Arby's location inside Kilcawley Center on the campus of Youngstown State University in Youngstown, Ohio, Arby's home market. This store converted into a Wendy's in Summer 2012 after Arby's contract expired.

 

Arby's is a fast food restaurant chain in the United States and Canada. Roark Capital Group owns 81.5% of the company, with Wendy's Company owning the other 18.5%. It is primarily known for selling roast beef sandwiches and curly fries. The Arby's menu also includes chicken sandwiches, appetizers, salads, Market Fresh (deli-style) sandwiches, wraps, and submarine sandwiches. Its headquarters are in Sandy Springs, Georgia.

 

There are more than 3,600 Arby’s restaurants. As of December 30, 2010, there were 1,169 company-owned restaurants, 2,367 franchised and 125 international locations, principally in Canada. There are also locations in Qatar, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates. It also owns the franchise T.J. Cinnamons that, as of December 2007, has 243 locations with 225 multi-branded with company stores. They are currently only franchising the T.J. Cinnamons brand.

 

History

Arby's was founded in Boardman, Ohio, in 1964 by Forrest and Leroy Raffel, owners of a restaurant equipment business who believed there was a market opportunity for a fast food franchise based on a food other than hamburgers. The brothers wanted to call their restaurants "Big Tex," but that name was already used by an Akron business. Instead, they chose the name "Arby's," based on R. B., the initials of RaffelBrothers*.

 

The Raffel brothers opened the first new restaurant in Boardman, Ohio, just outside Youngstown, on July 23, 1964. They initially served only roast beef sandwiches, potato chips, and soft drinks. A year later, the first Arby's licensee opened a restaurant in Akron, Ohio. The famous Arby's "hat" was designed by the original sign makers, Peskin Sign Co.Expansion to other states began in 1968, beginning in Pittsburgh (the closest large out-of-state market to Youngstown) and Detroit. The restaurants were initially designed to be more upscale than their hamburger competitors.

 

During the 1970s, the expansion of Arby's took place at a rate of 50 stores per year. During this time it created several menu items, including the Beef ’n Cheddar, jamocha shakes, curly fries and two signature sauces: Arby’s BBQ sauce and horsey sauce. By 1981 it added chicken along with opening store number 1,000. It became the first restaurant in the fast food industry to offer a complete "lite" menu in 1991 with several sandwiches and salads under 300 calories and 94 percent fat free.

 

In 1984, Southeastern Public Service Company, a DWG Corporation subsidiary, purchased Arby's. With a new owner of DWG Corporation and a new name, Triarc Companies, Inc., a former PepsiCo executive, Don Pierce, was brought in to "resurrect" Arby's. With $100 million additional funding, Pierce move to a new "Roast Town" concept like Boston Market. In 1997, the Roast Town concept received poor marks in market tests. Triarc moved Pierce and his team out the door along with all the company owned locations to become a pure franchiser. Arby's sold their locations to RTM Restaurant Group, an existing Arby's franchise, for $71 million for 354 units.

 

In 2002, Arby's returned to operating restaurants by purchasing the second largest Arby's franchisee, Sybra Inc., with 293 locations out of bankruptcy outbidding RTM so as to prevent RTM from becoming too large. RTM was purchased by Arby's on July 25, 2005.
 

In 2008, Triarc purchased Wendy's, and changed its name to Wendy's/Arby's Group, to reflect their core businesses. In January, 2011, it was announced that Wendy's/Arby Group were looking into selling off the Arby's side of the business to focus on the Wendy's brand. It was officially announced the companies would split on January 21, 2011. On June 13, 2011, Wendy's/Arby's Group Inc. announced that it would sell the majority of its Arby's chain to Roark Capital Group, maintaining an 18.5% stake in the company.

 

Products

In February 2006, Arby's became the first fast food chain in the US to claim to not use any artificial additives in its chicken products; along with this claim came an advertising campaign which criticized Wendy's, McDonald's and Burger King for their use of additives such as water, salt and phosphates in their chicken products.

 

In November 2006, Arby's announced that they were eliminating all trans-fats from their menu, to be implemented by May 2007, being the first major fast-food restaurant to do so.
 

In early 2006, Arby's Restaurant Group signed a contract with Pepsi, making Pepsi the chain's exclusive soft drink provider. When franchisees' contracts expire with Coca-Cola, they will be required to switch to Pepsi-Cola,[16] the lone exception being the Arby's located at Youngstown State University because the University has its own separate contract with Coca-Cola for other university purposes, particularly the athletic department; this Arby's, ironically, converted to Wendy's during the summer of 2012 after Arby's contract with YSU expired.

 

Trademarks

Like many companies they own several trademarks for their products. These include "Arby's", "Arby's Market Fresh", "Market Fresh", "Horsey Sauce" and "Sidekickers".