Wimpy Bar
Wimpy is the brand name of a chain of hamburger restaurants based in the United Kingdom. Many of restaurants were originally called Wimpy Bars and many people still refer to them by this name, despite the fact that the name "Wimpy Bar" was dropped in favour of "Wimpy" many years ago. The current owners of the Wimpy brand operate in several countries under the name of Wimpy International. The Wimpy brand was created by Eddie Gold of Chicago in the 1930s. The name was inspired by the character of J. Wellington Wimpy from the Popeye cartoons created by Elzie Crisler Segar. Eddie Gold was running 12 restaurants by the early 1950s, when the concept of fast food came to the attention of the directors of J. Lyons and Co. Lyons licensed the brand for use in the United Kingdom and in 1954 the first "Wimpy Bar" Lyons was established at the Lyons Corner House in Coventry Street, London. Originally the bar was a special fast-food section within the more traditional Corner House restaurants, but the success soon led to the establishment of separate Wimpy restaurants serving only hamburger based meals. By the early 1970s the business had expanded to over a thousand restaurants in 23 countries. In 1977 the business acquired by United Biscuits. Wimpy was beginning to lose ground to McDonalds, who had opened their first UK restaurant in 1974 and so the new management of Wimpy began to streamline the business by converting some of the traditional "table service" restaurants to the slicker "counter service" operation style of McDonalds. In 1989 the business was sold to Grand Metropolitan (now Diageo). Grand Metropolitan had acquired Burger King the previous year and they began to convert the "counter service" restaurants to Burger King restaurants. In 1990 the remaining 220 "table service" restaurants were purchased by a management buy-out backed by 3i. A second management buy-out occurred in 2002.
International
Wimpy opened in South Africa in Durban in 1967. The business was sold to Bakers SA Ltd in the late 1970s. In 1976, Wimpy opened their first restaurant in Bogota, Colombia.
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