Marie Callender's
Encyclopedia
Marie Callender’s is a restaurant chain with 74 locations in seven western statesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. One East Side Mario’s
East Side Mario's
East Side Mario's is a Canadian casual dining restaurant, managed by its parent holding company Prime Restaurants, which operates in Canada and the United States. The restaurant specializes in Italian-American cuisine. Individual locations claim to recreate the historic ambiance found at the corner...
restaurant also is part of the chain, a remnant of the period (1997-2000) when the chain owned the ESM concept, purchased from Pepsico.
The type of cuisine served is mainly American
Cuisine of the United States
American cuisine is a style of food preparation originating from the United States of America. European colonization of the Americas yielded the introduction of a number of ingredients and cooking styles to the latter...
, although many of the dishes are slanted towards styles of preparation that resemble Italian
Italian cuisine
Italian cuisine has developed through centuries of social and political changes, with roots as far back as the 4th century BCE. Italian cuisine in itself takes heavy influences, including Etruscan, ancient Greek, ancient Roman, Byzantine, Jewish and Arab cuisines...
, Mexican
Mexican cuisine
Mexican cuisine, a style of food that originates in Mexico, is known for its varied flavors, colourful decoration and variety of spices and ingredients, most of which are native to the country. The cuisine of Mexico has evolved through thousands of years of blending indigenous cultures, with later...
, French
French cuisine
French cuisine is a style of food preparation originating from France that has developed from centuries of social change. In the Middle Ages, Guillaume Tirel , a court chef, authored Le Viandier, one of the earliest recipe collections of Medieval France...
, Cajun
Cajun cuisine
Cajun cuisine is the style of cooking named for the French-speaking Acadian or "Cajun" immigrants deported by the British from Acadia in Canada to the Acadiana region of Louisiana, USA. It is what could be called a rustic cuisine — locally available ingredients predominate, and preparation...
, or Chinese
Chinese cuisine
Chinese cuisine is any of several styles originating in the regions of China, some of which have become highly popular in other parts of the world – from Asia to the Americas, Australia, Western Europe and Southern Africa...
. Soups and sandwiches are available as meals or à la carte. The eatery also is known as Marie Callender’s Pies; they are signature items on the dessert menu: there are over 30 varieties available. Pies can be purchased whole or by-the-slice.
Marie Callender’s began in 1948 in Orange County, California
Orange County, California
Orange County is a county in the U.S. state of California. Its county seat is Santa Ana. As of the 2010 census, its population was 3,010,232, up from 2,846,293 at the 2000 census, making it the third most populous county in California, behind Los Angeles County and San Diego County...
, as a wholesale outlet for selling pies to other restaurants. Eventually, Don Callender
Don Callender
Don Callender was an American restaurateur and co-founder of the Marie Callender's chain of restaurants and Babe's Bar-B-Que & Brewery barbecue restaurant in Rancho Mirage, California....
(who founded the business venture and named it after his mother), opened a retail outlet in Orange, California
Orange, California
Southern California is well-known for year-round pleasant weather: - On average, the warmest month is August. - The highest recorded temperature was in 1985. - On average, the coolest month is December. - The lowest recorded temperature was in 1950...
, gradually adding other food. In later years, a typical restaurant would have a fully stocked bar
Bar (establishment)
A bar is a business establishment that serves alcoholic drinks — beer, wine, liquor, and cocktails — for consumption on the premises.Bars provide stools or chairs that are placed at tables or counters for their patrons. Some bars have entertainment on a stage, such as a live band, comedians, go-go...
, or saloon, serving alcoholic beverage
Alcoholic beverage
An alcoholic beverage is a drink containing ethanol, commonly known as alcohol. Alcoholic beverages are divided into three general classes: beers, wines, and spirits. They are legally consumed in most countries, and over 100 countries have laws regulating their production, sale, and consumption...
s. This is in contrast to family restaurants like Denny's
Denny's
Denny's is a full-service coffee shop/family restaurant chain. It operates over 1,500 restaurants in the United States , Canada, Curaçao, Costa Rica, Honduras, Jamaica, Japan , Mexico, New Zealand, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates.Denny's is known for always being...
or Village Inn
Village Inn
Village Inn is a casual dining restaurant chain in the United States. Its restaurants are known for their breakfast menu items, including buttermilk pancakes, skillets, crepes, omelettes, and eggs. In additional to their breakfast offerings, they also feature a variety of salads, sandwiches,...
