Red Barn

The fast food sector experienced a boom in the late 1950s and early 1960s with the construction of the Interstate Highway System. Amazingly frequently, new chains appeared. Red Barn was one of them, and the first of them opened in 1961 in Springfield, Ohio, in the American Midwest. Red Barns operated out of a glass-fronted, patented barn-shaped building without any internal seating but with typically available outdoor tables.

They used the animated characters Hamburger Hungry, Chicken Hungry, and Fish Hungry to market to children. It was one of the first fast food franchises to provide a salad bar, and later outlets featured some indoor seating. Red Barn quickly grew, eventually having over 400 sites across the US, Canada, and even Australia. In the end, City Investing became the owner of the lucrative franchise after purchasing the chain to obtain the land on which the restaurants were built. They started liquidating the chain instead of trying to grow it further.

When franchise agreements expired, company-owned stores were promptly shuttered and not renewed. As franchisees gradually shut their doors, the business shrank. Although many of the buildings housed different businesses for many years, the chain was disappeared by the early 1980s. Even though a number of franchisees tried to maintain the Red Barn concept with eateries dubbed The Farm, that idea lacked much appeal, and by 2015 just one survived, in Racine, Wisconsin. By 2022, it had also shut down.