Arthur Treacher’s Fish & Chips, a nearly defunct fast food chain once headquartered in Jacksonville, is attempting a comeback.
The chain, which once had more than 800 restaurants, began 2025 with just two locations before recently opening a third in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, according to reports from several Ohio news outlets.
The company founded in Ohio had two other restaurants in the state in Garfield Heights and Cuyahoga Falls and is opening one more restaurant in Columbus, where it began in 1969.
Then publicly traded Arthur Treacher’s Inc. moved its headquarters from Ohio to Jacksonville in 1993 and remained there until it moved again to Lake Success, New York, after a merger in 2000.
It still had 161 restaurants when it left Jacksonville.
Arthur Treacher was an English character actor who was well known in the U.S. as the announcer and sidekick to Merv Griffin on “The Merv Griffin Show.”
He lent his name to the restaurant company’s founders, who wanted a well-known British name to reflect its fish and chips image.
The chain was popular in the 1970s and grew to 826 stores at its peak, according to Wikipedia, but financial problems led to a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing in 1983.
Arthur Treacher’s went through several ownership changes after emerging from bankruptcy before a new investment group gained control and brought the headquarters to Jacksonville, with plans to revive and grow the chain again.
However, the company continued to lose money. The investment group started an internet business and renamed the company Digital Creative Development Corp., with Arthur Treacher’s as a subsidiary.
The company agreed in 2000 to buy a restaurant chain called Pudgie’s Famous Chicken and merge it with Arthur Treacher’s, and moved the restaurant unit’s headquarters to the Pudgie’s office in Lake Success.
New York City-based Digital Creative Development was considering spinning off Arthur Treacher’s as a separate public company. According to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing for the proposed spinoff, which was not completed, Arthur Treacher’s had sales of $13.5 million and a loss from continuing operations of $3.1 million in the fiscal year ended June 30, 2000.
In 2002, Digital Creative Development sold Arthur Treacher’s to a company controlled by Jeffrey Bernstein, who had been Pudgie’s CEO and became CEO of Arthur Treacher’s after the merger.
Bernstein’s company, PAT Services Inc., paid $100 plus the assumption of liabilities and a waiver of certain stock conversion rights Bernstein received in the merger to acquire Arthur Treacher’s.
PAT Services then sold Arthur Treacher’s in 2006 to Jericho, New York-based Nathan’s Famous Inc., the chain of hot dog restaurants, for $1.25 million.
Nathan’s still owns the brand and according to its annual report, Arthur Treacher’s Fish & Chips were available in 27 Nathan’s restaurants as a co-brand as of March 30.
The Nathan’s chain had 234 restaurants, mostly franchised, in 17 states and 12 foreign countries.
Digital Creative Development changed its name in 2014 to Tumbleweed Holdings Inc.
Tumbleweed said in its annual report it had no operating business and was seeking acquisition opportunities. It stopped filing SEC reports after 2015.
But the Arthur Treacher’s Fish & Chips chain, which dwindled and nearly disappeared after leaving Jacksonville 25 years ago, lives on.
The Kraft Heinz Co., which said in May it was exploring strategic transactions to unlock shareholder value, is planning to spin off parts of the company, according to a July 11 Wall Street Journal report.
The food products giant has considered a number of major transactions in recent years, including a possible sale of its Maxwell House coffee business.
Its century-old facility at 735 E. Bay St. in Downtown Jacksonville is its last remaining U.S. Maxwell House plant.
Maxwell House and other iconic Kraft Heinz brands, including Oscar Meyer meats and Kraft cheeses, are seen as stagnating and could be spun off into a separate company, according to the Journal.
Other products such as sauces, dressings and condiments are growing faster, and would remain intact as part of the current company.
Kraft Heinz does not report specific sales for Maxwell House but said its coffee business, which includes other brands such as Gevalia, had a 6% drop in sales last year to $835 million.
Coffee accounted for 3% of total Kraft Heinz sales.
Kraft Heinz was formed by the 2015 merger of Kraft Foods Group and H.J. Heinz Co.
Kraft had owned Maxwell House since it merged with General Foods, then the owner of the coffee brand, in 1989.
