Friendly's

In 1935, in the depths of the Depression, the brothers Prestley and Curtis Blake opened a small ice-cream shop called Friendly in Springfield, Massachusetts, selling double-scoop cones for a nickel. A second shop in West Springfield in 1940 added food, and after closing during the war the business grew steadily: ten shops by 1951, five hundred restaurants across the Northeast and Midwest by 1974. In 1965 its super-thick shake, the Awful-Awful, was renamed the Fribble, still its best-known product.

The Blakes sold the chain to Hershey in 1979, and in 1988 a new owner made the customers’ name for it official by adding the “’s”. The decades since have been rocky, with bankruptcies in 2011 and 2020 and many closures; in 2021 a group of restaurant investors bought the remaining 130 or so restaurants. The founders both lived very long lives: Curtis Blake died at 102 and Prestley at 106.

A Friendly’s meal is a sit-down affair that ends with ice cream: sundaes, Fribbles and a cone for the children. The burgers are built on the chain’s Big Beef patty and served on potato buns, apart from the PattyMelt, a trademarked name, which comes on grilled marble rye. The SuperMelt sandwiches are the other house speciality. Calories are printed on the menu.

Family restaurants in the north-eastern United States, most of them franchised.

• Whataburger (United States, since 1950). A Texas institution with a burger too big for one hand. Also built on beef, cooked onions and cheese.
• Habit Burger & Grill (United States, since 1969). The chargrilled burger Consumer Reports once called the best in America. Also built on beef, cooked onions and cheese.
• Braum's (United States, since 1968). An Oklahoma burger and ice cream chain that milks its own cows and bakes its own buns. Also built on beef and cheese.
• Epic Burger (United States, since 2008). A Chicago smash-burger chain with Black Angus beef, local Turano buns and a Chicago accent. Also built on beef, cooked onions and cheese.