By jove! Arthur Treacher's opens new store, returning to a former location it built in 1971

The fish-and-chips chain was briefly down to just one standalone location, but it's on the grow again, and has opened a third store, in Cleveland Falls, Ohio.

The world needs more Arthur Treacher’s lanterns. While the new store in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, doesn’t have one, you can admire this original in Cuyahoga Falls.

Arthur Treacher’s, the fish-and-chips chain that once numbered over 800 locations, is staging a comeback. The chain named after an actor who played Jeeves the Butler is now at your service at a new, third standalone location.

This new location is the site of an original Arthur Treacher’s that opened for business the week of Feb. 15, 1971. The building at 13216 Cedar Road, right off Lee Road in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, was built by an Arthur Treacher’s franchise group, Fisher Foods, which demolished a row of stores to construct the restaurant. The busy stretch at Cedar-Lee was chosen after an earlier pitch to open a restaurant in a residential area was rebuffed.

Arthur Treacher’s stayed on Cedar Road until at least February 1990. Ads in newspapers after that point indicate that a Cleveland Heights Arthur Treacher’s was operating out of the Severance Town Center, which is about two miles away.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer ran this ad for Arthur Treacher’s on Feb. 14, 1971, announcing the imminent opening of the store in Cleveland Heights. Arthur Treacher’s has returned to that building after decades away. In the ad, note the iconic lamp sign, which at the time featured the image of British actor Arthur Treacher, who also visited stores. (SEE HERE.) The Arthur Treacher’s in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, still features a lamp sign. However, repurposed Arthur Treacher lamps can be found around the country, like this very fine specimen (and interior) in Columbus, Ohio, where the chain began in 1969. (ad via newspapers.com)

By 1990, Arthur Treacher’s was well along on its inexorable decline after peaking in the 1970s, a fall exacerbated by a fisherman’s net full of vexing problems like the so-called “Cod Wars” that spiked fish prices, a more competitive fast-food environment and other financial strains that landed it in bankruptcy court, but never entirely out of business, though goodness have they come close.

The Garfield Heights store as it looked in 2019 (Rolando Pujol)

By 2021, just one standalone store was left, in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. A longtime store in Garfield Heights had just closed under pandemic-era woes, and the chain — aside from several small franchised locations attached mainly to the Nathan’s Famous brand — seemed to have reached its final stop.

That’s when real-estate developer George Simon became interested in buying the shuttered Garfield Heights property, sensing the promise of a business opportunity and not, at least at first, the challenge of reviving the fish-and-chips chain. But Simon had a change of heart after meeting with Ben Vittoria, who owned both the former Garfield Heights shop and the still-open Cuyahoga Falls Arthur Treacher’s store and had a long history with Arthur Treacher’s beginning in the Northeast in the 1970s. Simon grasped the value of the brand’s enduring popularity — all he needed to do was see the bustling Cuyahoga Falls dining room — and decided to double down on Arthur Treacher’s.

The Cuyahoga Falls store and its lantern, the last Arthur Treacher’s to feature one (Rolando Pujol/2021)

And boy, did he ever.

He bought the Garfield Heights property, reopened it as an Arthur Treacher’s, and then snapped up the Cuyahoga Falls store when Vittoria retired. Next, he set his sights on expansion, committing to opening a third Arthur Treacher’s location. What better place than the site of a former Arthur Treacher’s that was built expressly for the chain? The building in Cleveland Heights first opened just two years after the chain’s founding in Columbus, Ohio.

"I think it's an exciting example of everything that's old is new again sometimes," Channel 5 in Cleveland quoted Brian Anderson, the assistant director for economic development in Cleveland Heights, as saying.

Simon’s company is reportedly eyeing a fourth standalone location and growing beyond that, joking with Akron Beacon Journal reporter Kerry Clawson in 2024 that he has 797 more stores to go to get the chain back to its former peak.

Meanwhile, a co-branded restaurant combining Nathan’s Famous Hot Dogs and Arthur Treacher’s has just opened at the Stamford Town Center in Stamford, Connecticut. (Parent company TruFoods licenses standalone stores, while Nathan’s has the rights to open co-branded stores.)

Arthur Treacher — the man himself … (Rolando Pujol/2019)

More Arthur Treacher’s stores will mean more places to nosh on hush puppies, the only thing I would eat at Arthur Treacher’s as a kid. Then and now, I’ve never been a big fish guy, but you can still count me in for chips — or hush puppies.

“My” Arthur Treacher’s was in Port Chester, New York. Where was yours? Are you enthused to see the revival of the brand?

My new book, “The Great American Retro Road Trip,” features an entry on Arthur Treacher’s. Get the book here!