Fuddrucker's and Luby's To Liquidate

Bagels
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Re: Fuddrucker's and Luby's To Liquidate

Post by Bagels »

Fuddruckers' demise isn't surprising. It's a legacy chain serving up mediocre food at menu pricing indifferent from its new, more modern competitors. In the markets it continued to reside in, there are literally dozens of other better options.

That said, we frequented the El Toro location. For the past several years, you could purchase Fuddrucker's gift cards from Sam's Club or Costco for at least a 25% discount (in amounts of $50 or more). Heck, at one point last year, we paid $65 for $125 in gift cards. Ultimately, when you signed up for e-mail promotions and paid with the gift card, you could routinely buy a combo meal for $5-$6, making it a solid bargain.

I have no idea when the El Toro location was built, but the place was huge, with multiple dining rooms, an arcade (featuring 1990s-era games) and a separate bakery. We ate there once every month or two, and even on a weekend night, the place was always empty. Even without COVID, it wouldn't have lasted much longer -- the lease was ending next year, and the leaseholder was looking into dividing the building into three separate establishments. And in January following the holidays, the restaurant temporarily closed for three weeks due to 'traditionally slow traffic post-holidays.'
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Re: Fuddrucker's and Luby's To Liquidate

Post by storewanderer »

Bagels wrote: September 26th, 2020, 7:17 pm Fuddruckers' demise isn't surprising. It's a legacy chain serving up mediocre food at menu pricing indifferent from its new, more modern competitors. In the markets it continued to reside in, there are literally dozens of other better options.

That said, we frequented the El Toro location. For the past several years, you could purchase Fuddrucker's gift cards from Sam's Club or Costco for at least a 25% discount (in amounts of $50 or more). Heck, at one point last year, we paid $65 for $125 in gift cards. Ultimately, when you signed up for e-mail promotions and paid with the gift card, you could routinely buy a combo meal for $5-$6, making it a solid bargain.

I have no idea when the El Toro location was built, but the place was huge, with multiple dining rooms, an arcade (featuring 1990s-era games) and a separate bakery. We ate there once every month or two, and even on a weekend night, the place was always empty. Even without COVID, it wouldn't have lasted much longer -- the lease was ending next year, and the leaseholder was looking into dividing the building into three separate establishments. And in January following the holidays, the restaurant temporarily closed for three weeks due to 'traditionally slow traffic post-holidays.'
I think all of the SoCal locations were corporate and got closed down. The ones left in NorCal are franchises. Some of the corporate locations do appear to still be open in other states.
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Re: Fuddrucker's and Luby's To Liquidate

Post by Bagels »

storewanderer wrote: September 26th, 2020, 10:08 pm I think all of the SoCal locations were corporate and got closed down. The ones left in NorCal are franchises. Some of the corporate locations do appear to still be open in other states.
Thank you for the correction -- I was under the impression that all Fuddrucker's were shuttered, but apparently that's not the case. At least not yet :).
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Re: Fuddrucker's and Luby's To Liquidate

Post by Alpha8472 »

The four restaurants in Northern California seem to be owned by one family.

They have vowed to remain open and still do catering.

I remember about 11 years ago when the very busy Fuddruckers in Daly City closed. It was totally cleaned out. Then due to a lease agreement, the restaurant was forced to reopen. They had to entirely remake the restaurant inside from scratch. Then it finally closed again. The restaurant was frequented by tons of teenagers and young adults from the 20 screen cinema next door. It had no shortage of customers, but the owners simply hated running the place.

