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American chains that have failed in the UK
In Uxbridge growing up there was a commericial lot that was a cursed venue for US chains trying to make it over here.
First it was a Taco Bell. Literally in like 4 years I never saw anyone go in there. Saturday afternoon at 2pm the Mc Donald's across the street would have a queue down the road and Taco Bell would be deserted. Not even one person every thought "Hey fuck it, I'll give it a go"
Then it became a Wendy's. I was sceptical for so long - looked like a cheap mix of Mc Donald's and Wimpy. But a mate went on holiday to the States and came back raving about it. We went and we were sold. Amazing A SQUARE BURGER. I was quite sad when they closed. I had a Wendy's in Atalanta airport a couple of years ago - they had Dr Pepper on tap.
Then it became a Burger King. BK has obviously done pretty well, but it failed because there was, without exadgeration, a Burger King about 15 seconds walk away.
Then it became a KFC, and has been ever since.
Sorry this is a disaster of a thread. I just miss Wendys. And it made me think, what other US brands/chains have chanced their arm and failed
McApppear
I was in France a couple of years back in a sports shop as my mate was trying on some gear.
The shopkeep started chatting to me in decent English a bit and asked me what the weather was like on the slopes at the top of the mountain.
"It's OK," I said, "but a bit windy."
"Who is Wendy?" he replied...
That's all I got on Wendy.
I used to have a friend from New Zeland called Wendy
Everyone thought she was called Windy when she told them her name.
And that's all I got on Wendy
Is your friend French?
No she was from New Zealand and still is I believe
she git's her vawols arund the wrong way
Zealand* obviously
My exs mum used to call me windy
Did you fart a lot?
"no it's not; it's Thursday"
"So am I. Let's get a drink"
Hooters?
Still only one in the UK- HERE IN NOTTINGHAM
Hooters - coming to a Cardiff city centre near you
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/cardiffonline/cardiff-news/2010/08/16/hooters-restaurant-chain-given-the-go-ahead-91466-27073405/
as if cardiff city centre could get any less classy...
shut it you slag
I'm told Les Croupiers on St Marys St is going to be turned into a titty bar
keep me abreast of developments chadders
no probs bra!
:D
also that was the 69th reply
One coming to Cardiff apparently
like he said up there^
Never been in, any good?
Saw the bird who was on "come dine with me" at pitcher & piano though. She worked there. Also, thinking about it 3 of my current friends did :S huh.
Contributing to thread:
Theres a homeless guy who sits in Wimpys all morning drinking a milkshake, and then in a chipshop near cookie club until it closes at like, 3am - you ever seen him soundofbastards?
Are you a Nottingham-er?
I've not noticed that guy, though I have been to Wimpy before. It was kind of lame. Not been to cookie club in ages! Seem to end up in Bar Schnapps..
I've heard that the hooters food ain't great though.
Yeah, live in the Park
I've never been in either but he's alsways there when Im getting a train / walking to the castle etc etc Always wearing headphones that have no cable. INFRA RED HEADPHONES. Bar Schnapps - seriously?!
The park?! That's a bit posh innit?
Schnapps Seems to be the default choice when we can't be bothered to go to a club. Even though when we're in there spods try to impress our women with jokes about football or something.
I fear for my life walking past Schnapps!
I wouldn't even dare to go in, much kudos to you! I live on the edge, its not THAT post really.
when have you been in schnapps?!
and why wasnt i invited?!
Notts DiS Meat-Bar Schnapps
Wimpy does LIME MILKSHAKE
Ask him what he drinks. Maybe buy him a lime one.
i went to a hooters rip-off called "roosters" in Krakow
i was on a distinctly civilised and un-LADdish stag weekend and this was the best man's token effort. it was pretty embarrassing. but what's bizarre is the number of families in there! fancy taking your 12 year old son to Hooters - that's just unfair.
Where my brother lives in Florida
I also learned that families go there all the time.
My U-14's football team
had their end of season meal there?! I didnt go. I used to work at an archaeological store next to it and you're right, utterly depressing seeing families wandering in and out.
it's grim
Dad: sitting there, ogling
13-year-old boy: sitting there, worrying about getting an involuntary boner
Mum: sitting there, making "oh this is nice" comments about the food / the drink / the seats / anything except the tits
4-year-old girl: sitting there obliviously playing with the colouring-in set.
I have a brochure about Nottingham eateries somewhere with an ace picture in it
where there's the hooters girls posing with some food, and in the background you can see a family, the mum looks a bit miffed, a young girl is looking on with a folorn expression, and the male is all 'this place is great lol!'
I'd post it if I had a working scanner. :(
Who calls them roosters?
Hooters is dire
Overpriced drinks, crap food, 99% full of sad, leering, sweating 'lads' and 1% female staff, who combine an airline stewardesse's forced grin with the 2000 yard stare of a traumatised 'Nam veteran
Apostrophe apology for the above...
Whole Foods Market
not completely failed yet, but severely struggling.
