Arthur Treacher’s Fish & Chips

Arthur Treacher’s Fish & Chips is a long-running American quick-service seafood concept built around a simple British-style fish and chips menu. Today the brand operates as a very small chain with a focus on licensed, co-branded, and virtual deployments supported by Nathan’s Famous rather than a traditional franchise-led expansion program.

The concept was founded in 1969 in Columbus, Ohio, by S. Robert Davis and partners Dave Thomas and L. S. Hartzog. From the start, the goal was straightforward: recreate the feel of a London fish-and-chip shop for U.S. customers. The company secured exclusive rights to a historic Malin’s of Bow recipe from London, which shaped its signature product and helped define the brand’s early identity.

Arthur Treacher’s grew rapidly in the 1970s, reaching more than 800 locations at its peak and becoming one of the country’s best-known quick-service seafood chains. Ownership changed several times as the business passed through grocery and restaurant companies and investor groups. Franchise disputes, changing strategies, and multiple bankruptcies in the 1980s and 1990s caused a steady contraction in the store base and limited new unit development.

In the 1990s the brand experimented with menu updates and co-branded locations, including a period of pairing with Arby’s. These tests helped extend the brand’s life in certain markets but did not return it to national scale. In 2002 the trademark-holding company was purchased by PAT Franchise Systems, which began licensing the name in a smaller geographic footprint. A key milestone followed in 2006, when Nathan’s Famous obtained exclusive rights to market Arthur Treacher’s products as part of its own restaurant platform, while PAT retained limited franchise rights.

As of January 2025, Arthur Treacher’s has only three stand-alone locations, primarily in Ohio and New York, and these stores are largely legacy units rather than new construction. In recent years the brand has evolved from a traditional, store-driven chain to a portfolio element within the Nathan’s Famous system. Nathan’s has been relaunching Arthur Treacher’s as a ghost kitchen and virtual brand, using existing kitchens to serve the classic fish and chips menu and leaving open the possibility of future brick-and-mortar opportunities.

For landlords, brokers, and developers, Arthur Treacher’s now functions less as a source of large, multi-unit site demand and more as a niche concept that can fill or sustain select locations. The remaining physical restaurants tend to occupy smaller, second-generation quick-service spaces or freestanding pads in established trade areas. Any new activity tied to the brand is likely to come through selective licensing, co-branding with Nathan’s and affiliated concepts, or virtual-kitchen deployments rather than a broad, national rollout of new-store prototypes.