Wimpy was once a familiar sight on British high streets, serving generations of families long before today’s coffee shops and fast-food chains became ubiquitous. Many of its contemporaries have since disappeared, but Wimpy survives – still serving some of the dishes that made it famous and offering a surprisingly direct link to a different era of eating out.
Drive around East Anglia and you may still see the empty roadside spaces that were once home to Little Chefs or Happy Eater. Walk along almost any high street and you may find a shop that someone remembers as a former Pizzaland or Spudulike.
In their place you may find a Costa Coffee, a Caffè Nero, or a Starbucks. These franchises offer hot drinks and cakes with the luxury of not being rushed to depart. Yet some restaurant chains have endured despite having to close some of their outlets.
Despite closing in Wisbech, Wendy’s is still available in Cambridge, and Frankie & Benny’s is still present in the UK, but not in East Anglia after its Romford branch closed earlier this year. Despite retrenchment and changing habits, one restaurant brand that was once prominent in the region still exists and offers something different, seemingly by not changing that much.
A popular choice
Once upon a time, or more exactly in the 1980s, you could not walk through the south-east of Essex and not encounter a “Wimpy” restaurant. It far outnumbered the rival McDonald’s chain in the area and, much to the joy of parents, seemed more welcoming, especially as the food came on a plate and you were offered a knife and fork. In my own case, it was a regular order of a “Half Pounder with Chips and no sauce” that helped me through the rigours of the working week. When I returned a few years later, they remembered the order, much to the amusement of my friends.
This is not surprising: although Wimpy was an American-inspired fast-food chain and took its name from Popeye the Sailor’s burger-eating friend, it was also linked to something very British indeed.
The first Wimpy opened in the Strand, London, in a Lyons Corner House in 1954. At the time, Wimpy was owned by J. Lyons & Co. and was the first hamburger chain to be set up in the UK. It rapidly became known as the “home of the hamburger”.
J. Lyons & Co. was known for its tea rooms. These cafés were famous for their relaxed atmosphere, branded teas and cakes. While they would dwindle in number by the 1970s, it was not uncommon to hear older parents lament the loss of places like the Lyons Tea Rooms, where families with young children could go after dropping older children at school. They were a quintessentially British institution.
In addition to the tea rooms, the company also produced Lyons Maid ice-creams. After its heyday following the Second World War, it began a programme of expansion into Europe and America, as well as in the UK. To help with distribution, it developed, built and operated the world’s first business computer, which it called LEO (Lyons Electronic Office). Yet, as with all expansions, there also came a contraction.
J. Lyons & Co. faced financial pressure during the 1970s due to increased debt from overexpansion. A number of the tea rooms were converted into Wimpy restaurants, and the chain was soon sold off, beginning a series of sales to different companies. By the early 1990s, some outlets that offered only takeaway or limited seating would become Burger King restaurants.
It is perhaps ironic that one challenge to the fast-food chains has come from an American reimagining of the very tea rooms that consumers turned their backs on 50 years ago.
Tastes change
It is hard to explain to someone born this century that there was a time when McDonald’s only seemed to offer burgers, and the Filet-O-Fish was considered something exotic and almost magical. The same wide-eyed disbelief struck again in 1984 with the introduction of Chicken McNuggets. Trying to explain that one day there would be a salad option or a wrap would have been greeted with disbelief.
Yet while McDonald’s has innovated and even offered novelty items such as the McDonald’s Pizza and its Indian-inspired selection, Wimpy has remained remarkably consistent in its menu while still moving with the times. Classics ranging from the Half Pounder with Chips to the ‘Bendy & Cheese’ remain, but there are vegan options and, of course, wraps.
So if you find yourself in one of the locations in the region where a Wimpy restaurant continues to serve its food, take a moment at lunchtime or one afternoon to go inside. It may help conjure up memories of childhood birthday parties or weekday lunches at work, or it could be a new experience altogether. From Rayleigh in Essex all the way to King’s Lynn in Norfolk, those opportunities remain if you look carefully.
One thing is certain: should they ever vanish from our high streets, we will never see their like again, and that would be unfortunate.
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