Seems to thriving in Kensington
Which is funny as it's being marketed here as a real high-brow supermarket, where in the States (certainly in Milwaukee) it was more of a Tesco/Sainsbury's decent-but-not-posh supermarket...
*be thriving
Struggling?
Fresh and Wild is alway busy in Camden!
Not busy enough
Losing money hand over fist
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard-business/article-23856803-were-too-big-says-stricken-whole-foods-organic-store-pound-64m-in-red.do
:(
Well I never did. I bet it's because I moved.
Probably.
That and the fact that everyone else went 'hang on, I can get this "organic" stuff cheaper in Sainos and Tescos'.
That and the fact we all realised that we didn't care about organic stuff anymore. Too many dead beatles all over it. Get it pesticided.
Sainos?
Straight red, five match ban.
I'll accept it for mis-spelling beetle, but Sainos is accepted slang you fascist.
SAINOS. TESCOS. ASDAS. SUPERDRUGS.
And an extra match for a frivolous appeal.
I hope you all die swallowing beetles.
*headbutts every member of the FA panel on the way out of appeal court*
LISTEN
I let it go the first time. But stop with your beetle speak, YEAH??
You forgot Icelands, Nettos and Waitroses's
Suspension increased to seven matches.
Yes, struggling
UK sales down 12%, resulting in a £4.3m loss last year.
The plan was to have 40 stores by 2010, but the company never made a profit here. All that remains are the Kensington High St flagship store, and 4 smaller ones in London.
There's one in Stoke Newington
I can't afford anything in it.
I saw a member of staff smoking outside once and it really irrationally annoyed me
I don't know hy this made me laugh a fair amount
But it did.
Alice In
Chilli's
Only managed 8 outlets before they went bust.
oh were they a chain?
the one in cambridge is on the ground floor of a building that is occupied on the 2nd floor by the Insolvency Service. IRONY.
Over 1400 'restaraunts' worldwide.
There was one in Hatfield (!)
Nobody ever went in - I assume because it was really expensive (i.e. about £13+).
Yeah...
the only reason I knew it ever existed. (I work just across the road)
Hey so do I
The bleakness of the Galleria FTW
Lehman Brothers
arf
Oaxacan Mole Emporium
They've had to go underground
Hadn't heard that. You got an informant?
Yeah
He's a blind Russian guy, goes by the name of Mikhail. He sit's in the back of a cafe in Irkutsk drinking soda water and lime, playing a little chess, moving a little package around. He sees nothing, hears everything. Nothing passes him by.
There was this one time I was in the cafe when the owner, a powerful-looking lady went by the name Olga, actually, I better not tell that story.
I've always been absolutely perplexed
at the Krispy Kreme drive thru that is on the junction of Raynes Park with the A3 in South London. Never even seen one anywhere else in the UK, even on a high street.
There are quite a few stores now
There's one in Manchester and I think most WHSmith's now sell them
Also seen for sale in the Tescos in Prestwich and Wythenshawe
Just to confirm:
The Tesco on Princess Street also has a Krispy Kreme counter in it.
Tesco in Watford
has a Kispy Kreme factory in it.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/90468007@N00/129126504/
and it smells absolutely fucking rank
there's one in the harlequin shopping centre in watford too
They have a little shop on high holborn
And in Fulham Broadway station
They have about 30 shops according to their store locator
I've never had one though, I don't really dig doughnuts
They're good but incredibly calorific
I had to eat three in an hour once as someone brought a load into the office for their birthday and there weren't many people in that day. So instead of taking them home I was guilted into eating them as was the only man in the office.
I thought my heart was about to explode.
and victoria
and tesco in traf square
never had one though.
I've not seen one outside London or Reading.
Though one of the service stations on the M1 sells them, possibly Newport Pagnell.
I think what is missing here is
http://www.krispykreme.co.uk/store-locator/
Just proves that with the exception of Manchester and Birmingham,
they don't operate outside of the south east!
LOL
just had a look at the store locator and apparently there is an "in store cabinet" in the Tesco at the end of my road. So much for my original assetion that it seemed like there was only one in the UK!
Though what I really meant was actually stores rather than just outlets in supermarkets. Seems like the Raynes Park one is pretty unique. Its the size of an average McDonalds!
Most Tesco stores have the in-store cabinet
but it's only in the last few years they've appeared.
I remember doughnut king
GOSH I MISS DOUGHNUT KING :(
I need to go here
There aren't even any Krispy Kreme shops left open in the US.
Here, their doughnuts are only sold in supermarkets now.
Back when their shops were open, you could take your report card in and get a free doughnut hot off the conveyor belt for every A you had.
London Monarchs (NFL)
They brought the NFL over a good 20 years ago hoping to develop a European market and league as strong as in the States. They created the London Monarchs, as well as the Scottish Claymores later, and they played in football and athletics stadiums every summer for several years before folding due to a lack of interest.
(Sidenote - fucking shame, I used to love going to see the Monarchs...)
Now the World Bowl is NFL Europe with other european teams getting into it (the German's can't get enough of it it seems), but no English team, despite how well we've taken to hosting an NFL game once a year. Are the Scots still in it?
