Sizzler, Pizza Haven, Big Rooster: Queensland’s favourite restaurant chains of yesteryear
From the mouth-watering cheese toast of Sizzler to the one-of-a-kind creamy chicken deluxe tastes of Pizza Haven, take a trip down memory lane and see what happened to Queenslanders’ favourite restaurant chains.
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The days of buffet banquets and drive-thru pizzas are over, but that doesn’t mean their memory is long forgotten.
In the ‘80s and ‘90s, the Queensland restaurant and fast food industry boomed, introducing a number of Australian-born and American-inspired diners, drive-thrus and franchises with fun jingles, delicious food and a family-friendly dining experience.
No matter what you felt like for dinner, there was a chain that could suit your needs, with many born and bred in the Sunshine State.
But all good things must come to an end, with these restaurants closing their doors over time, whether it be for financial reasons or deciding to merge with larger companies.
Explore the best of Queensland’s lost restaurant chains, with their mouth-watering meals and catchy jingles that get stuck in your head.
Sizzler
A favourite among Queenslanders, Sizzler was once the ‘it-spot’ to indulge on all-you-can-eat pasta, salads and soft serves or crunch down on delicious cheese toast after opening its first restaurant in Annerley in 1985.
Recognised as ‘casual dining... above fast food and below-white linen restaurants’ by Mr Kevin Perkins of Sizzler’s parent company Collins Foods, Sizzler reached its peak in the ‘90s as a family-friendly dining spot with more food for less.
But as more and more Sizzler stores closed their stores nationally from the 2000s to the end of the 2010s, a food era officially ended when Collins Foods announced it would be closing its nine remaining stores from November 15, 2020 following COVID lockdowns.
Of the remaining nine Australian stores, five were in Queensland, including Mermaid Beach, Loganholme, Toowoomba, Maroochydore and Caboolture.
600 Sizzler employees were offered redundancy packages, with some staff deployed to Collins Foods’ other restaurant chains, Taco Bell and KFC.
Lovers of Sizzler can still enjoy Sizzler-style cheese toast via Taste.com’s recipe here.
READ MORE: WHATEVER HAPPENED TO SIZZLER?
Big Rooster
With the slogan ‘What’s the time? It’s Big Rooster time!’, Big Rooster was a family-favourite chicken shop that was born in Queensland, serving tropical burgers and chicken and chips, plus banana fritters for dessert all across the nation.
Popular in the ‘80s, the chicken shop boasted catchy jingles such as ‘I’d rather have a sunny day and I’d rather have Big Rooster, I’d rather live the Queensland way and I’d rather have Big Rooster’ before it was sold to Coles Myer Ltd in the ‘90s.
Australian Fast Foods Pty Ltd sold their 92 Queensland outlets and six additional storefronts in the Northern Territory and Papua New Guinea to the Melbourne-owned retailer in 1992 who began transforming Big Rooster stores across the nation to the Red Rooster brand that still exists today.
While there are no more Big Roosters in Australia, Papua New Guinea has kept the Big Rooster brand strong for 35 years, with 30 stores across the country’s capital in Port Moresby.
Silvio’s
With a catchy jingle, “Call 131-888 to do two, the Silvio’s number!”, Silvio’s is the birthplace of home-delivered pizza in Australia, with the first store of the red and yellow pizza chain opening its doors in Brisbane’s Red Hill in 1978.
Created by Silvio Bevacqua and his brothers, Silvio’s once had more than 70 stores open across the country and were best known for their quick home deliveries done via bright yellow cars and vans with a big red phone on top.
In 1993, Silvio’s bought the Domino’s brand in Australia, starting with its first store in Caboolture and later converting all the Silvio’s stores into the blue and red branding of Domino’s, but maintaining Silvio’s 131-888 number which still exists today.
Dominos Pizza Enterprises’ current CEO Don Meij worked as a pizza delivery driver at Silvio’s while studying teaching at the Queensland University of Technology but dropped out to pursue a career in the pizza industry, working his way to manager at the Redcliffe store before earning the chief executive position in 2003 which he still has.
As of 2023, Domino’s Pizza is the largest pizza chain in the country with more than 700 stores nationwide.
Pizza Haven
Founded in Adelaide in 1984 by Evan, Louis, Bill and Gabriel Christou, Pizza Haven was one of the country’s largest pizza chains in the ‘90s, totalling 180 stores across Australia and New Zealand by 2000.
Following a similar dial-a-pizza model to the Queensland-born Silvio’s brand, Pizza Haven was the fourth largest pizza chain in the country when it was acquired by Eagle Boys in 2008.
Pizza Haven was known by a number of slogans, including ‘131 241 - Home of the two for one deal’ and ‘For your pizza heaven, call up Pizza Haven tonight!’.
Bonanza
Before the days of Sizzler cheese toast was Bonanza, a Texan-inspired steakhouse chain known for its Little Joe sausages, baked potatoes, steak sandwiches and frogs in jelly for dessert.
Popular in the ‘70s and ‘80s, Bonanza featured American barnhouse decor such as wagon wheels in its many locations, including Aspley, Sunnybank, Broadbeach, Carindale and Toowoomba.
Collins Food International acquired the Tex-Mex restaurant chain from Link Foods Pty Ltd in 1984 and slowly converted Bonanza restaurants into the much-loved Sizzler franchise.
Following the closure of all remaining Sizzler stores in 2020, many of the original Bonanzas are now the sites of Taco Bell, including the site of the first Australian Sizzler at 594 Ipswich Rd in Annerley.
