Food

5 famous restaurant chains that you didn’t know changed their names

David Benjamin
Imagine a world without McDonald’s, Subway, Domino’s, or Pizza Hut. You can’t, can you? While many of these eateries are now firmly ingrained in modern culture, they were once small start-ups with big dreams. Some even had different names before becoming the iconic brands they’re known as today. So, as we simultaneously crave our favourite fast food item while wondering which restaurants started under different monikers, let’s take a look at some of the most famous. We promise that some will shock you. (Picture: Shutterstock/Getty Images)

Domino’s

History goes that in 1960, brothers Tom and Jim Monaghan bought an existing small pizza restaurant in Ypsilanti, Michigan, for $500. The establishment was previously owned by Dominick DeVarti and operated under the name DomiNick’s. However, DeVarti forbade the brothers from using the name. (Picture: Getty Images)

Domino’s

Legend has it that an employee named Jim Kennedy suggested the name Domino’s, and it stuck. By 1965, Tom had three locations (Jim had traded his half of the business to Tom for the Volkswagen Beetle they used to deliver pizzas eight months into the venture — oh, how he must have regretted it), which is what the three dots on the domino logo represented. However, the addition of a dot intended to mark each purchase quickly became impossible as the chain grew — there are over 21,000 Domino’s restaurants worldwide today. (Picture: Getty Images)

Popeyes

Branch of the Popeyes fast food chain of restaurants
Beloved fried chicken chain Popeyes is another brand that started life with a completely different name. The restaurant opened its doors way back in 1972 as ‘Chicken on the Run,’ with the intention of competing with the already established Kentucky Fried Chicken. (Picture: Getty Images)

Popeyes

MANHATTAN, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES - 2025/04/03: Sign at the entrance to a Popeyes store in Manhattan. (Photo by Erik McGregor/LightRocket via Getty Images)
However, the restaurant failed after a month. Rather than giving up, owner Al Copeland decided to simply rebrand — changing the name to Popeyes Mighty Good Chicken and reopening four days later. By 1975, the chain had been renamed again to Popeyes Famous Fried Chicken. A year later, when the company expanded, it went through another rebrand, being named Popeyes Chicken & Biscuits. Finally, in 2014, it was changed to the name we know it as today: Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen. (Picture: Getty Images)

Subway

Before becoming the largest single-brand restaurant chain in the world, Subway had humble roots in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Founded by Fred DeLuca and financed by Peter Buck in 1965, the brand started life as Pete’s Super Submarine Sandwiches. (Picture: Getty Images)

Subway

This was because the restaurant was to specialise in submarine sandwiches (subs) and wraps. It briefly then changed to Pete’s Subway before officially becoming Subway in 1972. (Picture: Getty Images)

Burger King

When founded in 1954 in Jacksonville, Florida — and way before Instagram — Keith G. Cramer and Matthew Burns decided to name their fast-food business Insta-Burger King. (Picture: Getty Images)

Burger King

But, after James McLamore and David Edgerton acquired the franchises in 1959, they shortened the name to Burger King, and obviously, it stuck. Fun fact: the original name came from the ‘Insta-Broiler’ machines that the founders used to cook burgers quickly. (Picture: Getty Images)

Dunkin’ Donuts

Before Dunkin’ Donuts there was Open Kettle. Yep, seriously. Doesn’t have quite the same ring to it, does it? In 1948, Bill Rosenberg opened the first restaurant in Quincy, Massachusetts, selling doughnuts and coffee. (Picture: Getty Images)

Dunkin’ Donuts

Two years later — and after talks with the company executive — he changed the name to Dunkin’ Donuts. Thank goodness. The brand then introduced its first logo in 1953, and the mascot, Dunkie, in 1954. (Picture: Getty Images)

Starbucks

Starbucks logo attached to the side of a building
Here’s a bonus for you. Starbucks is one of the most popular coffee chains in the world, and the green mythological siren logo is one of the most recognisable. Granted, we are aware that the chain has always been called Starbucks, but humour us for a minute as we go slightly off topic. Because even though the name has never changed, early brainstorming sessions suggest the course of history could have been very different. The brand was founded in 1971 by business partners Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegl and Gordon Bowker, who first met as students at the University of San Francisco. (Picture: Getty Images)

Starbucks

Epsom London UK, March21 2021, Starbucks Coffee Shop Branding Logo With No People
Bowker recalled another business partner who thought that names beginning with the letters ‘st’ were powerful and catchy. This led the founders to try different words with those letters. They first landed on Starbo, after misreading the US mining town of Storbo. Eventually, they landed on Starbuck, after the chief mate in Herman Melville’s 1851 novel, Moby-Dick. And the rest is actually history. (Picture: Getty Images)

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