I missed it!

This hurts.  The last Arthur Treacher's fish and chips restaurant in the whole state of Ohio celebrated its 50th Anniversary on June 30.  Doggonit.  I would have moved heaven and earth to go to that.  Growing up, AT's was a favorite of mine.  

We weren't the most adventuresome eaters in my household.  Both of my parents - and I love them as the best parents who ever lived - were children of the Great Depression.  Therefore they developed rather mundane appetites.  It was meat and potatoes most meals.  Spaghetti (not pasta, spaghetti, for I was unaware of any other type of pasta for most of my youth), was a glaring exception.  That yielded a plate of spaghetti with a simple salad, bread and meat sauce.  Otherwise, pick from a dozen menus and add potatoes.  Even fish - always fried - was accompanied by fried potatoes. 

Our eating out stayed in the same culinary slow lanes.  Truck stops, diners, and steak houses were the norm.  I usually got a hot dog.  My parents got whatever fare was on the menu - with potatoes. So stuck to meat and potatoes was our daily diet that we never even ate casseroles - baked mac and cheese being the grand exception (and a dish I will not eat to this day). 

So you can imagine how out of the box awesome a place like Arthur Treacher's was.  It was named for the British actor known to most Americans as the befuddled constable in Disney's Mary Poppins.  Apparently he had little to do with the restaurant chain.  It was just marketing, seizing upon the popularity of the movie to draw in customers. 

It must have worked.  I remember almost every town in our neck of the woods sporting the old Arthur Treacher's lantern-like signpost. Eventually Long John Silver's came along and seems to have gobbled up the fast seafood chain market.  Over the years, most of the ATs I ate in closed - including the one where I usually ate in Marion.  Nonetheless, for much of my childhood, fish and chips and an old British actor were one and the same in my mind. 

I've often thought the reason why Mom broke with family tendencies and went there was because her and Dad always talked fondly about taking my sister to see Mary Poppins when she was little.  Also, I had a hunch Mom would have enjoyed a more adventuresome diet than the one we enjoyed.  Which is why one day when I was young, we stopped at a new place we noticed called Taco Bell.  But that's its own story.