Abandoned - Shoney's

In the 1950's a small franchisee of the Big Boy Burger chain was slowly rising from their very humble beginnings. It was called Shoney's and through the 1970's, 80's and 90's, the restaurant company grew to become a powerful corporation, building multiple brands like Captain D's Seafood and built out a network of over 1,800 restaurants across North America. However their empire would crash down in a spectacular way through the 2000's, leaving behind a trail of abandoned restaurants and a brand name that is largely forgotten.

Travel Channel - @BrightSunTravels

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Bright Sun Films 2023

Presented in 4K

[jakewinlow]

Nothing says “We’re making a comeback” like opening your first ever mall location in the 2010s.

[sclawman]

Shoney's breakfast buffet was legendary. I grew up eating there on occasion. The french toast sticks were out of this world.

[ericad]

Sometimes my family would stop at Shoney's back in the 1980s on the way to visit Disneyworld. What I remember most isn't the food, but the how amused my dad was by the enthusiastic way the hostess would greet customer's when entering the restaurant. Every time we'd pass another Shoney's he'd repeat the line "Welcome to Shoney's!" I can't say I miss eating at Shoney's but I sure do miss my dad.

[kristianpopivcak]

As someone from central europe, I have never ever heard of Shoney's until it was referenced in one Rick & Morty episode, at which point I thought it was a made up restaurant...imagine my surprise when I suddenly saw one while visiting Orlando, Florida in 2017. After spending the day at Universal we went in there, paid for the all you can eat buffet and brutally stuffed ourselves...good times.

[adamsmith]

I have a Shoney Bear that was my Childhood Stuffed Bear. It's unbelievably precious to me, and I'll always remember Shoney's fondly for that alone.

[reeseasmr]

I started as a busboy and left as a relief manager. I worked from 1986-1998 and I can tell you that the upkeep of the stores and lots were horrible at the end. The stores had tired looks and the food needed to be improved. The company had no direction.

[auggie]

When I was a kid my family would always do the Shoney's breakfast all you can eat every vacation. I hadn't thought about them since then, so this is a weirdly bittersweet episode.

[SgtValentine]

I am 23 years old. For most of my life my grandfather would go to Shoney’s for the breakfast bar and also the cooks their would make his eggs how he likes it. It was soft scrambled.Often we would meet him for breakfast and we would celebrate birthdays and certain holidays by eating at Shoney’s. The one near us closed down in 2019 and is now a high end brandy bar. It barely changed over the years and that location was on it’s last legs. It was also a place we would stop to eat during road trips. Shoney’s will always be special to me. I will always look back fondly. Especially since my cousin and grandma have died in the past 4 years.

[LiberateYou]

This made me tear up. Not because of shoneys but how it like so many other things from my childhood (the 90s) has came to an end and all we left with is the nostalgia. 😣

[BollingHolt]

I'm 42. In the 80s, my parents used to take me to Shoney's every Saturday when I was a little kid. They had a great salad bar, good fish n chips and hot fudge cake! Today, there aren't any in Montgomery, AL, but there are a couple 40 miles to the north and south of me I think. Thanks for the nostalgia! PS- Fifth Quarter and Lee's were also amazing. Miss them, too!

[manin]

Two more points. 1) there was also a lawsuit following the discrimination lawsuit for labor violations regarding unpaid overtime, working employees off the clock, etc., which was also over $100 million iirc. 2) Lonestar sold off Shoney's prime locations to recoup their investment, then dumped the remaining locations, which were unprofitable, with Doudapour as the buyer.

[Speed.Racer.]

Always interesting how restaurants can go from popular to dead in such a short time. Even a change of management can be disastrous.

[mookta]

Can't believe the Abandoned series is almost 100 episodes in. It's amazing what Jake has built and the history and information he's provided for years. Nearly a generation, it feels like. That might sound extra but it's true when you consider the entirety of the Bright Sun Films video catalog, and the hours of content and research provided by it. great stuff!!

[jhbarringer]

As a kid in the late 70’s/early 80’s, Shoney’s was known as a Breakfast place. Then they introduced the Breakfast Bar, which meant all you can eat bacon, which was just awesome. At the time, their competition were greasy spoon diners which felt non-family friendly and suffered from the typical trait of single location restaurants being of unknown expectations if you’d never been there before. This was important, because the main customer base were travelers, since at the time, households almost exclusively ate breakfast at home. At the time, mainstream Fast Food places were still being retrofitted to add drive-thrus and were just trying to figure out how to cook breakfast, since their workers were basically food preppers, not short order cooks.

Shoney’s started to die when Fast Food places became ubiquitous in the mid-90’s and enough had figured out the breakfast market to capture the on-the-go breakfast market. They got hit hard when their traveller market started to evaporate almost overnight once motels started offering Free Breakfast. Finally, Starbucks came in and delivered the Coup de Grace.
Since they were known as a breakfast place, I’m not sure if they even had a chance, since their lunch and dinner market wasn’t developed during their heyday. They were just riding the breakfast market gravy train.

[danielreid]

I am 54 years old, and I remember Shoney's well. Shoney's was huge in the 70s and 80s. There was one in pretty much every decent sized town in the south, and they were always busy! A Big Boy Burger with fries, and a hot fudge cake for dessert! Simple, pleasant childhood memories!

[robertneblett]

As a 58 year old, I’ve eaten at Shoneys ( as well as BigBoys) all over the United States. There problems all boil down to corporate bean counters. They used to be really family feeling places where most things were made from scratch and very fresh to everything feeling canned and generic.

[angelm]

If you never had Shoney's breakfast bar you missed out. In my hometown when breakfast bar was mentioned everyone knew where it meant. The old Shoney's building here still stands occupied by an Asian restaurant.

[LawnMowerFan]

My grandma and grandpa took me to shoneys for the first and only time on our way back from Florida in 2018. They loved the place and frequented it on their trips between PA and FL. I will always remember our brunch fondly and I miss my grandma a lot. My grandpa is 93 and going strong!

[keithck]

Canadian here. My family road tripped through America frequently throughout the 80s and I have fond memories of eating at Shoneys. Always wondered what happened the chain. What a fall from grace.

[VaingloriousGaming]

by the time the remaining location in my former hometown closed down, the chain had a reputation as the place that retired people went for breakfast and... nothing else. The parking lot was packed until 8 AM, then it looked like a ghost town for the rest of the day. From what I understand from friends around the country, that reputation was consistent across each location.