People seemed to like the huge burgers and the exotic meats such as ostrich. The video games and arcade games attracted tons of customers. The environment was loud and crazy.
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Re: Fuddrucker's and Luby's To Liquidate

Post by storewanderer »

Bagels wrote: September 27th, 2020, 12:41 pm
storewanderer wrote: September 26th, 2020, 10:08 pm I think all of the SoCal locations were corporate and got closed down. The ones left in NorCal are franchises. Some of the corporate locations do appear to still be open in other states.
Thank you for the correction -- I was under the impression that all Fuddrucker's were shuttered, but apparently that's not the case. At least not yet :).
The corporate one in Sparks was slated to reopen in July and may have briefly reopened but it appears to be closed for good now. But the truck stop one in Sparks has been open the whole time. I have a feeling the truck stop knew the corporate one was ultimately going away, back when they installed their Fuddruckers a couple years ago. The truck stop one definitely does not have the atmosphere of the typical Fuddruckers at all. It is a conversion of a sit down restaurant; it was fully remodeled, but pretty sterile in there.
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Re: Fuddrucker's and Luby's To Liquidate

Post by storewanderer »

Last week went to the Fuddruckers in the truck stop in Sparks. It is still open. Only ordered fries/onion rings "Frings" (4.99) which were absolutely fantastic made in store onion rings and crisp well seasoned wedge fries that were equally fantastic. Packaged in a generic foam container but in a big Fuddruckers plastic bag with the "old" Fuddruckers logo. Also noticed the drink cups people were receiving had the "old" Fuddruckers logo, and the tissue paper in the package I received had the "old" Fuddruckers logo.

1/3lb Burger (alone) costs 8.99. Did not order that obviously. Didn't pay attention to drink prices. Fries alone are 3.59.

Fuddruckers was re-doing its logo right as Luby's went under so I was surprised to see so much use of the "old" logo.

The location didn't seem to have much going on in terms of current marketing, temporary menu items, promotions, or anything else. So I got curious about the status of the chain.

From what I can gather, the chain was assumed from bankrupt in 2020 Luby's by Black Titan Group in 2021 and they are in charge of the franchise network and assumed about 13 previously corporate operated locations. Most of those were in TX but one was in St. Louis (closed), one in VA (still open), and some in AZ (some open/some closed). These locations appear to be very troubled in recent posts. Reports of locations not having fountain soda, not having milkshakes, only accepting cash, selling frozen (not made in house) onion rings and chicken strips, and some comments on burger meat quality.

So I am wondering how it is this franchise unit I went to seems to be able to source the old Fuddruckers food items but the ones controlled by the corporate seem to not be doing that. That doesn't seem to make sense. It is as if a supply chain still exists and franchisees can use it, but the corporate units are doing something different.
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Re: Fuddrucker's and Luby's To Liquidate

Post by Alpha8472 »

Apparently there is one left in Concord, California near me. People say this one is well run and is still does good business. This one seems to be able to source good food. Perhaps the corporate run ones are cutting costs and using the cheapest suppliers it can find.

It would be sad if it closed down. The one in nearby Walnut Creek was closed to be converted to condos.

This once quiet city has been taken over by ugly tall condos. Most of them sit empty because they are so expensive. The condo craze has fizzled out and they overbuilt these condos.

The Nob Hill Foods in San Ramon was supposed to be bulldozed for housing. That stalled. The supermarket is still standing. New businesses are opening up in the building including a new Sports Clips. It seems like the building will still be here for a while. Starbucks is still open in the same shopping center. It was supposed to be bulldozed also.
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Re: Fuddrucker's and Luby's To Liquidate

Post by storewanderer »

They went on an apartment building binge in Reno during COVID and the results are not good. Rents have gone stagnant, thousands of new units will be finished in the coming months, and rental rates have not escalated to what was projected when these complexes were developed. I am hoping it drives rents down as rents in this market are way out of hand for the income levels, but we will see what happens. The condo thing sounds like it needs a similar reality check. The problem is the developers who developed these projects planned on bloated pricing that would keep going up 15% every year, so until they lose the projects, banks/US Government take the hit on loans, and new ownership takes the projects over for pennies on the dollar and puts realistic pricing in, there will be a lot of vacancies.

It appears the franchise Fuddrucker units are continuing on basically as they always have. The website seems to barely function, the website doesn't seem to lead to online ordering anymore, so it will be interesting to see how things go with these franchise units in the future. These must be pretty high volume units but I think food cost and expenses are high due to their ingredients and due to the large size of the locations.

The bay area ones were under one franchisee as I recall. There were others in Citrus Heights and Modesto that were under different franchisees. The SoCal units were all corporate.
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