22 Business View - November 2015
Roy Rogers Restaurants
An iconic brand is resurrected for a loyal clientele
“The Roy Rogers Show, starring Roy Rogers, King of the
Cowboys, Trigger, his golden palomino, and Dale Evans,
Queen of the West. With Pat Brady, his comical sidekick,
and Roy’s wonder dog, Bullet.”
That was the opening announcement that began every
Roy Rogers Show, an American Western television se-
ries that played for six seasons between 1951 and 1957.
For those old enough to remember those iconic, cowboy
episodes, they might also recall that while Roy and Dale
(whose horse was named Buttercup) generally travelled
on four powerful hooves, sidekick Brady rode upon four
wayward wheels. His jeep, which was named Nellybelle,
often misbehaved, speeding away driverless with Brady in
frantic pursuit. Thus the phrase: “Whoa, Nelly!” entered
into the colloquial lexicon of millions of American kids
who’d never actually seen a live horse.
Although this is not a story about Roy Rogers, the TV
show, but rather Roy Rogers, the restaurant chain, the
long, strange up-and-down trip over the last 47 years
that brought this classic American eatery from its earliest
beginnings till today, could better be likened to Brady’s
runaway jeep, than to the steady gallop of Roy’s golden
FRANCHISE
