A&W Restaurants

A&W Restaurants, Inc. is a chain of fast-food restaurants distinguished by its draft root beer, root beer floats and burgers. Its origins date back to 1919 when Roy W. Allen set up a roadside drink stand to offer a new thick and creamy drink, root beer, at a parade honoring returning World War I veterans in Lodi, California. Allen's employee Frank Wright partnered with him in 1922 and they founded their first restaurant in Sacramento, California, in 1923. The company name was taken respectively from the initials of their last names—Allen and Wright. The company became famous in the United States for its "frosty mugs," where the mugs would be kept in the freezer and eventually get filled with A&W Root Beer before they were served to customers.

Evolving into a franchise in 1926, the company today has locations throughout much of the world with each serving a typical fast-food menu of hamburgers, French fries, and hot dogs. A number of outlets serve as drive-in restaurants that have carhops. Previously owned by Yum! Brands, the chain was sold in December 2011 to a consortium of A&W franchisees through A Great American Brand, LLC. A&W restaurants in Canada have been part of a separate and unaffiliated chain since 1972.

History
On June 20, 1919, Roy W. Allen opened his first root beer stand in Lodi, California. Four years later, A&W began when Allen and Frank Wright opened their drive-in restaurant in Sacramento, California, combining both of their initials for the name, and selling the root beer from Allen's stand. Curbside service was provided by tray boys and tray girls. In 1924, Allen purchased Frank Wright's stake in the business. In 1925, Allen began franchising the root beer, while the franchisee added the other menu items and operated at their discretion. This may have arguably been the first successful food-franchising operation. Allen sold the company in 1950 and retired.

In the expansion years of the 1950s and 1960s, franchisees were signing 20- or 25-year contracts under the older model. The chain expanded into Canada in 1956, opening restaurants in Winnipeg and Montreal. By 1960, A&W had 2,000 restaurants. In 1963, the chain opened its first store on Okinawa. In the following years, the chain branched into other foreign markets, including the Philippines and Malaysia.

Dale Mulder opened up a Lansing, Michigan, A&W franchise in 1961. Mulder added to his menu in 1963 the bacon cheeseburger after a customer made repeated orders for bacon to be added to his cheeseburger. Thus A&W is credited with inventing the bacon cheeseburger.

In 1963, the company was sold again, followed by another sale in 1967 to United Fruit Co. conglomerate. AMK Corporation purchased United Fruit in 1970. Then AMK formed United Brands Company to hold A&W.

In 1971, A&W Beverages Inc.—a beverage subsidiary—began supplying bottled A&W products to grocery stores. The bottled products would become available nationally.

In 1972, A&W's Canadian division was sold to Unilever.

In the 1970s, A&W had more stores than McDonald's. with a peak in 1974 of 2,400 units. Oshkosh, Wisconsin, franchise manager Jim Brajdic said: "Problems back then, including a lawsuit, franchisee discontent and inconsistencies in the operation, caused the chain to flounder and branches to close." A&W moved to a modern style franchise agreement which introduced royalty payments and new standards. However, as their 20- or 25-year original agreements expired, many franchisees refused the revised terms.

A&W in the 1980s began offering the Third Pounder to compete with McDonald's Quarter Pounder. The Third beat the Quarter in taste test and was less expensive. All of this was cited in the marketing of the burger. Possibly customers assumed that the Third Pounder had less meat than the Quarter Pounder, thus refusing to buy it.

In 1982, A. Alfred Taubman purchased A&W and placed under Taubman Investment Co. Taubman only purchased the restaurant company and not A&W Beverages. The chain dropped to less than 500 locations in the mid-1980s. A freeze on issuing franchises was put in place.

A new format concept, A&W Great Food Restaurants, was developed. Ten corporate-owned locations were opened to test the concept, which was a sit-down, upscale, family-theme restaurant with a large salad bar and homemade ice cream.

In 1987, the company was headquartered in Livonia, Michigan and Mulder became CEO and president. The freeze was lifted and a push occurred in 1986 that added 60 franchise units. In 1989, A&W made an agreement with Minnesota-based Carousel Snack Bars to convert that chain's 200 stores (mostly kiosks in shopping malls) to A&W Hot Dogs & More. Some A&W Hot Dogs & More are still operating.

