The Classic Southern Steakhouse That Has Just Two Locations Left Standing

Having spent time in the American South as a kid, I have vague, hazy recollections of the occasional family dinner at Quincy's. As far as I can remember, this steakhouse was always more popular for its hot buffet bar than its steak. Or, maybe that's just the selective memory of a child latching onto the mac and cheese and endless dessert options above a boring ol' slab of meat. Another gem of the place: big, fluffy yeast rolls with a generous side of honey butter. You could spend hours sampling store-bought dinner rolls to find the best ones, and you still wouldn't find any that come close to a basket of fresh, piping hot rolls at Quincy's.

But tragically, all things change with time, and sometimes, that means the near-disappearance of a favored steakhouse chain. These days, Quincy's has dropped from hundreds of locations all across the Southeast to just two: one in Monroe, North Carolina, and one in Florence, South Carolina.

While "the disappearance of Quincy's" sounds like it could be the title of a thriller mystery novel, the actual cause is far from an unsolved case. A series of ownership changes throughout the 1980s and 1990s led to Quincy's reputation suffering. Austin Steaks chose to close around 50 locations and convert another 43 into WesterN SizzliN buffets. Corporations have strong control over franchise branches, as we've seen before with companies like Subway demanding franchisees remodel their restaurants or hit the road. Considering how much it costs to open a franchise, most franchisees will oblige and follow what the company wants. It's the fiscally reasonable decision to make.

So what about these last two Quincy's? Are they bastions of an era gone by, refusing to bend to a corporate overlord's demands for change? Well, not anything so dramatic. Corporate-owned locations had no choice but to shut down or make the change to a WesterN SizzliN buffet, but any Quincy's owned by a franchisee had–in theory, at least–the ability to decide whether they wanted to convert their location or keep it as-is. There's no way of knowing how staunchly Quincy's upper management refused to help these stragglers or how strongly they advocated for franchisees to change. The one thing we do know is that Florence, S.C. and Monroe, N.C. hold the last two Quincy's to exist, and they're still getting plenty of business to this day. So, if nostalgia ever takes you by the hand and demands that you stuff your belly with endless chicken wings and fresh honey butter rolls, you still have two holdouts to satisfy your craving.