Fuddruckers

Philip Romano opened Freddie Fuddruckers in a converted bank in San Antonio, Texas, in 1979, because he believed the world needed a better hamburger. The odd name came from Fudpucker World Airways, an old in-joke among pilots about an imaginary airline with steam-powered planes.

The idea was theatre as much as food: meat ground in the restaurant, buns baked on the premises, and a fixings bar where you pile on your own tomatoes, onions, lettuce and warm cheese sauce. There were 150 restaurants by 1988. The decades since have been rough, with bankruptcies and changes of owner, and the chain is much smaller today, but the fixings bar still sets it apart.

A few dozen restaurants, mostly in the US, with single branches in Canada and Mexico.