Some of John’s Favorite Chains Are Gone

Red Owl stores were started in Hopkins, Minnesota, in 1922. They were purchased by Gamble-Skogmo in the '60s. Gamble-Skogmo was purchased by Wickes Corporation in the '80s. Super-Valu ended up with all the rights to the brand and phased it out. There are only a few stores remaining out of, at one time, more than 400 in in Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, and North and South Dakota.

You can never forget those odd shaped and colored roofs. There were more than 1,000 at one time. Twenty-eight flavors of ice cream. The kids menu based on nursery rhymes.

When Sam Battistone and Newell F. Bohnett decided to open a restaurant and name it after themselves, they ignored the fact that the combination also alluded to a racially insensitive epithet and picture book character. The chain that was once over 1,100 restaurants in the early '80s had to file for bankruptcy and closed.

Chi-Chi's helped bring Tex-Mex cuisine to the heart of the United States in the '70s and '80s. But declining sales and the largest hepatitis A outbreak in U.S. history forced Chi-Chi's to shut its doors in 2004. But you can still buy the salsa at your local grocery store.