Despite claiming to serve “the world’s greatest hamburgers,” Fuddruckers has shrunk from hundreds of locations across the country to just 44 restaurants today.
“Fuddruckers is the Blockbuster of the burger world,” Las Vegas-based business coach Brad Sugars told Fox News Digital.
Restaurateur Phil Romano, founder of Romano’s Macaroni Grill, opened the first Fuddruckers in Texas in 1979, and the chain grew rapidly in the 1980s.
Fuddruckers operated between 200 and 500 locations at its peak in the late ’80s, according to Tasting Table.
The company began to struggle and changed owners several times.
Luby’s acquired Fuddruckers in 2010 after its parent company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
Luby’s has announced that it will liquidate Fuddruckers in 2020, and businessman Nicholas Perkins — through his Houston-based company, Black Titan Franchise Systems — bought the chain in 2021 for a reported $18.5 million.
“I think with a new, reinvigorated management team, with a strategic plan … we’re going to be able to put our brand on offense and not be as defensive as we’ve been in recent years,” Perkins told the Houston Chronicle at the time.
The COVID-19 pandemic has hit Fuddruckers, as it has many restaurants. The National Restaurant Association reported that six months into the pandemic, 100,000 restaurants had closed — either permanently or temporarily.
Sugar, who owns two restaurants, said Fuddruckers has failed to adapt to changing customer preferences – both in the food consumers want and how they want to consume it.
“One of the biggest challenges in the restaurant game is with the times, and the bigger the business, the harder it is,” Sugars said. “It’s a rare breed that goes on for 10, 20, 30, 40 years without changing.”
Sugar points to Domino’s as an example of a restaurant that listens to customers and has evolved accordingly.
After admitting its pizza quality had declined, Domino’s improved its food while adding wings, pizza bites, hot sandwiches and other menu items, Sugar said.
The company has also built customer loyalty by being “a technology company that sells pizza,” Sugars said — while creating an app that’s “better” than competitors.
“In a world where delivery has become an expectation for everyone in every restaurant, Domino’s went from competing with other pizza companies to competing with every type of food that can be delivered to Postmates, Grubhub, etc.,” he said.
Domino’s has also invested in research into customer habits, Shukela said. Like Amazon, Domino’s knows “what to buy and when,” allowing it to target shoppers more effectively.
“I don’t see the Fuddruckers app,” said Sugar.
Still, Fuddruckers has some fans left.
A Reddit forum last year asked, “What happened to Fuddruckers? I thought the food was really good, but it looks like everything is closing.”
Commenters suggested Fuddruckers’ large, warehouse-style atmosphere — akin to a “themed restaurant” — did not appeal to customers.
Someone who claimed to be in charge of the original franchise wrote that “special concepts have a shelf life. As unique as the original Fudds was, it probably ran its course.”
