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The story
Founding
Leroy Earl "Bus" Fuller (1928–2019), the founder of Earls, was a Korean War veteran and an experienced restaurateur with over twenty successful and failed restaurants to his name. His first restaurant was opened in Sunburst, Montana, United States, in 1954 under the name "Green & White". In the late 1950s, Fuller moved his young family to Canada and operated a series of A&W (Canada) locations in Edmonton, Alberta. Soon, the Fullers were operating thirty locations and a series of Fuller’s, a Denny’s type of chain. In the 1970s, the Fullers moved west to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
It was during this time that Fuller went into business with his son Stan Fuller, founding the first Earls restaurant in 1982 in Edmonton. The chain quickly grew when the Fullers set up an Earls restaurant in their new home town of Vancouver in 1983. Although its menu originally consisted mostly of burgers and beer, Earls has changed the menu to offer "dishes inspired by trips around the world."
2013–present
While the chain was originally a family business, in 2013, Mo Jessa became the first non-Fuller to be named as company president.
The Fullers are involved in a number of other Western Canadian restaurant chains. Jeff Fuller and Stewart Fuller, two other sons of Leroy, are involved in JOEY (a western Canadian restaurant chain) and Cactus Club Cafe, respectively. CEO Stan Fuller owns a 20% share of the latter establishment after the other brothers dropped out.
In December 2017, Earls announced that they would be closing one of their first locations, on Marine Drive in North Vancouver. In early 2018, the chain opened a concept restaurant at Ambleside Beach in West Vancouver as a replacement.
In early 2024, longtime executive Mark Hladik was named company president, succeeding Mo Jessa.
From Wikipedia’s article on Earls (restaurant chain), shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5