Shakey's Pizza

Shakey's USA, Inc.
Private
Industry Restaurants
Founded Sacramento, California, U.S.
(1954 (1954))
Founders Sherwood Johnson
Ed Plummer
Headquarters Alhambra, California
Products Pizza, sandwiches, pasta, fried chicken, desserts
Website shakeys.com

Shakey's Pizza is a pizza restaurant chain based in the United States. Founded in 1954, it was the first franchise pizza chain in the United States.[1] The chain currently has about 500 stores globally, and about 60 in the United States.

History

A Shakey's restaurant in the Philippines

Shakey's Pizza was founded in Sacramento, California, on April 30, 1954, by Sherwood "Shakey" Johnson and Ed Plummer. Johnson's nickname resulted from nerve damage following a bout of malaria suffered during World War II. The parlor opened on a weekend, but since the pizza ovens were not yet completed,[2] only beer was served and Shakey took the profits from beer sales and bought ingredients for pizza the following Monday.

Shakey personally played dixieland jazz piano to entertain patrons. Shakey's initially became known outside Sacramento, not for its pizza, but for the jazz program it sponsored on a regional radio network. Shakey Johnson is honored in the American Banjo Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, for his longtime use of banjo music at his pizza parlors. Other live music, including piano, was also a staple in the old Shakey's parlors.

The original store (a remodeled grocery store)[2] at 57th and J Streets in Sacramento remained in business until the mid-1990s.

Expansion

Original Shakey's logo

The second Shakey's Pizza Parlor opened in Beaverton, Oregon, in 1956. Shakey's opened their third parlor in Albany, Oregon, in 1959, which was the first building Shakey's actually owned and the first building to be built in the distinct building style for which Shakey's is known. It now operates as a used bookstore. According to Johnson, Shakey's Pizza engaged in little market research and made most of its decisions on where to locate stores by going where Kinney Shoes opened stores. By the time Johnson sold his interest in 1967, there were 272 Shakey's Pizza Parlors in the United States. The first international store opened in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, in 1968. By 1975, the company had expanded to the Pacific Rim, including Japan and the Philippines.

Sale to Colorado Milling

Shakey Johnson sold his half of the company for $3 million to Colorado Milling and Elevator in 1967, which acquired Plummer's half for $9 million the next year.

Second sale

Shakey's was again sold, this time to Hunt International Resources in 1974. Two franchisees bought the chain in 1984 and they sold out to Inno-Pacific Holdings of Singapore in 1989. Most of the U. S. stores closed during the time Inno-Pacific owned the chain. Some of the remaining franchisees took Inno-Pacific to court in 2003.

Before this could come to trial, Shakey's was sold to Jacmar Companies of Alhambra, California, in 2004. Jacmar had been the franchisee of 19 Shakey's restaurants.

At the time Hunt International bought Shakey's in 1974, the restaurant chain had approximately 500 stores throughout the United States, including a store as far east as Colonie, New York.

As of November 1, 2013, there are 54 Shakey's Pizza restaurants in the U.S. Fifty U.S. locations are in California (all but one in Southern California), and the remainder are located in Waipahu, Hawaii; Renton, Washington; Pasco, Washington.[3] There is one location in the Greater Mexico City metro area.

Philippines

The brand became a particularly well-established franchise in the Philippines,[4] where it began in 1975 under the ownership of the country's largest company, the San Miguel Corporation, primarily promoting their draft beer. Beginning with a restaurant on Makati Avenue in Makati, the brand expanded rapidly in Metro Manila, with most of the restaurants offering live music. San Miguel had difficulty maintaining the consistency of the branches, and ultimately sold the franchise in 1987 to International Family Food Services Inc., a group led by sports executive Leo Prieto. By 1997 the brand had evolved into mostly a fast-food franchise. Beginning in 2003, the company began a "reengineering" of the brand as a family-oriented casual dining brand. As of early 2015 there were 153 Shakey's outlets in the Philippines, more than double the number remaining in the United States.[5][6]

In popular culture

The lyrics of "Old Timer", the first single from That Dog's self-titled debut album released in 1993, are a character sketch of an old man drinking wine alone at Shakey's. In the CD's liner notes, singer Anna Waronker explains that the song was based on an actual man she saw at a nearby table while attending a family friend's 8th birthday party at a West L.A. location of the chain.

The franchise is featured in the film License to Drive (1988) starring Corey Haim and Corey Feldman.

In a season five episode of South Park entitled "Kenny Dies", Cartman uses human stem cells to clone a Shakey's restaurant.[7]

Gallery

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Shakey's", in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America (Oxford University Press, 2013), ISBN 978-0199734962, p. 245. Excerpts available at Google Books.
  2. 1 2 Shakey's Philippines - About Us
  3. ↑ Shakey's Pizza Parlor - Location Results
  4. ↑ Robert Frank, "When Small Chains Go Abroad, Culture Clashes Require Ingenuity", The Wall Street Journal, April 12, 2000.
  5. ↑ "Shakey’s reengineering: From rock band, fast food joint into family restaurant chain", Philippine Daily Inquirer, September 7, 2013.
  6. ↑ "From service crew to CEO", Manila Standard, February 14, 2015.
  7. ↑ Doyle Greene (2007). Politics and the American Television Comedy: A Critical Survey from I Love Lucy through South Park. McFarland & Company. p. 219. ISBN 978-0-7864-3235-6.

Further reading

External links

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