Bob Evans Farms

Bob Evans Restaurants

Down on the farm
Type	Private
Industry	Restaurant
Founded	Rio Grande, Ohio (1946 (1946))
Founder	Bob Evans
Headquarters	New Albany, Ohio,
Key people	Saed Mohseni, President
Products	Bob Evans Restaurants
Revenue	$1.669 billion (FY 2012)
Operating income	$107 million (FY 2012)
Net income	$72.85 million (FY 2012)
Total assets	$1.066 billion (FY 2012)
Total equity	$657 million (FY 2012)
Owner	Golden Gate Capital
Number of employees	46,818 (Apr 2012)
Website	bobevans.com

Bob Evans Restaurants is an American national chain of restaurants currently owned by Golden Gate Capital and based in New Albany, Ohio. The restaurants were formerly operated by Bob Evans Farms, Inc., a food service, processing, and retail company also based in New Albany. The company is named after its founder, Bob Evans (1918–2007).

The Bob Evans chain has over 600 locations in 24 states, primarily in the Mid-Atlantic, Midwestern, and upper Southern states. All locations are corporately owned, not franchised.

The restaurants offer a theme of country living, and a close connection to farms. Breakfast is served at the restaurants all day long. Baked goods, snacks, greeting cards, and small gift items are also sold at some Bob Evans restaurants.

Prior to the restaurant division's sale in 2017, the company also offered pork products to the retail grocery market, as well as other prepared food products to the grocery and food service segments. These products remained with Bob Evans Farms after the sale of the restaurant division and are sold under the Bob Evans and Owens Country Sausage brand names.

In 1946, the Bob Evans Restaurant chain started from a single truck stop diner near the Bob Evans Farm in Rio Grande, Ohio.

The restaurant chain started up after Bob Evans began processing and packaging his own sausage for his diner. Truck drivers and other patrons began telling him that his sausage was superior. He did not have the capacity to fill large orders. As a result, he contracted with his cousin Tim Evans of Evans Packing Co. to package Bob Evans Sausage products. Bob made his way across the Southern Ohio Hills seeking some of the best cuts of meat. He was very well known in the town of Gallipolis, Ohio, where at the local Meat Market & Grocery Store he and Earl Nance created sausage recipes. Evans tried to sell his sausage to area restaurants, but they turned him down, saying that customers wouldn't pay more for quality. Evans felt differently and opened his own restaurant on his farm in Rio Grande in 1962.