1958 - Restaurants

Restaurants

Pizza Hut opens at Kansas City to begin a franchise chain that will grow into the largest group of U.S. pizzerias (see 1953). Frank Carney, 18, has read a story in the Saturday Evening Post about the popularity of pizza with teenagers and college students. He borrowed $600 from his mother, found someone to teach him how to make pizzas, and has gone into business with his brother Dan. Within 16 years Pizza Hut will have gross sales of $114 million, followed closely by Shakey's with annual sales of $100 million (see Little Caesar's, 1959).

International House of Pancakes (IHOP) has its beginnings July 7 at Toluca Lake in Los Angeles County, where New York-born entrepreneur Al Lapin Jr., 30, and his brother Jerry open a family restaurant offering pancakes in flavors and varieties that patrons are not likely to have at home, all made from sugar-laden recipes tested by his mother, Viola, in her kitchen. Lapin will lose control of the business in 1973 and file for bankruptcy in 1989, but the chain will grow by 2004 to employ 55,000 people in more than 1,000 franchised outlets with blue roofs in the United States and Canada.