Groceteria.com

Started by the Walgreen Co. in 1976, Wag's was a spinoff of the restaurants inside Walgreens drugstores. Twelve years after its 1976 introduction, Walgreen Co. sold the restaurants to Marriott, which (IIRC) were converted to Shoney's.

Gee no wonder why the logos looked the same.

Do any Walgreens out there now still have restaurants?

It would be very doubtful-------I've visited or lived in a number of Walgreen's long-term territories (Chicago, Nashville, Cincinnati, New Orleans) and I've never seen food service in any of these. I can recall Chicago stores from the early 70s that had full-line liquor departments (which since have been phased out), but not "soda fountains". The drug chains I knew growing up in Cleveland and nearby parts of Ohio & PA phased out their food service by the beginning of the 70s, except for Thrift Drug of Pittsburgh. I would guess that Wags was Walgreen's way of getting food service out of the drug stores, but using the good will they'd built up to capitalize on the "coffee shop" trend which was peaking in the mid-70s.

TheStranger wrote:Do any Walgreens out there now still have restaurants?

As far as I know, Walgreens decided to completely pull its food service operations (Wag's restaurants and in-store soda fountains/restaurants) in the 80's. Most of the Walgreens stores originally housing a soda fountain and/or restaurant have been remodeled, sold off, or closed.

I seem to recall Wag's lasting a little longer than 1988. I moved to Chicago in 1989 and For first year or two after we moved, I remembered seeing some Wag's locations. Did Shoney's convert them rather slowly?

Also, as many Walgreen's as I have been in all over the city (including a two floor one downtown) I have never seen a restaurant in any of these.

Wag's continued under the original name for a brief period under Marriott's stewardship. The Shoney's connection came when Marriott made the dramatic decision to abandon the family restaurant business that was its major heritage. Many of the former Wag's units were sold to Shoney's franchisees. Initially, Marriott had planned to convert them to Allie's, Big Boy, or one of their other family brands.