May 1 is a big day in Exchange restaurant history.
Or is it?
According to the book One Hundred Years of Service: A History of the Army and Air Force Exchange Service and other sources, three Exchange-exclusive restaurants opened on May 1 in separate years: the first Robin Hood Sandwich Shoppe at Randolph AFB in 1985; the first Anthony’s Pizza two years later at Fort Bliss; and the first Frank’s Franks on May 1, 1988, at Scott AFB in Illinois.
Even previous Flashback Fridays have reported these dates. But a deeper look into the Exchange Post archives shows that, in at least two of those cases, there’s evidence that locations opened earlier than the reported “first” ones.
The February 1985 edition of the Exchange Post includes this paragraph about the opening of a Robin Hood at Fort Hood: “Robin Hood (Susan Dowell) and Maid Marian (Marion Denniston) were there for the grand opening of the Robin Hood Sandwich Shoppe. Dressed in suitable costumes, the pair passed out samples from 5-foot-long submarine sandwiches. The new food facility serves a variety of submarine sandwiches and deli items.”
If the item ran in the February edition, that would mean the Robin Hood opened in January or earlier—more than three months before one opened at Randolph.
Unfortunately, there were no photos of the two associates dressed as Robin and Maid Marian.
A story in the November 1986 Exchange Post about the opening of a new food mall at Aviano Air Base includes a reference to “Anthony’s World’s Greatest Pizza,” which is a pretty bold statement to make in Italy. That’s six months before the opening of the Fort Bliss Anthony’s, which also bore the “World’s Greatest Pizza” tag.
Although it’s not 100% clear, it’s possible that Fort Bliss Anthony’s was the first one in CONUS. But the Exchange-run restaurants did not attract as much attention as they would today, and there was no grand opening story about the first Robin Hood or the first Anthony’s—wherever they were.
The first reference to Frank’s Franks in the Exchange Post is in the September 1988 issue, in which the hot-dog stand is mentioned in passing in a story about the first Military Exchange Services Professional Development Workshop. The March 1989 issue includes an in-depth feature about the Exchange food program; the story says that only two licensed Frank’s Franks were operating at the time, but doesn’t say where they were.
Although the actual opening dates of these restaurants are unclear, they were clearly successes, as each grew to have locations worldwide. But eventually they gave way to bigger-name brands. Although there are still a few Anthony’s Pizza locations in Pacific Region, the last Frank’s Franks closed in 2014 and the last Robin Hood closed in March of this year.
Source: Exchange Post archives
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