I realise the Monarch's weren't explicitly a chain, and that my argument is somewhat convoluted.
Shut up.
Just checked and they shut shop in 2004
after 10 seasons of play. Ah well, we'd just be shit at that too.
I must be bored, as I read some more, BAFA are still operating the UK franchise of the NFL, with a UK team called the GB Lions still playing extreme balltag.
There was a Wendy's in Leeds when I first moved here (1998)
I was also sold on the whole square burger thing, they were a tasty burger too, I must have been in the minority though becuase it became another McDonalds in no time.
Dunkin' Donuts?
I've seen a couple in London but have they expanded anywhere else?
There were some elsewhere
but any that I knew of have long gone. Don't know if there are any left in london.
In Spain they're called Dunkin' Coffee.
In Australia Burger King is called Hungry Jack's.
"That's a weird name, I'd have called it a chazwadda"
Radioshack
I had a headphone jack > Cassette thing for the car from there that was awesome, until it broke.
Radioshack were Tandy over here.
They were big enough (in their day) to have a fairly big 8-bit on the market, though I think the Tandy was a rebranding of the Dragon 8-bit or the other way around.
They were still doing fairly well in the mid-90s but I think Maplin and Dixons/Curry's just stole all their market but not being utterly awful.
There's still a Radioshack in Edinburgh
I doubt it's selling capacitors and the like though, probably knock off tv's and other audio-visual equipment.
Borders
Which is a shame. I liked them. You could see the end was coming even before it was announced though, cos the stock totally shrivelled in size. Good for magazines.
Tower Records - Was never really a fan.
Sam Goody - There weren't many of these about, but we had one in our town and it was brilliantt o have somewhere other than Woolies, WHSmith or Boots to buy music from.
Tower Records died here, too.
It was one of the better record shop chains, but who needs a good record shop chain?
Woolworths
Tandy
fix.
A&W
There were a few around, the one I remember was in Glasgow, not too far from the bus station/Buchanan Galleries. AMAZING burgers and, more importantly, root beer on tap served in icy glass steins.
I'm fairly certain that they folded entirely due to people stealing the steins. Like I might've done as a scumbag student.
I was sold on Wendys because of the Square burger as well
I'm surprised based on the replies here that it hasn't done better as it appears we all love a square burger.
A Taco Bell opened up in Lakeside Shopping Centre recently
Its a hit! I haven't eaten from there yet but its 79p for a taco so I probably won't.
Would you know what I mean if I said Lakeside?
If he thinks it's middlebrow, I think you already know the answer to that question.
^this.
Don't get it
Never get it
Then they came for me
and by that time no one was left to eat shite
DiS is ma gUd chain!!
Outback Steakhouse
After living in America for a short time I developed a fondness for this above average steakhouse. So much so, that nine years later I tried their solitary outlet in Enfield. Needless to say, it was nothing of the kind of tastiness that I remember.
I don't know if it's a case of never meeting your idols—in the sense that I came to idolise my Outback experiences in the States. It just wasn't up to scratch. I feel quite sad just thinking about it.
Oh, and as an aside, my last meal in America, some eight years ago, was a Wendy's—I love them!
"I tried their solitary outlet in Enfield"
that's out on that near-motorway road, near to the huge cinema and that nightclub where everyone gets their drinks spiked, right?
That's the one
There's a cinema and a restaurant called Old Orleans too. On the other side of the road is the nightclub eros, the 24 hour McDonalds and the Krispy Kreme. It's an Americophile's dream place.
Wendy's is garbage.
You guys all fell for the square burger gimmick. What you really need over there is a Carls Jr., thats where its at. Oh, and In-N-Out Burger, obv.
Wza; A&W was AMAZING, but there are only a few left Im afraid, and I have no idea where they exist. Most of em closed down in the 90's. I used to be a Sam Goody member and Borders regular as well.
Electronics Boutique
Sadly the 'Boutique' part of the name didn't really tally with the never-on video wall, perma-broken demo stands & shelves full of clearance Amiga & ST games, though the fact that new games there always seemed to be a quid more than those in the branch of Game opposite did.
FUTURE ZONE!
Electronics Boutique was great.
They had second-hand Mega Drive games.
the crazy thing is that there is a million fast food chains out here
and, amazingly, none have made it in the uk... bar mcds and bk. and subway, i guess... is that us?
just wait
until chicken & waffles restaurants take the UK by storm.
http://www.gladysandron.net/
there's one in Manc called BURRITO something.
It looks ver expensive and it's ALWAYS empty. hahaha.
the one right in the centre where the buses stop?
is really good and often busy.
/£5 for a meal
Dave and Buster's
I liked the one near Bristol. An American diner type place, but done well. It was always packed out so I don't know why they failed.
but did it have an arcade
like the dave and buster's in america?
'Blimpie'
Was sort of a proto-Subway franchise, but hit these shores about three years before the 'Sub Explosion' (as nobody called it). I got thrown out of the Winchester branch for walking in with a McDonald's.