Roy Rogers Restaurants, the fast-food chain named after “The King of the Cowboys,” is rustling up a resurgence.
Once a major name in fast food with more than 640 locations across the U.S., Roy Rogers is now expanding with 24 company-owned restaurants and 16 franchise restaurants in seven states. Its newest location, which opened June 25 in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, was met with long lines despite the 100-degree heat.
Its the chain’s first return to the South Jersey or Philadelphia area since the 1990s – a decade which saw Marriott sell the Roy Rogers chain to Hardee’s for $365 million. “We are excited to make this long-anticipated return, and Cherry Hill allows us to serve a growing, diverse community and introduce a new generation to the quality and variety that makes Roy Rogers a cut above,” said company co-president Jim Plamondon in a news release.
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After the acquisition, Hardee’s converted more than 150 Roy Rogers restaurants into Hardee’s locations and sold more than 350 locations to other restaurant chains including Boston Chicken, Wendy’s and McDonald’s.
Then in 2002, brothers Jim and Pete Plamondon Jr. bought the Roy Rogers brand from Hardee’s and began opening new Roy Rogers restaurants in the Mid-Atlantic including Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. The restaurant’s legacy runs in the family as their father, Pete Sr., had left Marriott to open a Roy Rogers franchise in Frederick, Maryland in 1980.
The restaurant touts its “Triple Threat” approach of serving burgers, roast beef, and fried chicken with a Fixin’s Bar to customize dishes.
“New guests will be pleased with our diverse menu and quality beef, burgers and chicken you can’t find anywhere else,” Jim Plamondon said in a news release.
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New Roy Rogers restaurant in Cherry Hill, NJ serves up ‘nostalgia’ for some
After a grand opening ceremony, the new Cherry Hill, N.J. location opened with a line of cars wrapped around the building and a queue of walk-in customers regularly stretching out the door into the heat.
It took Miguel Rivera, a Cherry Hill Township worker, about an hour to get his take-out order. He showed up because of the “nostalgia,” having enjoyed going to the Roy Rogers outlets on the New Jersey Turnpike during family trips to New York City. “I wanted to have it again,” he said.
Customer Marc Orgiefsky, who was the first in line at midnight, told Philadelphia area TV station 6ABC, “I used to work at the Moorestown Mall years ago and there was a Roy Rogers in the mall and the food there was great.”
History of Roy Rogers
The first Roy Rogers restaurant chain opened in 1968 in Falls Church, Virginia. It got its name when Marriott acquired RoBee’s restaurants in Fort Wayne, Indiana in the ’60s, but couldn’t secure those naming rights, Jim Plamondon told The Washington Post in 2016. A Marriott board member who was friends with the TV and movie star suggested naming the restaurants after Rogers.
The western-themed restaurants grew to have more than 600 restaurants. When Marriott sold most of them in 1990, the Plamondons kept their 15 franchises and then acquired the brand, which came with 70 restaurants, many of which were underperforming, Jim Plamondon told the Post.
They whittled down the number of locations and have slowly been expanding.
“We’ve received an overwhelming number of requests from loyal Roy Rogers fans for a location in this area, and we’re delighted to make it a reality,” said Joe Briglia, the company’s director of real estate and franchise development, in a statement. “We plan to build on this success and expand even further in the market.”
Contributing: Celeste E. Whittaker and Jim Walsh, Cherry Hill Courier-Post
Mike Snider is a reporter on USA TODAY’s Trending team. You can follow him on Threads, Bluesky, X and email him at mikegsnider & @mikegsnider.bsky.social & @mikesnider & msnider@usatoday.com
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Roy Rogers is on the rise again with new locations
