Long John Silver's

Long John Silver's, Inc.

Company type	Wholly owned subsidiary
Industry	Restaurants
Founded	1969
Headquarters	Louisville, Kentucky, U.S.
Products	Seafood
Number of employees	8,400 (world wide)
Parent	Yum! Brands
Website	http://www.ljsilvers.com/

A typical meal from Long John Silver's. A platter with battered and fried fish, french fries, battered fried shrimp, hushpuppies and coleslaw

A co-branded KFC and Long John Silver's restaurant in Lafayette, Tennessee

A co-branded Long John Silver's and Taco Bell in Kent, Ohio

Long John Silver's, Inc. is a United States-based fast-food restaurant that specializes in seafood. The name and concept were inspired by Robert Louis Stevenson's book Treasure Island. Its headquarters are in Louisville, Kentucky.

History

File:Long John Silver's.svg

Logo of Long John Silver's used until 2006.

The first restaurant was opened in 1969 in Lexington, Kentucky. (The original location, on Southland Drive just off Nicholasville Road, was previously a seafood restaurant named the Cape Codder, which accounts for the Cape Cod style of LJS’s early chain restaurants.) Until its bankruptcy in 1998, Long John Silver's was a privately owned corporation. The chain began as a division of Jerrico, Inc., which also operated Jerry's Restaurants, a chain of family restaurants which also began in Lexington, and was very similar to Big Boy restaurants. Jerry's was located in the Midwest and South. When the company was sold in 1989, the Long John Silver's concept had far outgrown the Jerry's chain. Most of Jerry's 46 remaining locations were converted to Denny's by the new owners, with a handful staying under the original name, usually because there was already an existing Denny's nearby. Only a dozen or so, now called Jerry's J-Boy Restaurants, are still open in Kentucky and southern Indiana. LJS stores were largely unaffected by this move. (Many original LJS franchisees were also operators of Jerry's locations.)

File:Long john silvers logo11.png

Logo of Long John Silver's used until 2011.

Earlier restaurants were known for their Cape Cod-style buildings, blue roofs, small steeples, and nautically-themed decorations such as seats made to look like nautical flags. Most early restaurants also featured separate entrance and exit doors, a corridor-like waiting line area, food heaters that were transparent so customers could see the food waiting to be served, and a bell by the exit which customers could "ring if we did it well." Many of these buildings had dock-like walkways lined with pilings and thick ropes that wrapped around the building exterior. Somewhat newer restaurants kept the basic structural design and theme, but eliminated most of the interior features. The contemporary, multi-brand outlets do not use the blue roofed Cape Cod-style buildings. All locations continue to have the "ring if we did well" bell by the exit, a feature that was later copied by Arby's. Originally, the chain had a much larger focus on a pirate theme. For example, the chain used to offer small chicken drumsticks which they called "peg-legs".

The restaurant, which has over 1200 units worldwide, is a division of Yum! Brands, Inc. The company purchased it from Yorkshire Global Restaurants, which originally acquired it from Fleet Boston Bank after its having gained control of the restaurants due to bankruptcy. Yum! originally combined many of the franchises' locations with its chain of A&W Restaurants, and most new Long John Silver's locations in the first few years after the acquisition were co-branded with A&W. Yum! announced in 2005 that it would expand the multi-brand concept and pair Long John Silver's with Kentucky Fried Chicken, just as they had paired Taco Bell and Pizza Hut along with A&W, and Long John Silver's has since been paired with all of Yum!'s other chains. The parent corporation of the chain's Canadian franchises, which have no connection with A&W in Canada, is Priszm.

On January 18, 2011 Yum! Brands announced its intention to sell Long John Silver's, along with its A&W Restaurant chain. Citing poor sales for both divisions, the company plans to focus on its international expansion plans for its other brands, with particular emphasis on its growth in China.

Menu Items

Long John Silvers food offerings include platters, sandwiches, and various single items. The platters feature seafood as the main item, with side dishes consisting of coleslaw, hushpuppies, and French fries. Seafood items include fish, clams, and shrimp; with chicken fingers known as "Chicken Planks". The restaurants also sell dessert offerings as separate items.

Customers also have the option to "add a piece", which the company promotes in its advertising and on its website.

International operations

Australia

There was one Long John Silver's Store located in Australia, in Kings Park, a suburb of Sydney, NSW. The burgers and seafood varied from the American menu to make it a more classic Australian Menu, although still taking on 'A&W Root Beer' and its logo as a partner. In 2007, the restaurant was shut down due to poor sales.

Canada

Beginning in the late 1970s, a lone franchise operated four stores in the mid-southwestern area of Ontario. The stores were located in Kitchener, Cambridge, Guelph and Stratford. Their menus were broader than American stores of today as they included a small selection of salads as meals, some including boiled shrimp. The menu also included seafoods not offered today, such as clams, oysters, scallops, and "Peg Legs" (which were parts of chicken wings but named in keeping with the pirate theme). The stores also offered a limited selected of beer and wine. The design (Cape Cod style) of the stores was similar to American stores of that time period. By the late 1980s there was also a location in London, Ontario, but by the early 1990s some locations began to close and by the mid 1990s only a lone store in Waterloo was operating, which closed shortly thereafter.

In 2006, a store was opened by Yum! Brands in Woodbridge, Ontario, a northern suburb of Toronto, and a joint store with KFC, which only offered a partial LJS menu, was opened in Pickering Town Centre Mall, in Pickering, an eastern suburb of Toronto. These locations were closed within a year and two years, respectively, due to poor sales.

New Zealand

The New Zealand chain LJS Seafood owned by Mike Geselbracht is unrelated to Long John Silver's.

Singapore

There are currently 31 stores operating in Singapore, more than any other single city in the world.

United Kingdom

Long John Silver's broke into the United Kingdom market in 2006. They had one branch in Walsall near Birmingham. The restaurant however did not do particularly well becoming run down very quickly, which has stalled their expansion (though the UK is the largest consumer of fish and chips in the world, they also have the largest number of independent restaurants, therefore Long John Silver's had no foothold on the competition). The restaurant is now re-branded as a KFC.

Taiwan

There were a couple of stores for a few years located in Taiwan, but as of 2011, they are both closed. They never really carried the American LJS menu. No hush puppies were ever offered.

See also

• Fish and chips
• Hushpuppy

External links

• Official site
• Official Singapore site
• FDA approves Langostino Lobster name.