Taco Den
Known for its taco Tuesdays and all-you-can-eat taco eating challenges, Taco Den was once a beloved Mexican dining experience across Brisbane and the Gold Coast in the late ‘70s to mid ‘80s.
Operated by Link Foods Pty Ltd who also owned the American-inspired Bonanza brand, Taco Den was acquired by Collins Food International in 1984 with its four store locations including Capalaba, Labrador, Mt Gravatt and Kedron, with some of the restaurants later becoming Montezuma’s.
After the closure of its Sizzler stores in 2020, Collins Foods International would later return back to its Taco Den beginnings, recently opening a number of Taco Bell restaurants across Queensland.
Eagle Boys
Eagle Boys Pizza was the pink branded ‘true blue’ pizza company that was 100 per cent Australian owned, founded by country boy Tom Potter, who opened his first pizza shop in Albury, NSW in 1987, after leaving school at 15.
Once Australia and New Zealand’s largest privately owned pizza company, Eagle Boys was known for its double decker pizza boxes, drive-thru pizza and its ‘Eaglexpress’, a pizza in two minutes or its free guarantee.
Known for its bright pink branding and eagle mascot, Eagle Boys was widely known for its strong marketing campaigns, with a strong ‘Australian-owned’ advertising message focusing on their use of local ingredients, and their ‘bigger and better’ sizing, poking at their competitors Domino’s and Pizza Hut.
The first Eagle Boys Pizza in Queensland opened in 1989 in Rockhampton, shortly followed after Cairns, Townsville, Ayr, Mackay, Mt. Isa and Bundaberg, with the pizza company’s headquarters moved from Coffs Harbour in NSW to Fortitude Valley in 1982.
With 85 percent of the business sold to Queensland-based equity firm NBC Capital in 2007, Eagle Boys went into voluntary administration in July, 2016, with 114 stores nationwide closing and many turned into Pizza Huts.
Some Eagle Boys stores remained open under the control of individual franchisees following the company collapse, but they slowly disappeared in 2017.
Long-time Eagle Boys lovers may still remember their 13 14 33 and 1300 EAGLE BOYS numbers or even remember their classic jingle, first televised in 1990:
‘Eagles Boys, dial-a-pizza!
It’s a great taste that we make for you,
There’s freshness and value in all that we do
It’s in great time that we get it to you.
Piping hot pizza! It’s a great taste! It’s a great taste!
It’s a great taste that we make for you,
A great Aussie treat that just can’t be beat.
Eagles Boys, dial-a-pizza!’
READ MORE: WHAT WENT WRONG AT EAGLE BOYS
Lone Star Steakhouse and Saloon
Featuring buckets of free peanuts with shells you can throw on the floor and line-dancing waiters, Lone Star Steakhouse and Saloon was a Texan-style saloon themed restaurant that served steaks, burgers, seafood and salads.
Complete with wooden cowboy decor, Lone Stars began appearing across the country in the ‘90s, with the first store opening in Parramatta, NSW in 1993 and later in Queensland, including in Aspley, Rockhampton, Springfield and Toowoomba.
Lone Star began closing its stores throughout the 2000s when the restaurant chain officially went into voluntary administration in July 2011, owing $1.8 million.
A rebranded version of the original Lone Star Steakhouse and Saloon began opening across the country from 2017 under the name ‘Lone Star Rib House’, with locations still operating in Rockhampton and Toowoomba.
Lone Star Rib House in Townsville is currently looking for a franchisee to run the Texan themed restaurant.
READ MORE: LONE STAR RIB HOUSE RETURNS TO NORTH QUEENSLAND
Ribbetts
‘846-double-three, double-three - Ribbetts delivery!’
Ribbetts, the people feeder with a green frog mascot, was a Brisbane institution for 40 years, serving pizza, pasta, ribs and seafood at its stores on Highgate Hill and on the corner of Annerley Rd and Grantham St in Dutton Park before it closed in 2019.
Serving 1,456,000 kilos of pork ribs and 416,000 litres of barbecue sauce over its lifetime, owner Gary Hall announced the final day of trading for the rib restaurant would be August 17, 2019 following State Government plans to turn the site into a high school.
Following the closure of the fine fast food establishment, Hall began selling Ribbetts’ signature barbecue and has shared his recipe on how to cook the perfect pork ribs.
Today the site on Annerley Rd is the Creative Hub for Inner City South State Secondary School and hosts facilities for visual arts, music, performing arts and multimedia.
READ MORE: DUTTON PARK’S RIBBETTS RESTAURANT RESUMED BY STATE GOVERNMENT
Bernie’s Fresh Drive-Thru
Opened by Glenn Peipman and Anthony Kinch in the ‘90s, Bernie’s Fresh Drive-Thru was an Australian restaurant chain that provided a fresher and larger alternative to McDonald’s that was more similar to “corner shop-style hamburgers”.
With no prior experience in the food industry, Peipman and Kinch opened their first store in Windsor in 1994 before opening additional stores in Indooroopilly, Mitchelton, Mermaid Beach and Boondall.
Bernie’s began closing their doors in the late ‘90s and were later replaced with other fast food restaurants.
Both the Indooroopilly and Boondall locations have been turned into Guzman Y Gomez while the Mitchelton site was converted into a Red Rooster.
The interiors of the Bondall’s Bernie’s Fresh Drive-Thru on Sandgate Rd also make a brief experience in the music video for Regurgitator’s ‘I Wanna Be a Nudist’, with the store transformed into the fictional ‘Regurgiburger’ fast food restaurant.
WHAT QUEENSLAND RESTAURANTS DO YOU MISS THE MOST? Let us know in the comments.
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