The Seafood Chain America Loves to Hate — and Its Customers Keep Defending

A Food Editor Defends the Fried-Fish Chain

Long John Silver's, the fried-fish fast-food chain America loves to dunk on, just got an unlikely defender. In a new piece, The Takeout's Dennis Lee argues the battered chain doesn't deserve its bad reputation: it's about as close to a proper fish-and-chips shop as the U.S. fast-food landscape gets. The essay struck a nerve. On Reddit, longtime customers lined up to defend it — one wrote they never understood the hate because "every time I've personally eaten there the fish was hot, crispy, and flavorful"; another said a three-piece fish meal "tastes like 1989. And that's a good thing."

From 1,000-Plus Stores to a Few Hundred

The loyalty is real, but so is the shrinkage. Long John Silver's once blanketed the country with more than a thousand restaurants — 1,081 at its 2007 peak by one count, over 1,400 by another. By 2019 it was down to about 900; by the end of 2024, 485; today somewhere between 375 and 480 — a footprint cut nearly in half in six years. The retreat reached its symbolic end in Minnesota: the state's last location, inside the Mall of America in Bloomington, quietly closed on April 30 after 18 years, with no farewell event. Weeks later, its operator, Uplifted Foods LLC, filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, listing up to $100,000 in assets against $100,000 to $1 million in liabilities, including roughly $111,000 owed to the mall's owners.

New Owners Call the Closures Routine

The company frames it as strategy, not collapse. A disclosure document released in June described closures across 18 states as "routine" business decisions. Chief marketing officer Laura Ellis told USA TODAY the changes followed the chain's November 2022 acquisition by Four Oaks Partners. (Franchisees bought the brand from Yum Brands back in 2011.) Senior vice president Tony Ellis went further, telling TheStreet the closures of the past three years have put the chain "in a strong position to return to growth."

Customers: Hot, Crispy, Undeserving of the Hate

Customers' defense lands on exactly what the chain still does well: a menu that barely changed in decades — battered fish, shrimp, and chicken with coleslaw and hushpuppies — and prices that still undercut most seafood options. "I much prefer Long John's over Captain D's," one Redditor wrote, praising its side-dish game. Tasting Table even put it on a list of chains with the highest-quality seafood by customer reviews, calling it a controversial pick that "really doesn't deserve all the hate it gets."

Nostalgia Doesn't Pay the Bills

Still, nostalgia doesn't pay the bills. Technomic's 2026 Top 500 Chain Restaurant Report found sales at the 500 largest U.S. chains grew just 3 percent in 2025 — the weakest pace since the Great Recession outside the pandemic years, and a contraction once adjusted for inflation. For a value-driven fried-seafood chain, post-pandemic food and labor inflation plus tighter consumer wallets have been brutal.

Is "Return to Growth" Real?

Whether "return to growth" is real or rhetoric, the company hasn't announced concrete opening plans. Fans point to an independently run Chicago combo location sharing space with Taco Bell as the model: a basic menu with a few sides. "Honestly? That's all you need," Lee wrote. For a 1969-born brand that once defined cheap American seafood, turning "still tastes like 1989" into "still does 1989 business" is the test — and the next store-count disclosure will be the grade.