16. Kentucky Fried Chicken (3890 S. State Street — Salt Lake City, Utah)
Colonel Harland Sanders began selling fried chicken made with his secret recipe from a roadside restaurant in Corbin, Kentucky during the Great Depression. It wasn’t until 1952, however, that Sanders opened the first Kentucky Fried Chicken in Utah. The Salt Lake City location is still a KFC and boasts a display showcasing one of the Colonel’s trademark white suits and a statue of him and Dave Thomas, an early franchise owner who came up with the “rotating bucket” sign (and founded his own fast food chain, Wendy’s).
17. Panda Express (3214 Glendale Galleria — Glendale, California)
In 1973, Chinese immigrants Andrew Cherng and his father Ming Tsai Cherng opened the Panda Inn restaurant in Pasadena, California. After ten years of providing the Los Angeles area with upscale sit-down meals, management for the Glendale Galleria asked the Cherngs to consider creating a fast-food version of their restaurant. They agreed, and now no trip to the mall is complete without a delicious free sample of unidentifiable goodness.
18. Subway (North End — Bridgeport, Connecticut)
Looking for a way to pay for college, 17-year-old Fred DeLuca borrowed $1000 from Dr. Peter Buck and opened Pete’s Super Submarines in Bridgeport, Connecticut. By 1968, just three years after the restaurant’s inception, the two added four shops and shortened the name to Subway. DeLuca never became the doctor he set out to be, but he did receive an honorary doctorate from the University of Bridgeport in 2002. The original Subway is no longer there, but those looking to “Eat Fresh” have over 40,000 other locations to choose from.
19. Little Caesars (32594 Cherry Hill Rd — Garden City, Michigan)
In 1959, brothers Mike and Marshall Ilitch opened the first Little Caesars in a Garden City, Michigan strip mall. Mike wanted to call it “Pizza Cheap,” but Marshall (and good sense) won out with Little Caesar’s Pizza Treat. While the name was shortened, the demand for their “Pizza! Pizza!” has stayed strong. In 2008, Little Caesars filled an order from the VF Corporation for 13,386 pizzas. You can still pick up a “Hot-n-Ready” ‘za from the original location, but as one Yelp-user remarked, “It should be ‘hot and ready in 8 minutes.’” Et tu, Dave K?
20. Tim Hortons (65 Ottawa Street N. — Hamilton, Ontario, Canada)
The first Tim Hortons was founded under the name Tim Horton Donuts in 1964. The owner, a professional hockey player, was a member of the NHL’s Toronto Maple Leafs. Despite being an active athlete, Horton was able to juggle both careers thanks to his business partner Ron Joyce, a former Hamilton police constable. Tim Horton Donuts was eventually shortened to “Tim Horton’s,” which was eventually further truncated to “Tim Hortons” to maintain uniformity in the name of all their locations while also complying with the language laws of Quebec. The original location still operates as a Tim Hortons, but Ottawa Street N is now honorarily named “Tim Hortons Way.” Also: Tim Horton originally sold hamburgers.