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Comment by tssva | Hacker News Reader

I didn't even know that A&W restaurants still existed. They disappeared from my part of America decades ago. What areas do they operate in?

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A&W restaurants are pretty prevalent in Canada, at least in Toronto anyways. Just looked at stats: they have about ~1000 restaurants in the country spread over 470+ cities.

But a commenter below said they have around a 1000 restaurants worldwide so perhaps the Canadian A&W is a separate entity from the American A&W otherwise that number doesn't make sense.

> perhaps the Canadian A&W is a separate entity from the American A&W otherwise that number doesn't make sense.

Yes, A&W Canada no longer has any connection with A&W US [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A%26W_(Canada)

Canadian A&W is really good, and tbh it's kinda surprising that Canadian A&W hasn't bought out American A&W and tried to expand there.

That being said, I believe Canadian A&W is much more heavily tilted toward the western part of the country, so maybe they feel they have their hands full trying to grab marketshare in Ontario, Quebec and further.

My wife and I stopped in an A&W in Toronto a few years back—we were walking, and hungry, and just needed food. My expectations were not high at all, but damn—it was good!

There's a lot of them in Canada. For some reason, they seem to be common in small isolated towns along highways in northern Ontario, as the only fast food restaurant in the town (if there's another one, it's probably Subway).

Around me (Austin, TX) there are a few A&W restaurants combined with other fast food franchises. The one I see most often is a combined A&W/Long John Silver’s.

That’s because they used to be owned by Yum brands which had owned all of those brands.

They are sprinkled all over, I’ve seen them in New York, Dallas, New Mexico, Michigan, etc. but never in quantity. The quality and menu varies widely across locations, a lot of the time they are paired with other chains like Long John Silver’s. Nostalgia aside I think Sonic is the better place to spend your money - Whataburger or Lottaburger if your in Texas or the southwest states.

Their wikipedia page says there are nearly 1,000 worldwide, with 600 in the US.

There are 5 in the Seattle area.

There are a lot in Okinawa.

There is a fair bit of them in the South West US. Including in my home-town "Corona".

But they're awful. You go once and never go again.

This is not a math problem, its a bad franchise problem.

Interesting - we had them when I lived in the Midwest and while I didn’t think it was particularly memorable beyond being a decent enough fast food burger, nothing really struck me as awful. Perhaps it’s franchise related.

I did really enjoy the A&W root beer on tap when I went - I think that’s probably the best thing that the restaurant offers.

This has been my experience at several A&W's around the PNW -- it's no In-n-Out, but it's pretty good and a nice break from McDonald's every once in a while (though it's a bit pricey). The root beer (& root beer floats) is definitely the real selling point though.

I can think of at least one within relatively close driving distance to me and another at an outlet mall that’s an hour away. I live in the mid-Michigan area.

There's in my town combined with a KFC. I assume the KFC is the money driver since there's a McDonald's about 50 yards away.

I didn't know they existed in America as I always thought they were a Canadian brand as they are so common here in Canada.

fun fact: the Canadians bought themselves out so they run it as a distinct (seemingly more successful) entity.

Canadian corporate hq is in North Vancouver.

Ahh, interesting! Perhaps that is why they are so high quality and Canadian seeming :)

There's one not far from me in the suburbs of Salt Lake City.

It's a combination A&W and KFC.

How I miss those frosty mugs and fries by the pound.

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