Once the leading name of fast food, Loi Rogers has expanded with 24 company-owned restaurants and 16 franchise restaurants in seven states.
The restaurant of Roy Rogers, a fast food chain named after “The Cowboy King,” is back.
Once a leading name for fast food with over 640 locations in the US, Loi Rogers is now expanding with 24 company-owned restaurants and 16 franchise restaurants in seven states. The newest location, which opened on June 25th in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, encountered a long queue despite the 100-degree heat.
The chain has been the first to return to the South Jersey or Philadelphia area since the 1990s. This led Marriott to sell the Loi Rogers chain to the Hardies for $365 million. “We are excited to make this long-standing return, and Cherry Hill is able to serve a growing diverse community and showcase the new generation the quality and diversity that makes Loy Rogers the cut above.”
After the acquisition, Hardee’s converted over 150 Roy Rogers restaurants to Hardee locations, selling over 350 locations to other restaurant chains such as Boston Chicken, Wendy’s and McDonald’s.
Then, in 2002, the brothers Jim and Pete Plamondon Jr. purchased the Loi Rogers brand from Hardy’s and began opening new Loi Rogers restaurants in the Mid-Atlantic, including Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Virginia. The restaurant’s legacy is run by the family as her father, Pete Sr., left Marriott in 1980 to open a Roy Rogers franchise in Frederick, Maryland.
The restaurant touts a “triple threat” approach of offering a bar of fixin to customize the dishes for burgers, roast beef and fried chicken.
“New guests are pleased with our diverse menu and high quality beef, burgers and chicken,” Jim Plamondon said in a press release.
The new Roy Rogers restaurant in Cherry Hill, New Jersey offers some “nostalgia”
After the grand opening ceremony, the Cherry Hill, New Jersey location opened with a line of cars wrapped around the building and walk-in customers regularly stretching their doors into the heat.
Miguel Rivera, a worker at Cherry Hill Township, took about an hour to get the takeout order. He showed up for “nostalgia” and enjoyed going to Roy Rogers’ outlet on the New Jersey turnpike during a family trip to New York City. “I wanted to have it again,” he said.
Customer Mark Orgivsky, who first lined up in the middle of the night, told Philadelphia Area TV station 6ABC:
The history of Roy Rogers
The first Loi Rogers restaurant chain opened in 1968 at Falls Church, Virginia. When Marriott bought a lobby restaurant in Fort Wayne, Indiana in the ’60s, but failed to secure the naming rights for them, Jim Plamondon told The Washington Post in 2016.
The Western-themed restaurant now has over 600 restaurants. When Marriott sold most of them in 1990, Plamondon maintained 15 franchises and then acquired the brand that came with 70 restaurants.
They cut down on the number of places and slowly expand.
“We have received an overwhelming number of requests from loyal Roy Rogers fans for the location of this sector and we are pleased to make that happen,” Joe Briglia, director of real estate and franchise development at the company, said in a statement. “We plan to expand further in the market based on this success.”
Contributed by: Celeste E. Whittaker and Jim Walsh, Cherry Hill Courier-Post
Mike Snyder is a reporter for the trending team at USA Today. You can follow him in the thread, send BlueSky, X with X and send him an email Bliss & @mikegsnider.bsky.social & @mikesnider &msnider@usatoday.com
What are you guys talking about? Sign up for our trending newsletter to get the latest news of the day
