Groceteria.com

Does anyone remember VIPS retaurants?? They were up and down the west coast and not sure about elsewhere in the mid seventies. Some even had Motels adjacent. they dissapeared though. Does anyone know how this chain orginated and why its demise?

I didn't realize they were ever in the U.S. They're huge in Mexico and owned by WalMart.

I was thinking about VIPS a few years ago and discovered the Mexican chain. I was never able to determine if they were related to the former chain in the Pacific Northwest or not (nor if they originated out of the Vip's Boy Boy franchise of New Mexico).

A number of the VIPS locations in the Pacific Northwest were on top of gas stations...mostly ARCO's. My family used to go to the Hood River location once in awhile. I remember ordering the chili dog platter at the age of...oh...eight...to much disgust from my father, who insisted I wouldn't eat it. They brought out this huge rectangular plate with FOUR HOT DOGS, lined up in buns, covered in chili. I think I managed two and a half.

I remember somebody saying something about a bankruptcy, but I don't know for sure. They seemed to be gone by 1992.

http://www.vips.com.mx/

I moved to Washington after Vip's was gone. However, several locations became Denny's. Many of them had signs that, if you looked closely, almost looked like an upside down version of the Denny's "shield" I have been told that they used the Vip's sign frames. These signs are disappearing though as Denny's updates them.

I once owned a truck that came with a "Vippy Bunny" sticker on the glove box.

There was once a different VIP'S Restaurant chain in the state of New Mexico that was a Big Boy Restaurant chain.

tesg wrote:I remember somebody saying something about a bankruptcy, but I don't know for sure. They seemed to be gone by 1992.

One of them (in Bremerton, Wash.) managed to hang on until 2002 -- http://www.kpbj.com/headlines/articles/ ... ED-06.html. (Scroll down to the end of the article.) This is the only VIP's I had ever encountered -- so I had no idea it had been part of a chain. Now that I remember it, they did use the Vippy Bunny in their newspaper advertising and he was on the menus as well.

After going out of business, the building sat vacant for a year or so. The back side of the restaurant directly abutted a side wall of the motel next door and the low-slung building was about half the size of a standard-issue Denny's. There was an L-shaped dining room (wrapping around part of the kitchen) to the left of the entrance and a lounge to the right. Does this type of building sound familiar? It was torn down for a Jack in the Box, which is extremely cramped on the postage stamp-sized lot. There can't be more than 10 parking spaces and a narrow drive-through lane.

By the way, I'd say people were split about 50-50 as to whether they called it Vip's or V-I-P's.