Bye Bye Ryans

Last week on my way to work I noticed a sign on the Ryan’s parking lot thanking cus-tomers for their 21 years of service. I though to myself that I was beginning to see a LOT of businesses in the Pee Dee closing...not a good sign. I also was a little concerned be-cause I just went there for dinner a couple weeks ago. Then today one of my closest friends called me and told me that the Ryan’s in Columbia, Missouri was closed, so I decided to do a little research and found out that on January 22, 2008, Buffets Inc. the corporate company that owns the franchise filed for bankruptcy under chapter 11.
Although all restaurants were said to be staying open and continuing to operate normally under the then-current reorganization plan, the company called for the immediate closing of 52 stores nationwide effective February 12th, 2008

I was a bit surprised and in case any of you are wondering why I am blogging about Ryan’s, it's because I have fond memories there. It was my first job in college when I realized that I didn't enjoy being a broke college student and believe it or not...my room brightening smile helped me make a pretty good living in tips. Aside from that I met some interesting characters in Ryan’s and my sister Chrissy and I really had a good time waitressing there in college.

Other than that, for any person who has more than one sibling, you know that as a child parents don't take you to the Cheesecake Factory. They take you somewhere everyone can get full on their money. A place where the little ones can mess over plates of stuff they concoct. For my family at least every two weeks my mom, sister, brother and I along with my aunt and her four children would meet up in the back room of Ryan's on St. Charles Rock Road in St. Louis and they would talk and we would eat. I have a lot of memories of playing at Ryan’s with my siblings and cousins and coming up with strange things that the loser of games would have to eat.

So I say that to say this: goodbye to Ryan’s and I hope that the restaurant chain brought as many happy memories to others as it did me. I don’t like to be one to speak bad things but it seems the end is near for the chain.

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