, which generally do not serve alcoholic beverages. A salad bar
Salad bar
A salad bar is a buffet-style table or counter at a restaurant or food market on which salad components are provided for customers to assemble their own salad plates...
is also a staple.
Marie and her son Don lived in a trailer park off Beach Boulevard in Huntington Beach
Huntington Beach, California
Huntington Beach is a seaside city in Orange County in Southern California. According to the 2010 census, the city population was 189,992; making it the largest beach city in Orange County in terms of population...
. Marie baked and sold pies to augment the family, with Don delivering pies to customers on his bicycle. The business flourished, until Don died from complications of a fall at his home.
The company's history, of a woman in California baking pies for friends, then for restaurants, then opening a chain of restaurants, has a similarity to the novel and movie Mildred Pierce
Mildred Pierce
Mildred Pierce is a 1941 hardboiled novel by James M. Cain. It was made into an Oscar-winning 1945 film starring Joan Crawford and a 2011 Emmy-winning miniseries starring Kate Winslet.-Plot :...
, which appeared years before the Callender story began.
The interiors of the chain's earlier restaurants are decorated with antiques circa 1900, providing a theme that is reminiscent of Victorian
Victorian era
The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...
England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
as well as early America. Later restaurants reflect a more modern, clean interior with photos of food.
In 1986, the restaurant chain was sold to Ramada Inn, then in 1990, to Wilshire Restaurant Group, Inc.. The private equity firm Saunders Karp & Megrue LLP (now known as Karp/Reilly) purchased a controlling interest in 1993.
For years the chain licensed its name for shelf-stable and frozen foods. Various product licenses were included in a sale to ConAgra Foods, Inc. in 1994 for $90 million. The name Marie Callender's was retained for the food line following the division's sale. In 2010, its Cheesy Chicken & Rice was pulled due to a salmonella
Salmonella
Salmonella is a genus of rod-shaped, Gram-negative, non-spore-forming, predominantly motile enterobacteria with diameters around 0.7 to 1.5 µm, lengths from 2 to 5 µm, and flagella which grade in all directions . They are chemoorganotrophs, obtaining their energy from oxidation and reduction...
outbreak.
Marie Callender Pie Shops, Inc. was purchased from SKM in 1999 by an affiliate of Castle Harlan
Castle Harlan
Castle Harlan is a private equity firm based in New York that focuses on buyouts and growth capital investments in middle-market companies across a range of industries. Founded in 1987, invests in controlling interests in middle-market companies in North America and Europe, as well as in...
, a New York-based private equity
Private equity
Private equity, in finance, is an asset class consisting of equity securities in operating companies that are not publicly traded on a stock exchange....
firm. In 2006 Castle Harlan merged Marie Callender's with another of its interests, Perkins Family Restaurants. The combined chain, known as Perkins & Marie Callender's Inc. is headquartered in Memphis, Tennessee. The current CEO of PMCI is restaurant industry veteran Joseph F. ("Jay") Trungale. Former Morton's Restaurant Group chairman and CEO Allen Bernstein serves as non-executive chairman; Bernstein also serves as a director of California-based Cheesecake Factory, Inc.
Other CEOs of Marie Callender's following Don Callender included attorney/investor Roger Mercier (1989-1993), former IBM executive Walter F. Strycker (1993-1994), restaurant finance guru Leonard H. Dreyer (1994-2001) and casual chain executive Phillip Ratner (2001-2006); after leaving Callender's Ratner continued his restaurant career by becoming a 30-unit developer in southern California for Five Guys Burgers & Fries.
Don Callender died on January 7, 2009. Don fell at his home and struck his head. He never completely recovered from his fall.
Bankruptcy
On June 12, 2011, 31 underperforming company-owned restaurants closed. The closures came that afternoon, and there were reports of it being mid-meal for some customers. Apparently, a corporate worker came down and they simply got ready to close the doors. The next day, the parent company announced that they have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, citing a weak economic climate. Comments left on the company’s FacebookFacebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
page were very critical of the sudden shutterings. A few days later the firm decided to close 13 locations, leaving 74 operating, mostly in California.