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Arby’s stands for the initials of Forrest and Leroy Raffel, restaurant equipment suppliers who saw the burger market saturating and opened a roast beef restaurant in Boardman, Ohio, in July 1964. They wanted the name Big Tex, but an Akron businessman held it. With upscale interiors and a neon cowboy hat sign by the Peskin Sign Company, they charged 69 cents a sandwich when burgers cost 15 cents. By the 1970s they were opening 50 stores a year on borrowed money, and when the 1971 recession hit they filed for Chapter 11.

The family sold to RC Cola in 1976 for $18 million, and in 1984 corporate raider Victor Posner took control through DWG. Under Triarc, former Pepsi executive Don Pierce got $100 million and launched Roasttown, a Boston Market imitation that failed in testing. A 1995 pairing with ZuZu Handmade Mexican Grill ended in lawsuits, and all 13 Daddy-O’s Express burger units closed. By 2011, under the Wendy’s/Arby’s Group, the chain lost $35 million. Roark Capital took a majority stake, cut weak stores, added brisket, gyros and sliders, and within four years paid out $300 million in dividends.

• A 2016 venison sandwich test in 17 locations in deer hunting states sold out on day one and went national the next year.
• Elk sandwiches sold in Colorado, Montana and Wyoming in 2017 used farm-raised elk from New Zealand because of game meat laws.
• Ads voiced by Ving Rhames announced the new slogan: “We have the meats.”
• To mark a 2018 switch from Pepsi to Coca-Cola, Arby’s printed an ad on a sesame seed with Georgia Tech and laid a five-acre poster in Monowi, Nebraska.
• In November 2017 the parent bought Buffalo Wild Wings for $2.4 billion and became Inspire Brands.