Luby's - History

History

Bob Luby was one year old when his father, Harry, opened his first cafeteria called the New England Dairy Lunch. Bob opened his first Luby's Cafeteria in 1947, focusing on fresh food and customer service. Luby's soon expanded outside of San Antonio, Texas to Tyler, Harlingen, El Paso, and Beaumont.

In 1959, the original partners formed Cafeterias, Inc. Luby's continued to grow, entering other Texas cities and locations in contiguous states. Luby's entered Houston for the first time when it opened Romana Cafeteria in 1965. Locations opened in New Mexico in 1966 and in Oklahoma in 1980.

In 1973, Cafeterias, Inc. became a publicly traded company. To honor Bob Luby, Cafeterias, Inc., was renamed Luby's Cafeterias, Inc., in 1981. One year later, Luby's shares were listed on the New York Stock Exchange. By 1987 Luby's had reached 100 locations.

In 2001, Chris and Harris Pappas of Houston's Pappas Restaurants (owners of Pappasito's Cantina, Pappadeaux Seafood Kitchen, etc.) joined the Luby's management team. Three years later, Luby's moved its corporate headquarters from San Antonio to Houston. The addition of the Pappas management team saw several Luby's restaurants begin to transition from traditional cafeteria-style establishments to hybrid cafeteria/fine dining establishments, replacing drink cart attendants with traditional waitstaff and extensively remodeling selected locations.

Luby’s celebrated its 60th anniversary in December 2006 with publishing “Luby’s Recipes & Memories: A Collection of our Favorite Dishes and Heartwarming Stories,” a cookbook featuring its most requested recipes, helpful hints and tips and photography of real guests and their personal memories and stories throughout the book. The cookbook went on to win several awards, including the “USA Gourmand Award” for best cookbook photography and the “Independent Publisher Award” bronze winner for cookbooks. In 2008, Luby’s published a special edition of the cookbook that included 12 additional recipes. The 60th anniversary cookbooks were a response to the popularity of the original Luby’s cookbook, published in 1997 in honor of the Company’s 50th anniversary.

In 2009, due to the economic recession, Luby's closed 25 stores and laid off staff as a cost-cutting measure.

In 2010 Luby's Culinary Services introduced "What's Brewing?", a coffeehouse concept store in Downtown Houston.

The same year, on June 18, Luby's announced it was buying Fuddruckers and Koo Koo Roo for $61 million after parent company Magic Brands LLC went bankrupt. The acquisition was final later in the summer.

On June 13, 2011, to celebrate the one-year anniversary of its milestone Fuddruckers acquisition, Luby’s launched its first, new company-owned Fuddruckers location. Situated in the heart of downtown Houston’s seven-mile (11 km) tunnel system, the 3,330-square-foot (309 m2) concept store showcases a more compact footprint.