In 1949 Forrest Raffel and his younger brother Leroy bought their uncle’s Youngstown, Ohio, restaurant equipment business and formed Raffel Brothers, Inc. Observing the restaurant trade, the Raffels saw a place in the market for an upscale fast food outlet serving something other than hamburgers. One rainy night, as they queued up at a popular sandwich shop for 79-cent roast beef sandwiches, it occurred to the brothers that they could create a fast food chain around that menu item. They chose the name “Big Tex,” but it was already in use, so instead they spelled out the initials of Raffel Brothers (RB) to produce “Arby’s.”
