ToquiNotes: Recalling "Fast Food with Style" Featuring a Salad Bar and Pudding Edging Closer to Extinction
By Jeff Toquinto on June 08, 2025 from ToquiNotes
It has been years, probably decades, since I last dined at the restaurant that is the topic of this week’s blog. And it has been just as long since I have actually seen one in operation, although our good friends on the World Wide Web tell me they are still out there.
I cannot remember the first time I ate there or when it opened. I also have no clue as to when it closed. All I can tell you for certain that in the late 1980s and early 1990s, I was a regular there, just sitting outside the Bridgeport city limits with a Bridgeport zip code it was so close.
Does anyone remember Rax on Tolley Drive?
I certainly do. Like so many other past dining establishments that I talk about in this blog, it was not what many today would consider five-star dining. That does not mean it was not good, it just means that if open today in our area you were probably not going to see the Food Network stopping by to do a special on it.
Like so many restaurants of that period in my life, there were two things that factored above quality. Those factors were quantity and price. Rax, which just happened to have what I considered fairly good food, delivered on both.
Although the bulk of the Rax restaurants were located in Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana, West Virginia had its share. And yours truly was a regular.
For those familiar with it, you probably recall the location on Tolley Drive. It was, I believe, in the area that was formerly home to J.C. Maxey’s and today is the home to JAG Coin Laundry and Monarch Flooring Company. If I have that wrong, my apologies, but it was in that general vicinity.
While I do not know when it opened here, I do know the chain opened a year before I was born. The first location that opened was in 1967 in Springfield, OH.
As for a little more background on the restaurant, I am doing the old “copy and paste” from the Web site eightiesbaby.net. It lists the start of the franchise to its peak and the multiple name changes before it became Rax. It reads as follows:
“The franchise began its life under the name Jax Roast Beef, named after its founder, Jack Roschman. After only two years of operating it, Roschman sold the chain to General Foods, which went on to rename the restaurant chain Rix and nearly shut it down entirely in the nine years it had control over it, before selling Rix to the Restaurant Administration Corporation (RAC), headed by J. Patrick Ross. Rix changed the brand name to Rax, opened the first Rax branded restaurant in Columbus, Ohio, and began rapidly expanding the brand. By 1984 the restaurant chain had 300 locations, and it peaked in the mid-1980s with more than 500 stores across the United States, with two restaurants in Canada and two in Guatemala.”
Not sure how it branched out to Guatemala, but those folks got a sample of the good life courtesy of some good eats.
As for the food, I did not go there for their signature roast beef sandwich – although I ate plenty. I went there, usually with an advertised special or cutout coupon from the newspaper, which included a deal on a meal and their recently introduced all-you-can-eat salad bar. The 
fact they may have had the first curly fries available was an added bonus for the palate.
fact they may have had the first curly fries available was an added bonus for the palate.
Perhaps you have noticed a theme of buffet-style food that accompanied by early years. As noted above, quantity was critical when working a lot of hours at minimum wage, living on your own, and going to college at the same time.
The salad bar, in and of itself, was fairly standard. Not as much as you can find on today’s Ruby Tuesday’s salad bar (I highly recommend with a does of honey mustard dressing), but everything you need for a huge salad. And generally, if I ordered a meal accompanied by the salad bar, the meal (see sandwiches) went home with me as I would gorge on leafy greens.
There was one item on the bar that we always tore up. And that was chocolate pudding.
I remember my brother Tim and I taking my good friend Brian “Bubba” Hill there. It was all early in our “all-you-can-eat” era, so we were not sure of protocol, which we rarely cared about. However, on this trip my brother and I emptied the chocolate pudding early. Not an easy accomplishment considering it was a fairly large tub.
When Brian arrived at the salad bar to get his pudding, it was gone. We advised him to keep his eye on staff for a refill after we alerted staff that said pudding was gone. As we waited, multiple folks went up to see if there was any pudding remaining – and then it came.
Brian, taking full advantage of it, proceeded to eat the entire refilled portion. We sat back, enjoyed ourselves, and ate until we could not eat anymore as patrons stared in disdain at us for our pudding takeover.
I may be wrong, but I believe before the local one closed, it had a very Wendy’s like food bar that included pasta and Mexican offering.
At its peak, there were 504 locations serving sandwiches and pudding and eventually baked potatoes and pizza and, based on my reading for this blog, far too many other items, phrases (like "Fast Food with Style), and failed marketing campaigns. The numbers would drop steadily and quickly following an early 1990s bankruptcy.
As of late 2024, according to Google AI, only six remain. They are in Illinois, Ohio, and Kentucky. Perhaps our pudding hording had something to do with it.
Regardless, I enjoyed my time at Rax. Perfect food, perfectly priced, for the person looking to perfect getting by on a limited budget.
Next time I am in Ohio, Kentucky, or Illinois, I may have to make a side trip to one. If so, you will read about it here. And if you have been to one, give it a review in the comment section below.
Editor's Note: Top photo shows an old Rax restaurant, which looks very familiar to what I recall - minus the pick up window, which I may be wrong about. Second photo is the signature Rax Roast Beef sandwich. Bottom photo shows an ad for a "Fiesta Salad," also mentions a breakfast buffet. I do not recall a breakfast buffet at the Tolley Drive location and, if so, I dropped the ball.
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