to Long John Silvers. We also ate at the local Grandy's; I was little, but I remember their country fried steak, mashed potatoes & milk gravy, and soft rolls were really good.

After I had been working at the local mall for over a year, a new Treachers opened briefly in the food court. Their battered fish was good, and I'd have a work meal there when I could of their battered fish sandwich (pollock? with a scoop of coleslaw inside) & fat steak fries. My other options were the All American Burger place, some generic chinese food place, or the Woolworth food counter with the 2 hot dogs & a bag of chips deal.

Treachers, Grandy's, Woolworth, Rax (their BBC sandwich and fries was good), my mall workplace, and Mom too are all gone now. There's a different local Long John Silvers location still hanging in there, sharing a building with a Taco Bell, but I can't eat greasy LJS anymore even if I could afford it. Funny though, a couple years after Mom passed, I tried it and discovered I do now like a light sprinkle of malt vinegar on battered fish, and greater heresy, in my tuna salad.
posted by Fiberoptic Zebroid and The Hypnagogic Jerks at 3:08 PM on December 17 [2 favorites]

I was a canadian kid who grew up near the border (hamilton) with routine access to US TV (buffalo, erie, NF) in the 70s and 80s, and there was a long list of chain restaurants we didn't have in canada that I was O B S E S S E D with:
- arthur treachers
- long john silver's
- taco bell
- arby's
- perhaps most critically, Carvel Ice cream, and the ice cream cake shaped like a whale.

We now of course long since have taco bell and arby's here, but I never did eat at either of the fish chains (my parents refused to stop there when we travelled in the states) and perhaps most critically, I never did get a carvel ice cream cake.

on a related note, I travel a lot for work and am fairly obsessed with the biscuit form factor in southern US junk food (bojangles, zaxby's, whataburger). if they put a bojangles in waterloo ontario now...it would not be a good thing. Hopefully they put it on the far side of town and not near a hardware store or some other place that I could credibly make up an excuse to go to ...around lunchtime.
posted by hearthpig at 4:24 PM on December 17 [2 favorites]

perhaps most critically, Carvel Ice cream, and the ice cream cake shaped like a whale

He has a name.

His name is Fudgie.

Fudgie the Whale.
posted by Lemkin at 5:14 PM on December 17 [2 favorites]

As someone from a country where fish and chips is normal, popular and everywhere it's so bizarre to think of a fish and chip restaurant chain. While restaurants here might serve an upmarket version, there are hardly any that specialise in F&C. Fish and chips is the province of individually owned and operated takeaway shops, once mostly owned by British immigrants, (or Greeks and Italians who came over and branched out from the fishing business) and more recently Chinese people. Why burgers and pizzas can work as chains here but not fish and chips is an interesting question.

I got two fish and half a scoop on the way home from training this evening. It cost $11.50 NZ dollars and was enough to fill me up even after my partner stole some chips.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 1:34 AM on December 18 [2 favorites]

Horrible food.
posted by DJZouke at 5:24 AM on December 18

There is a Southern-style restaurant called Grandy's.

As in Fred Grandy? (Although I think in that case, it would have been better to call it Gopher’s.)
posted by elphaba at 8:43 AM on December 18

I don't know where they got the name from. I think their logo featured an image of an old woman's face, but I might be confusing it with Grandma's^TM-brand pre-packaged cookie-like objects.
posted by JHarris at 9:37 AM on December 18

rum-soaked, Ivars didn't make much inroads to the eastside (where I was a teenager--Ivars finally opened a location at Crossroads in...no earlier than 84 or 85, just as I was graduating from HS). So it was Skippers or nought on the eastside before that. Though I'm fairly sure Skipper's had some sort of competition from another large chain at the time, but who that may have been has completely slipped from my mind.
posted by maxwelton at 3:02 PM on December 18

Now there is only one.

Perhaps there can be only one.
posted by otherchaz at 3:35 PM on December 18