Welcome to the MedLibrary.org Wikipedia Supplement on Wimpy -- Please Click to Return to Front Page

Wimpy

Type	Wholly owned subsidiary
Founded	Coventry Street, London in 1954
Founder	J. Lyons and Co
Industry	Restaurants
Products	Fast Food (hamburgers • chicken • french fries)
Parent	Famous Brands
Website	official UK site

Wimpy is the brand name of a chain of hamburger restaurants based in the United Kingdom. The 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.

History

The Wimpy brand was created 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 was acquired by United Biscuits. Wimpy was beginning to lose ground to McDonald's, 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 "counter service" operation style of McDonald's. 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.

Although Wimpy has decreased in numbers in the United Kingdom, it is still found in some towns and cities and at the RoadChef motorway services and at Megabowl bowling alleys. However the branches at RoadChefs and Megabowl have a counter service as opposed to a table service format.

On 27 February 2007, Famous Brands, who owns the Wimpy franchise in South Africa, announced that it had acquired Wimpy UK. Having acquired the brand Famous Brands has re-branded Wimpy in the UK to bring it in line with Wimpy South Africa. The 'new' logo is actually one used by Wimpy UK from the 1960s until the 1980s. [1]

Wimpy are said to be looking at a long term plan to bring the brand up to date and increase the number of units throughout the UK.^{citation needed}

Wimpy have now taken their first steps into making all table service restaurants modern. They have signed a deal with Coca Cola, having transferred from the Pepsi Co. There is also a brand new menu available at Wimpy which is more extensive than the previous menu.

International

Wimpy opened in South Africa in Durban in 1967. The business was sold to Bakers SA Ltd in the late 1970s and later to the Steers Holdings Group. In 1976, Wimpy opened their first restaurant in Bogotá, Colombia. There are also branches trading as Wimpy in Germany where they preceded the U.S.based chains, Kuwait, Cyprus, Saudi Arabia, Kenya and Beirut, Lebanon, India, Nepal, and Bangladesh.

Wimpy used to have many branches in Egypt and Morocco, it was the first international burger restaurant in Egypt and the second in Morocco, but it closed its business by 1998 in both countries.

Wimpy had branches in New Zealand including Hamilton but have now closed except for one Rotorua store.

There are a few outlets in Ireland, most combined with petrol stations. It has an outlet in Urlingford, County Kilkenny, Ireland, which is the location of the rest stop for buses between Dublin and Cork; and one in Celbridge, County Kildare. Most are located in Petrogas (Applegreen) petrol stations, as they hold the master franchise. ¹

References

External links

• Rebranded Wimpy UK
• Wimpy South Africa
• Wimpy Colombia
• Information about starting a Wimpy Franchise
• Restaurant in Chimaltenango, Guatemala

Wikipedia content modification information:

• This page was last modified on 16 November 2008, at 08:44.

Wikipedia Authorship and Review

Wikipedia content provided here is not reviewed directly by MedLibrary.org. Wikipedia content is authored by an open community of volunteers and is not produced by or in any way affiliated with MedLibrary.org.

Wikipedia Usage Guidelines

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article on "Wimpy".

The URL for this specific entry is:

• http://medlibrary.org/medwiki/Wimpy

All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. (See Copyrights for details). Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.