Grandy's

Grandy's Country Cookin' (shortened to Grandy's) is a homestyle cooking and comfort food restaurant chain based in Nashville, Tennessee. History Grandy's was founded in 1972 by Walter E. Johnson and Rex E. Sanders, who became friends while working together as teenagers at a Dallas, Texas cafeteria. After launching and selling a successful chain of restaurants, the two young men created Grandy's, hoping to combine the efficiency of fast food with the ambiance of a full-service restaurant. Under the ownership of Saga Foods, Inc. a multi-concept restaurant firm who acquired Grandy's in 1983, Grandy's experienced its greatest growth surge, primarily in the 1980s, having at its zenith almost 200 stores. A buyout of Saga by Marriott Corporation led to a sell off of the Grandy's chain, along with other concepts owned by Saga, to American Restaurant Group. In the late 1990s, Grandy's, now over 20 years old, began to close older locations and remote markets that were underperforming. They retreated to the core markets of Texas and Oklahoma with a strong presence in southern Indiana and northern Kentucky. In 2000, American Restaurant Group sold Grandy's and three other subsidiaries to Spectrum Restaurant Group.