I never heard of Rax, but their story is sorta tragic.
Their marketing guy okayed an ad campaign conjured up by a young NYC advertising firm.
You know that old saying, “it was so bad, it was good”? This wasn’t that. The ad campaign sucked.
26 Comments on The Commercial That Killed a Fast Food Franchise
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never hear of them, and now i know why.
“if you tasted Mrs Delicious you’d eat here too”…LOLOLOL Great humor though.
I think I saw some Rax restaurants but I never ate at one.
Was Mr.Delicious the problem, or the fact that their commercial had a guy drive up to the window in a ‘62 Corvair?
We had a Rax in town for about a week. It folded up and became a Skippers. That lasted a couple of years, then it but the dust. After that, it Was turned into a Mom and Pop’s restaurant, then it too went out of biz. They finally tore down the building. I feel really old when I witness a building go through its whole life cycle.
the ’62(?) Corvair in the drive-thru line killed it
Mr. D was a total wack-a-doodle perv dad that the whole neighborhood avoided (especially the kids) back in the day … the one guy that was the coach of a little league team (that no one wanted to be on), always wearing a whistle, a boy scout troop leader, the neighborhood Civil Defense Bomb Shelter Captain, school crossing guard & the local rocket-club sponsor
Mr. Jagger & Mr. Richards knew him well …
“Lord, I was dancing, dancing, dancing so free
Dancing, dancing, dancing so free
Dancing, Lord, keep your hand off me
Dancing with Mr. D”
When I grow up I want to be Mr. Delicious.
In my hometown, Rax took over the building that housed Burger Chef until it folded. I remember eating there a few times but I have no recall of those commercials.
Yes, a spaghetti bar.
Funny how the “M” in “Mr. D” looked like McDonalds arches.
Rax restaurants used to be about as numerous as Arby’s restaurants, and mostly had similar menus. But they seemed to have almost disappeared during the six years I was in the USN. I never knew the reason. The pervy Mr. D is a prime suspect.
When my son was young I would sometimes say Rax when I was referring to an Arby’s restaurant, and my son would wonder what the heck I was talking about because he had never seen a Rax restaurant.
But there are still a few of them around. The only ones I recall seeing in recent years is one just north of Pikeville, Ky (I no longer work down that way so I’m assuming it is still in business), and there is one in Circleville, Ohio. I see when I go to visit my son who now lives in NW Ohio. I think both of them would be along US-23, but about 3 hours drive apart.
My Aunt was hired for a Manager position at one of the Michigan stores. They folded after a little more than a year. Ate there a couple times. Had good food.
always surprises me how little teevee I watched during that era.. I remember RAX “restaurants” but don’t remember a single commercial.
I don’t think Rax made it out west. The worst part of this virus nonsense for me is the death of the salad bar. I hear there’s finally a buffet back in Vegas but it’s like 50 bucks and you can’t handle your plate – you have to point at what you want and they get a scoop of it for you. No thanks.
..Mr. D would have to be a black trans lesbian with purple hair and a backpack full of Molotov cocktails and frozen water bottles is they did this today, and you would be required to eat at a RAX to prove you’re not a racist homophobe, plus they’d find a way to get tax money to keep them afloat as they sold vegan meals and spiked drinks served to police officers…the only way they could have made the weird, pervy White guy work is if they changed his name to “Joe” and made the character “Mr. Democrat”, the media would give them all KINDS of free advertising if they did THAT…
I think Mr. D is hysterical. I dont recall the commercials but I do remember the chain.
From the name, I was envisioning a Hooter’s knock-off. Mr. D might have worked for that.
I did not taste that woman, Mrs. Delicious
Anybody remember Herb? Burger King introduced Herb in the mid eighty’s as the nerd that had never eaten a hamburger, so naturally he was exactly who you wanted selling hamburgers! This ad campaign was a total flop that BK would rather not talk about! Now they have the Gay king instead…
Rax put Arby’s to shame. I haven’t seen one since the mid-80s.
They suffer from what too many restaurants do. Namely, not foxusing on what they do best.
If you got to a fast food restaurant with a four page menu or a sit down restaurant with a six page menu, most cannot juggle that many choices. Or it’s a xhain with a bunch of pre-prepared boil or microwave and eat garbage.
Trying to be all things to all people is a recipe for failure.
There were several Rax restaurants here in the Akron OH area, including one right down the street from me. Decent roast beef sandwiches like Arby’s, plus a great salad bar. Was able to make great nachos with chips, salsa and cheese sauce from that bar. Really miss that place. :^(
Who in their right mind drives a pink Corvair. And Mr. Delicious looks like Dan Ackroyd in a spoof of fast food commercials on old episodes of Saturday Night Live.
Was Mr. D a
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70nluGiYjjc
I was a plumber.
I worked in every kind of cafeteria, restaurant, mess hall, snack bar, roach coach … whatever … one of the major reasons I try to NEVER eat out. Filthy, fucked up, spitting, pissing, dipping rats, meat and taters off the floor, those stinking black mats, industrial dish machines with 3/8″ of crud, … don’t want to think about it.
If you can’t stand the filth, stay outta the kitchen!
izlamo delenda est …
We used to take our kids to Rax in the mid 1990’s. It was good, but the times were tough on fast food places. So many went out of business for a variety of reasons. Usually bad upper management and the need to keep the stock prices up. Mostly like what we’ve seen recently with brick and mortar retailers. An alternative way to do what was done in the past came along and those that didn’t adapt, closed.
@Cliche Guevara..
You ever eat at Danver’s? Now, that was a roast beef sandwich. The last Danver’s I ate at was in Tupelo, and it was twenty years ago.
I have never seen a Danvers. Is that a local Mississippi thing?
Rax was good I wondered what happened to them.
I don’t think Rax is a good name for a fast food chain. It’s too close to Rats. Makes ya’ wonder.