🠈  FAT Brands  🠊

FAT Brands

FAT Brands (FAT = Fresh Authentic Tasty) is a restaurant management firm based in Beverly Hills, Ca that trades on the NASDAQ with the symbol FAT.

The company manages a variety of regional brands including:

• Fatburger (fatburger.com) is a hamburger chain established in 1952.
• Hurricane Grill & Wings (HurricaneWings.com) offers chicken and buffalog wings. Variations of this brand include Hurricane Sports Grill which is configured for sports fans. Hurricane Dockside includes a fish menu and Hurricane BTW has wings.
• Bonanza Steakhouse and Ponderosa Steakhouse (pon-bon.com) are steakhouses recounting the Western Frontier with stores in the Midwest and Easter US.
• Yalla Mediterranean (YallaMedi.com) delivers the flavors of the Mediterranean with locations in California.
• Elevation Burger (ElevationBurger.com) serves organic sourced burgers on the East Coast.
• Buffalo's Southwest Cafe (buffalos.com) serves buffalo wings.

Corporate History

It appears that the holding company FAT Brands was largely the creation of Andrew Wiederhorn. The restaurant brands were created by restauranteurs. I will start the merger tree with Wiederhorn and present the restaurants as branches.

Weiderhorn amassed a fortune buying and selling properties from the FDIC Resolution Trust. He created a business called Whilshire Credit Corporation which originated subprime mortgages. Some source claimed Wiederhorn was worth $140 million in 1999.

• 1990: Andrew Weiderhorn registered Fog Cutter Capital (fccgi.com) as a Maryland-based corporation operating in Oregon. He used a Beverly Hills, Ca address.
• 2000: Weiderhorn's Wilshire Credit Corporation sold subprime mortages financed by Capital Consultants which invested Union pension funds. Weiderhorn defaulted on $160 million. This default caused both entities to collapse. The Union lost a sizeable chunk of its pensions.
• 2003: Weiderhorn's Fog Cutter Capital acquired an 83% share Fatburger. Weiderhorn's contract said he would remain CEO even if he was convicted of a felony.⁸
• 2004: Wilshire Financial Service Group changed its name to Beverly Hills Bancorp Inc. and symbol from WFSG to BHBC.²
• 2005-2006: Weiderhorn was convicted of a felony and paid a $4.6 million fine and served a 16 months in federal prison for his Wilshire dealings.⁸
• 2011: Fog Cutter acquired Buffalo's Cafe⁹

  History of Buffalo's

  • 1985: David Hyde and Ralph Perrella created Buffalo Cafe in Roswell, Ga which featured buffalo wings.
  • 1986: Buffalo's began frachising with the name Buffalo's Franchise Concepts Inc..
  • 1997: Ray Cabana, who came from Johnny Rockets begame president of BFCI.
  • 1998: BCFI expanded to Indonesia and Egypt.
  • 2001: The company changed its name to Buffalo's Southwest Cafe to emphasize the Southwest style items on the menu.
  • 2006: The company created a fast casual restaurant called Buffalo's Express.
  • 2017: Fog Cutter transferred BCFI into FAT Brands.
• 2017: FAT Brands raised $12 million in a mini IPO on NASDAQ.
• 2017: FAT acquired Homestyle Dining which owned the Ponderosa and Bonanza brands of discount steakhouses for $10.5 million. The chains had 110 restaurants, mainly franchises, in the Eastern US.¹⁰

  History of Homestyle Dining

  Homestyle Dining was created after the bankruptcy of Metromedia Restaurant Group. This group was spun off Metromedia which was owned by John Kluge who was the richest man in the US for a bit.

  • 1988: Metromedia acquired Ponderosa

    Both Ponderosa and Bonanza Steakhouse were inspired by the TV series Bonanza which was a fictional half million acre ranch outside Virginia City at the time of the Comstock load.

    Early History of Ponderosa Steakhouse

    • 1965: Dan Lasater, Norm Wiese and Charles Kleptz opened Ponderosa in Kokomo, In.
    • 1971: The company moved its headquarters to Dayton, Oh.
    • 1971: Company expanded into Canada.
    • 1986: General Mills Restaurant Group acquired the Canadian restaurants and turned them into Red Lobster restaurants.
  • 1989: MetroMedia acquired Bonanza Steakhouse

    Early History of Bonanza Steakhouse

    • 1963: Dan Blocker who played Hoss Cartwright on the Bonanza TV Show started the Bonanza Steakhoue chain in Westport, Connecticut.
    • 1966: Sam Wyly and Charles Wyly bought chain and grew it to 600 restaurants under the umbrella Peoples Restaurants
    • 1983: Peoples Restaurants acquired Michaels Store which sells arts and craft supplies.
      • 1984: Peoples held an IPO for Michaels on the NASDAQ.
  • 1990: Kluge was ranked the richest man in America.
  • 1997: Metromedia created Metromedia Steakhouse Company (MSC) as the holding company for Bonanza and Ponderosea.
  • 2008: MSC filed chapter 11.
  • 2009: the company emerged from bankruptcy as Homestyle Dining LLC.
• 2018: FAT acquired Hurricane Grill & Wings for $12.5 million.
• 2018: FAT acquired Yalla Mediterranean which had 7 units in California.⁵
• 2019: FAT acquired Elevation Burger which had 44 locations on the East Coast for $10 million.⁴
  • 2002: Hans Hess started Elevation Burger to create a healthier natural sourced burger in Arlington, Va.

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References:

1. Businesswire - FAT Brands IPO (Drawn 11/1/2019)
2. Businesswire - Wilshire Changes Name (Drawn 11/1/2019)
3. Willamette Week - Feds Shut Down Capital Consultants (Drawn 11/1/2019)
4. Restaurant Business Buys Elevation Burger (Drawn 11/1/2019)
5. Restaurant Business - Fatburger acquires Yalla (Drawn 11/1/2019)
6. Restaurant Business - Fatburger Acquires Hurricane (Drawn 11/1/2019)
7. Restaurant Business - Ponderosa Bonanzs Sold (Drawn 11/1/2019)
8. Forbes - A Juicy Tale (Drawn 11/1/2019)
9. Wikipedia - Buffalo Cafe (Drawn 11/1/2019)
10. Wikipedia - Ponderosa and Bonanaza (Drawn 11/1/2019)

Directory Listings:

• Phoenix Color - Fast Foods: Fatburger
• Phoenix Color - Fast Foods: Hurricane Grill and Wings Surprise
• Denver Color - Fast Food: Fatburger

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