Houlihan's

Houlihan's is a Leawood, Kansas-based American casual restaurant & bar with locations operating throughout the country, 60% of which are franchised. The first Houlihan's opened on April 1, 1972 in Kansas City's Country Club Plaza, and there are now 84 restaurants in 18 states. It was originally named Houlihan's Old Place, because it was first located in the space of Houlihans Clothing Store.Houlihan's is privately owned by Houlihan's Restaurants, Inc., a company that developed and owns several restaurant concepts including Bristol Seafood Grill, Devon Seafood Grill and J. Gilbert's Wood-Fired Steaks.

Paul Robinson met Joe Gilbert in 1961. At that time Robinson was manager of the Golden Ox restaurant in Kansas City's West Bottoms (and creator of Inn at the Landing, which opened in 1960 at the Landing shopping center at 63rd and Troost) and Gilbert was the creator of the Four Winds restaurant at the Kansas City downtown airport. The two men formed the Gilbert-Robinson restaurant firm, and they opened a number of successful restaurants including Plaza III Steakhouse at the Country Club Plaza in 1963 and Gilbert & Robinson's (later renamed Sam Wilson's) on 103rd street in Overland Park. Several years later, Gilbert-Robinson looked into expanding Plaza III into space being vacated next door by men's clothing store Tom Houlihan's. Instead of expanding Plaza III, the restaurant partners decided to create a new casual restaurant. During construction, they couldn't come up with a name for the new restaurant, and people kept referring to it as Tom Houlihan's place. As a result, they decided to call the new restaurant Houlihan's Old Place. Gilbert-Robinson gained Tom Houlihan's permission to use the name, and they told him that a table would be reserved for no one else but him in the middle of the dining room every day for the rest of his life. The table included a brass plaque with Tom's name on it; however, Tom Houlihan never set foot in the restaurant. Houlihan's Old Place opened on April 1, 1972.

As a result of the early success of the original Houlihan's Old Place, Gilbert-Robinson quickly embarked on a plan of nationwide expansion. A second location, located in the French Quarter of New Orleans, was opened in July 1973. The third location was opened in Atlanta in December 1974, and the fourth location was opened in Des Peres, Missouri in March 1975.

...
Wikipedia