In 1995, Taubman sold A&W to Sidney Feltenstein. A&W merged with Long John Silver's to form Yorkshire Global Restaurants based in Lexington, Kentucky. Yorkshire in 2000 agreed to test multi-branded locations with Tricon Global Restaurants. By March 2002, the Yorkshire-Tricon multi-branding test consisted of 83 KFC/A&Ws, six KFC/Long John Silver's and three Taco Bell/Long John Silver's and was considered successful by the companies. In the late 2000s, A&W added franchises with a nostalgic look and modern technology. They have a carhop design with drive-thrus and some have picnic tables.

Yum! Brands subsidiary
In March 2002, Tricon Global announced the acquisition of Yorkshire and name change to Yum! Brands.

A&W opened its first outlet in Bangladesh on 15 December 2010. There are currently two outlets; one in Dhanmondi and another in Gulshan. Most A&W stores that opened in the U.S. during Yum!'s ownership were co-branded with another of Yum!'s chains—Long John Silver's, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, or KFC.

A Great American Brand subsidiary
In January 2011, Yum! Brands announced its intention to sell A&W along with Long John Silver's. Citing poor sales for both divisions, Yum! planned to focus on international expansion for its remaining brands, with particular emphasis on growth in China. In September 2011, Yum! announced that it would sell the chain to A Great American Brand, a consortium of various A&W franchisees in the United States and overseas. The sale was finalized on December 19, 2011, under the leadership of returning CEO Kevin M. Bazner.

In October 2013, A&W opened its first new concept restaurant, A&W Burgers Chicken Floats. The new concept focuses on fresh made-to-order food and heavily emphasizes customer service. The menu features burgers made with fresh beef and a choice of toppings, hand-breaded chicken tenders, all beef hot dogs and several sides.

In April 2019, A&W returned to Singapore after a 16 year absence.

In June 2019, A&W became the first franchise restaurant chain to turn 100. There are nearly 1,000 A&W Restaurants worldwide with approximately 600 in the U.S.

Mascots
In 1963, A&W introduced four choices of hamburgers and their corresponding Burger Family members: Papa Burger, Mama Burger, Teen Burger, and Baby Burger. Each burger had a wrapper featuring a cartoon image of the corresponding character.

Rooty, the Great American Root Bear, originated in Canada in 1974 as a counter to the competition to Ronald McDonald of McDonald's and first appeared in the United States in 1976. However, the character's introduction was almost aborted when marketing received focus group research results that reported a poor reaction to him. In reaction, the Marketing Director, acting on instinct about the appeal of the character, ordered the researcher to return to Toronto with the cover story that he never presented that report. The researcher complied and Rooty was presented to the franchisees as is. As such, Rooty proved a popular marketing success.

Throughout the 1970s, '80s, and '90s, Rooty was the face of A&W, both the bottled drinks and the restaurant chain, on television and print advertising. His presence all but disappeared in the late 1990s, but in 2011, under new ownership, Rooty has come out of retirement. He has since been featured in print ads, on A&W's website, as the voice of their official Twitter account, and in a variety of YouTube and Vine videos. In 2013, Rooty became the first mascot to have an official Linkedin profile, which was quickly shut down as Rooty was not considered "real" by the authorities at Linkedin.

In 1998, the characters from the comic strip "Blondie", including Blondie and Dagwood Bumstead, were licensed for use at A&W franchisees as part of an "All American Food" campaign. In the 1960s, a character named Chubby Chicken appeared on all Chubby burgers.

New products
In early 2013, A&W introduced its first new product in several years: a six-ounce version of its soft-serve blended dessert treat. Mini Polar Swirls were the first product to be launched on Vine. The following summer, 250 of A&W's restaurants began hand-breading their chicken tenders, moving towards higher-quality menu items and expanding their chicken category. In April 2014, the Hand-Breaded Chicken Tender Texas Toast Sandwich was added to the menu as a limited time offering, along with a campaign to create the world's longest branded hashtag. In June 2014, A&W launched two new flavors of its Polar Swirl dessert treat: Sour Patch Kids and Nutter Butter.