Sambo’s
When naming their new restaurant Sambo's in 1957, Sam Battistone Jr. and his business partner Newell Bohnett combined their nicknames Sam and Bo. The partners made use of The Story of Little Black Sambo, a children's book that was popular at the time, to promote their cuisine and decorate their restaurants. With the tigers in the tale chasing each other around a tree until melting into clarified butter as inspiration, the expanding chain established Sambo's Tiger Tamers, a club for kids, in the 1960s.
The brand, which prioritized breakfast meals and family-style dining, saw rapid growth throughout the 1960s and 1970s, peaking at 1,117 locations by 1979. However, the corporation is coming under increasing strain from both internal difficulties over its manager compensation program and external challenges over the racial imagery in its stores and name. The company had to rebrand a few stores as Jolly Tiger eateries after several cities refused to provide licenses to it because of its name. In 1979, the business changed its mind and either closed down the Jolly Tiger outlets or rebranded them Sambo's.
Some towns protested, boycotted, and took other activities against Sambo's locations. The chain filed for bankruptcy in 1981 as a result of internal financial problems and dwindling revenues. Additional attempts to rename other sites did not relieve the financial strains, and by the beginning of the 1980s all Sambo's Restaurants save for the original had closed. The name was finally changed to "Chad's" in 2020 as a result of local demand.
