The Old-School Seafood Chain With Only 3 Surviving Locations

There are some restaurant chains that seem like they're going to stick around forever. We can't say for sure what will become of, say, McDonald's, but whatever it might take for the Golden Arches to go out of business, it's not anything we can foresee. But McDonald's is the exception and not the rule: The 21st century is littered with the remnants of chains that once enjoyed great success. Case in point: Arthur Treacher's, the fast food seafood chain that once had over 800 locations across the United States. Today, only three remain, and they're all in the state of Ohio.

Arthur Treacher was the name of an English character actor who became typecast as an officious butler before achieving even greater fame in the 1960s and 1970s as the announcer and sidekick to Merv Griffin on his talk show. In 1969, a triumvirate of fast food entrepreneurs – S. Robert Davis, L.S. Hartzog, and Dave Thomas (yes, the Dave Thomas of future Wendy's fame) — created a chain of fish and chips restaurants and bought the rights to Treacher's name to use for their fledgling restaurant. At first, Arthur Treacher's found some success selling fried seafood and chicken with fries (or chips) and hushpuppies, but, unfortunately, it wouldn't last.

So what happened to Arthur Treacher's? From the 1950s through the 1970s, there were disputes between the United Kingdom and Iceland regarding who had control over what waters for fishing; as such, the conflict was called the Cod Wars. (They weren't technically wars, but they were well beyond polite diplomatic disagreements.) In 1975, a third standoff between the two countries began, which was terrible news for Arthur Treacher's. It relied on cod for its dishes (rather than the Alaskan pollock used in today's McDonald's Filet-O-Fish), and the price of cod doubled.

That wasn't the only problem Arthur Treacher's had. In the 1970s and 1980s, chains like McDonald's, Burger King, and Wendy's (et tu, Dave?) began to aggressively expand, which was bad news for plenty of smaller fast food chains, Arthur Treacher's included. If you could get a Filet-O-Fish from McDonald's or a Whaler from Burger King, did you really need Arthur Treacher's? Plenty of consumers thought they didn't, and the company's numbers dwindled. The business was sold various times, and, eventually, the Nathan's Famous hot dog brand acquired the rights to the trademark. You can still find Arthur Treacher's branding at some Nathan's locations, but as for stand-alone stores, just three remain. Still, that's an improvement from the two that operated at the start of 2025, which looks like progress to us.