In Bangla, “restaurant” is pronounced as ‘res-to-ra’ which refers to a place where food and drink are served to a guest for a fee. Restaurant is a French word, added to the English language. As a result, English pronunciation of ‘restaurant’ is now well-known to Bengali rather than ‘res-to-ra’.
Although the foundations of modern restaurants were laid in France in the eighteenth century, the restaurant system, known as the guest house and inn has been in operation since ancient times. That system was only for travellers and traders from far and wide, the local people did not accept these services. Yet we now see that both local and foreign people are equally receiving restaurant services. The situation has come to a standstill and the concept of its service is still changing in various ways. At the same time, we see that many types of restaurants have been developed based on different classes and genres as per the need. So it goes without saying that the way we see restaurants today has undergone many changes since ancient times and the concept of its service is still changing in many ways.
The scope of restaurant business continues to grow with the increasing demand of time. The range of restaurants has to be expanded as local people start taking services. But even then the limitations remain. A restaurant was then able to serve only one place in a city. The chain restaurant method points out ways to overcome this limitation. When a restaurant company operates one or more branches, the type of business of that restaurant is called a chain restaurant. In the beginning, all chain restaurants retained full ownership of other branches. But gradually the franchise system was introduced where a businessman could do business in the name of that restaurant. When a restaurant’s owner does not have enough capital, again a businessman wants to invest in a current business; the franchise system works for both of these parties. But in this way, the quality of service of the branch restaurant often falls due to a lack of complete control over the branch restaurant. As a result, there is a possibility that it will have a detrimental effect on the overall tradition of the original restaurant. That’s why chain restaurants now often try to control the minimum capacity to maintain the quality of food in the contract of branch restaurants. This makes it possible to maintain the same standard of service in all branch restaurants.
Historically, the American A&W chain started the restaurant business in 1919. Now everyone knows A&W as a root beer company, but the chain restaurant business has started with them. Even in the seventies, their branch restaurants outnumbered the current chain restaurant giant McDonald’s. But in the real sense, the chain restaurant business revolutionized White Castle, a restaurant in Kansas, in 1921. In those days burgers were considered substandard food and were only sold at fairs and on street-side food carts. Ordinary people understood burgers to be the food of the lower class people made from the leftover meat of the slaughterhouse. In fact, it was a truth. White Castle was the first to bring that burger to all sections of society and started a new trend in the restaurant world called ‘Fast Food’.
White Castle was the first to introduce the ‘open kitchen’ method where food buyers can see directly how their delicious burger is being made if they want. Time magazine named White Castle “the most influential burger of all time.”
The chain restaurant business began to grow rapidly in the forties and fifties and that is where the now famous big chain restaurants began to be born. In the early 1940s, the Dairy Queen (DQ) emerged in a small town of Illinois in the early 1940s. Dairy Queen was the first to work on the idea of soft ice cream. They sold 1600 ice creams in just 2 hours on the first day.
Dunkin ‘Donuts, Massachusetts, has long reigned in the world of coffee and donuts, ahead of another chain restaurant, Giant Starbucks, founded in the 1970s. First, open kettle and later kettle doughnut restaurant opened in 1948 as Dunkin ‘Donut.
Jack in the Box was founded in 1951. They are the first to work on the concept of drive-through restaurants by ordering food while sitting in the car rather than sitting at a restaurant. The busy people of America must be indebted to Jack in the Box.
Fried Chicken Giant Kentucky Fried Chicken, abbreviated as KFC, was started in 1952 by Colonel Harland Sanders. Sanders, who has gone through many ups and downs in his culinary career, has been described by the governor as the “Colonel of Kentucky.” Sanders regarded this honor with such dignity that he used the colonel in his own name.
Many wonder why the name of McDonald’s, one of the most popular chain restaurants of all time, is not coming. In fact, many people think it is the first chain restaurant. But McDonald’s started in 1955. It was then called McDonald’s Bar-B-Q. Later, with more attention to the burger, its name was changed to its present name.
While everyone thinks McDonald’s is the most popular, actually no, Pitt’s Super Submarines is the most popular. Can’t you recognize it? But you can definitely recognize when someone calls it Subway. Launched with 1,000 dollars borrowed money in 1965 by Fred Deluka, the Connecticut restaurant serves more than 40,000 locations around the world, excluding Antarctica today. Subway overturned McDonald’s in 2010 to become the most popular chain restaurant. Their subway sandwiches are eaten by an average of 5,300 people per minute.
Pizza Hut, America’s first chain pizza restaurant, started in 1958. The restaurant, which started in Kansas, had a seating capacity of only 25 people and chose a simple name like Pizza Hut as its space was small and only 9 characters could be written.
In 1970, another chain pizza restaurant called Domi-Knicks was started in Michigan. Which made its debut in 1985 as Domino’s Pizza. The use of heat-resistant and stiff pizza boxes, one on top of the other, led Domino’s to success.
This is how many chain restaurants of different genres are being created based on new ideas with many ups and downs or many restaurants are breaking down and rebuilding themselves by focusing on any other specific food or drink. But the bigger thing is that they are all preparing new flavored food with the aim of filling your stomach.
