Marie Callender's

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runchadrun
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Marie Callender's

Post by runchadrun »

Marie Callender's son Don died in 2007 and the obituary was run today in the LA Times. I guess the news traveled slowly. Here are a few excerpts from the obit which can be found at http://www.latimes.com/news/printeditio ... 6573.story None of this is probably news to people here but these history snippets from obits can be interesting.
Marie and her husband, Cal, sold the family car for $700 in 1948 to set up a wholesale bakery in a converted Quonset hut in Long Beach, and Marie worked there at all hours producing pies that Cal and Don sold to restaurants.
...
The first Marie Callender's Pie Shop, serving pie and coffee, opened in Orange in 1964, with an oven in the window so customers could see their pastries being made.

A few years later Don Callender, who oversaw the business, added soup and sandwiches to the menu, then opened more restaurants. He continued to expand, and by the time he sold the company in 1986 to Ramada Inc. for a reported $80 million, the chain had grown to 120 locations nationwide. Marie Callender's restaurants are now a subsidiary of Castle Harlan Inc
tkaye
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Re: Marie Callender's

Post by tkaye »

runchadrun wrote:Marie Callender's son Don died in 2007 and the obituary was run today in the LA Times. I guess the news traveled slowly.
He died last week, reportedly because of injuries he suffered from a fall in 2007. I didn't think you'd be able to keep a death like that under wraps for very long... word would travel through the business pretty quickly.
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runchadrun
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Re: Marie Callender's

Post by runchadrun »

Right. I didn't catch the "died Wednesday" part in the first sentence of the obit. I thought it was weird that it would take so long to report. But, still, dying that long after the fall must have led to a miserable last part of his life.
luckysaver
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Re: Marie Callender's

Post by luckysaver »

Marie's had a small location inside the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley CA. It is considered as an express cafe type location. I don't know how long Marie's has been at the Reagan Library. I believe it was a branch of their main restaurant on 20 Cochran Street near the 118 Freeway. Recently, the Reagan Foundation contracted with a professional caterer which opened several dining locations at the property.

http://www.cpcatering.com/divisions/presidential/

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Re: Marie Callender's

Post by pseudo3d »

There was a time when Marie Callender's was expanding nationwide in the 1990s shortly after Ramada Inns sold it to Wilshire Restaurant Group in 1989, with a store opening in as far as Waco, Texas in the late 1990s, though this was reversed by the early 2000s and the chain retreated back to the West Coast.
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