The Jacksonville plant has survived several downsizing moves in the Maxwell House business since that merger, including a decision in 1990 to close either the Jacksonville facility or Maxwell House’s other East Coast plant in Hoboken, New Jersey.
City business and political leaders started a “Keep Max in Jax” campaign to demonstrate its commitment to manufacturing jobs, and it helped convince the company to close the Hoboken plant instead.
Maxwell House continued to downsize in the 2000s, selling off a plant in Houston in 2006 and closing its last other U.S. facility in San Leandro, California, in 2017.
Financial news services reported beginning in February 2019 that Kraft Heinz wanted to sell off Maxwell House. The company never commented on those reports but it apparently couldn’t get the price it wanted, so it called off the sale and kept the business and the Jacksonville plant.
Reuters news service reported in May that Kraft Heinz is spending $3 billion to upgrade its U.S. plants and the company confirmed by email the program includes all 30 of its U.S. facilities, including the Maxwell House plant in Jacksonville.
Maxwell House has operated a plant at the Bay Street site since 1924.
About a week after the company said it planned upgrades to the plant, Kraft Heinz announced it was considering strategic alternatives.
The Journal story said the company has struggled since the merger of Kraft and Heinz, with the stock down more than 60% in the last 10 years.
Kraft Heinz CEO Carlos Abrams-Rivera said in a May 20 news release the company’s goal is to achieve profitable long-term growth and value creation.
“Consistent with this goal, over the past several months we have been evaluating potential strategic transactions to unlock shareholder value,” he said.
Kraft Heinz’s stock fell $1.27 to $26.63 the day after that announcement but after dropping to a morning low of $25.94 on July 11, it jumped as much as $1.63 to a high of $27.57 after the Journal story came out in the afternoon.
CNBC has joined the ranks of financial news outlets valuing sports franchises and in a story posted online July 8, it said Shad Khan has the world’s 13th largest sports empire with a value of $9.88 billion.
Besides owning the Jacksonville Jaguars, Khan also owns British Premier League soccer team Fulham FC and professional wrestling organization All Elite Wrestling.
CNBC did not give any more details on Khan’s holdings.
Forbes magazine had been ranking sports empires annually and said in 2024 Khan had the 11th largest empire valued at $8.25 billion.
Besides the sports franchises, Khan’s assets include Illinois-based auto parts company Flex-N-Gate Corp.
Forbes in April estimated Khan’s total net worth at $13.4 billion, making him the 175th richest person in the world.
In the CNBC sports empire list, Khan ranked just behind another owner of a Florida NFL team and a Premier League team.
The Glazer family ranked 12th at $10 billion with its ownership of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and iconic soccer team Manchester United.
Kroenke Sports & Entertainment, owned by Stanley Kroenke, was the largest sports empire at $21.2 billion.
Kroenke owns the Los Angeles Rams and Premier League’s Arsenal, but also owns the NHL’s Colorado Avalanche and the NBA’s Denver Nuggets.
Some shareholders of REC Silicon ASA accepted a buyout offer from the Norway-based company’s largest shareholders.
But Jacksonville-based investment firm Water Street Capital Inc., which has gained control of the company’s board of directors, said it continues to pursue a higher offer.
Hanwha Solutions Corp., which owned a third of REC Silicon’s stock, offered to buy the remaining shares for 2.20 Norwegian kroner each.
Water Street, which controls 8.26% of the stock, said the offer was too low and launched a proxy fight, winning three of five seats on REC Silicon’s board last month.
REC Silicon announced July 14 it received acceptances for the Hanwha offer representing 43.94% of the stock, including the shares already owned by Hanwha.
The announcement said Hanwha has paid the shareholders who accepted the offer.
REC Silicon said in a July 7 announcement that the board of directors approached representatives of Hanwha “with the aim of having Hanwha increase the Offer Price to fully reflect the Company’s underlying value, but without any success.”
That announcement from REC Silicon said the board has confirmed the company is in need of additional financing after Hanwha said it would not provide additional loans to the company.
It said the board has had discussions with an investment bank about alternative financial solutions.
Water Street indicated in a July 8 news release that it would continue seeking a higher offer for the company.
“Given the opportunity to bring the assets of REC Silicon to market, Water Street remains confident that the proper value of the Company’s Polysilicon and Silane gas businesses will be ascribed,” it said.