A&W Restaurants (Hopeland)

Main article: A&W Restaurants

A&W is the oldest Sierran fast-food chain in both Hopeland and the southern hemisphere. This article chronicles its history and relations with the main chain in the USS.

A&W Hopeland is operated by A Great Hopelandian Brand. 60% is controlled by A Great Sierran Brand from Lexington and the remaining 40%, from Hopelandian franchisees. They operate in Hopeland and Great Giana. About 5% of A&W USS's corporate structure comes from the Hopelandian franchisees.

History

Early history

A&W emerging in Hopeland was a by-product of the non-intervention of the country in World War 2, but received tens of thousands of Sierran expats wanting to make money and import their capitalist know-how to Hopeland.

In 1955, Dale Wilcox, who owned a restaurant, sold his business with the aim of moving to Albany, the largest city of Hopeland, where the capitalist boom was happening, and also housed a number of expats and "country hoppers", who had busineeses, plots of land and family members in the two countries. On top of that, Hopeland already had a mostly-untapped locally-made root beer market, influenced by similar beverages made by the Hakkis.

Paperwork was done throughout 1956 to set up a master franchise for Hopeland, approved in November of that year. A&W's first restaurant in Hopeland opened on March 25, 1957.

Public criticism of the novel fast-food concept, back then conisdered to be a "snack shop", was mostly negative, as Hopelandians weren't used to such eating habits. It did, however, trigger a domino effect that led to the opening of Sierran-style diners nationwide. Others saw it as another sign of Sierranization, as Hopeland had become the only country to use both the metric system and the Sierran counterpart, as well as using both Celsius and Fahrenheit.

A&W started catching up with its parent in 1958. Hot on the plans were to capitalize on the diner market and set a nationwide foothold.

Setup of local master franchise

A&W, in line with changes of ownership at its US parent, decided to strip Dale Wilcox of his benefits, and instead creating a new master franchise in Albany, while spinning off the non-Albany area restaurants to individual ones. For Wilcox, it was already complex paperwork.

With forty restaurants nationwide, while still enjoying a nationwide monopoly, A&W stood front and center in the growing USS influence in Hopeland. However the heavily regionalized influence of the franchises made it nearly impossible to set up a unified national menu. This wasn't achieved until 1965. The Burger Family was introduced in the same year, but didn't last long (they later took on new names in 1967).

The Alfred Taubman years

In 1982, A. Alfred Taubman brought A&W. The beverage company was still under the ownership of the former master franchise holder. Unlike the United States, the chain was somehow rebounding, despite the end of the fast food monopoly when the first McDonald's and KFC restaurants opened in Hopeland in 1972. But as the 80s reached their end, McDonald's took over the top spot, leaving A&W in chaos.

Local administration

Taubman sold the master franchise to Wallace Chesters in June 1990 in an attempt to keep the chain relevant. Likewise Kenffrey Hillsford (of Billy the Silly Hamster fame) was prematurely signed by him to make commercials and product packaging featuring their bear mascot and new characters. Such strategies lured away longtime customers and tried to give the chain a more childish appeal, causing a division in its customers.

Between 1996 and 2000, A&W reconverted its restaurants in order to feature the new logo of the fast-food chain unveiled in the States.

In December 1999, A&W bought the ailing Sanderson fast-food and entertainment chain after a reformulation in the late 80s to pander more to children. The former Sanderson restaurants were reconverted to A&Ws in 2000.

Yum! Brands administration

In 2002, the local investors sold A&W Hopeland to Yum! Brands. Much of the 2000s were spent under a massive downfall in terms of administration.

That same year, a restaurant opened in Raikopu, becoming the first (and still only) franchised fast-food restaurant in the External Hakki Territory. The franchise for the region is A&W Restaurants of Gatwick and Raikopu, seated in the Hopelandian federal capital, Gatwick.

Rebound and A Great Hopelandian Brand

When the merman cartoonist Jamani Rockson of the future Kingson series Ketogene worked at A&W, he wasn't aware that his work would lead to a rebound of interest within Hopeland and other countries of the world to the A&W chain, through its in-universe counterpart M&K.

When Yum! Brands announced the sale of all of its international A&W operations in the United States, Hopeland, Sondria and Great Scorria, confidence was high about a possible Hopelandian takeover. However, by September, before the sale was finalized, A&W Hopeland franchises banded together to create A Great Hopelandian Brand. By October, A Great Sierran Brand now controlled much of the chain in Hopeland and Great Giana.

Mascots

Since the middle of 1974, A&W uses the same bear mascot as the United States of Sierra. The character was known, like in the rest of the world, as The Great Root Bear. Some branches called him The Great Hopelandian Root Bear. Initially the Hopelandian chain was set to use the same tuba jingle as Keithland, but the plans were rejected because "tubas don't sell". The mascot reportedly became famous likely due to interest in bears, likely because of the national animal

Some time before the 1990 takeover, a smaller bear character called The Little Root Bear was introduced, but had no name. The bear was later dropped after a short time.

Kenffrey Hillsford, who created Billy as a satire of A&W and McDonald's mascots, changed the canon for the bear in Hopeland, in order to be more relatable to kids. It is believed that the name Rooty emerged here. New bear characters were added to the regular lore, and the character was made a 10-year old in order to market it more to children. After Sanderson was bought by A&W, the merbear mascot used by them was added. Under Hillsford, he was given the ability to talk. The name Rooty was later adopted in other international branches of the chain.

An online advergaming website existed between October 2001 and November 2005, and was shut down due to lack of interest from Yum! Brands.

The current A&W Hopeland Rooty lore was made by Jamani Rockson. The lore consists of a species of bipedal bears being born in the western United States in 1919, before gaining notoriety in 1974 and reaching Hopeland with success. Currently the Hopelandian Rooty is seen as a cub of the Sierran Rooty, which the Hopelandian one affectively calls him "daddy" or "dad". A roleplay Twitter account (HopelandRooty) was created (the official one is AWHopeland). It was revealed that Jamani was behind the handle.

Rooty can also be a merbear.