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Long John Silver's

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Long John Silver's, Inc.

Type	Wholly owned subsidiary
Founded	1969
Headquarters	Louisville, Kentucky
Industry	Fast Food
Products	Seafood
Employees	87,000 (world wide)
Parent	Yum! Brands
Website	http://www.ljsilvers.com/

Long John Silver's, Inc. is a United States-based fast-food restaurant that specializes in seafood and fish and chips. It is named after the fictional pirate Long John Silver from the Robert Louis Stevenson book Treasure Island.

1 History
2 International operations
3 Controversy
4 See also
5 External links

History

Earlier restaurants were known for their Cape Cod-style buildings, blue roofs, small steeples, and nautically-themed decorations. 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 they got good service. 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 other features. The contemporary multi-brand outlets do not use the blue roofed Cape Cod-style buildings. 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; most Long John Silver's locations that have opened in recent years are co-branded Long John Silver's/A&W restaurants. YUM announced in 2005 that it would expand the multi-brand concept and pair Long John Silver's with KFC, just as they had paired Taco Bell and Pizza Hut along with A&W. The parent corporation of the chain's Canadian franchises, which have no connection with A&W in Canada, is Priszm Brandz.

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

The first restaurant was opened in 1969 in Lexington, Kentucky. (The original location, on Limestone near the University of Kentucky, is now a McDonald's.) 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).

A typical meal from Long John Silver's.

LJS operated several restaurants in New England in the late 1970s, none of which lasted more than several years. In Lawrence, Massachusetts a co-branded LJS/KFC, converted from a KFC opened in July 2004. They are still very sparse in the Northeast U.S.; in Connecticut they only exist in the Hartford area, the only New York City area restaurants are on Long Island (the first one in the New Jersey portion of the area just opened in 2006), no restaurants exist in Rhode Island, Vermont, or Maine; and only two exist in the entire state of New Hampshire. The restaurant is sometimes referenced in telephone books and an old advertising jingle as "Long John Silver's Seafood Shoppe."

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. From 2007 the restaurant was shut down, due to poor sales.

Singapore

There are currently 31 stores located across Singapore and are not dual-branded.

United Kingdom

Long John Silver's broke the United Kingdom market in 2006. They had one branch in Walsall, near the second biggest city, Birmingham. The restaurant however did not do particularly well becoming run down very quickly, which has stalled their expansion. The restaurant is now re-branded as a KFC.

Controversy

The restaurant chain was the subject of some controversy in the late 1990s for a commercial in which a police officer decided not to write a ticket to a motorist who gave him a Long John Silver's fish sandwich. Many police organizations objected to the commercial on the grounds that it depicted a police officer taking a bribe. In March 2006, LJS began offering buttered lobster bites, and in the stores signs state "made with real langostino lobster." Many people felt that this was misleading because langostino is not a conventional type of lobster; however the Food and Drug Administration has stated that langostino can be named and marketed as lobster.