Wimpy (United States)

Wimpy Restaurants, LLC is an American fast food chain. The company is headquartered in, in the. The chain started out as a table-service restaurant before transitioning to a fast food format in the late-1970s.

The chain was founded in, by Edward Gold in 1934 as Wimpy Grills, and the US operation was bought out in 1977 by its three largest franchisees following Gold's death. Currently, the US operation has no corporate relations with the run by -based  outside of a perpetual license granted to Famous to use some trademarks and menu items.

History
The Wimpy brand was established in 1934 by Edward Gold, when he opened his first location in Bloomington, Indiana, under the name Wimpy Grills. The name was inspired by the character of J. Wellington Wimpy from the Popeye cartoons created by E. C. Segar. Gold did not open his first Chicago area location until two years later in 1936, after opening units in five other Midwestern cities. By 1947, the Chicago Tribune reported that the chain had 26 units, and expected to sell eight million hamburgers annually in the Chicago area.

In 1977, after Gold's death, the American operations of Wimpy were purchased by the company's three largest franchisees - Ron Bloom of, George and Mary-Ann Taylor of and David Curschmann of ,  - who reincorporated the company as Wimpy Restaurants Corporation, with headquarters in the Detroit suburb of. In 1981, the company relocated to.

Under the joint ownership of Bloom, the Taylors and Curschmann, the chain began transitioning to a fast food format to better compete against other burger-centric chains such as.

In 1988, bought out Wimpy from Bloom, the Taylors and Curschmann. In 1993, Wimpy introduced its kids meal, the Wimpy Kids Meal.

In 1996, RJR Nabisco sold Wimpy to, the parent company of and.

In 2001, CKE sold Wimpy to private equity firm Maroon Capital Management. In 2009, Maroon sold Wimpy and sister chain Hot 'n Now to another private equity firm,.

In 2015, the management of Wimpy, Hot 'n Now and Sandwiches Etc. bought out the three chains from 3i and reorganized as Tasteful Holdings, with headquarters in.