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Ray Danner
Selling vending machines in the late 1950s, Ray Danner noticed the popularity of Frisch's Big Boy and other drive–in restaurants. Danner, who had operated small businesses, wanted a single Big Boy in his hometown of Louisville, Kentucky. Because Frisch's had a Louisville franchisee, he and business partner James Croft contacted Alex Schoenbaum and bought the Shoney's Nashville franchise for $1000. In 1959, the pair opened their first Shoney's Big Boy in Madison, a Nashville suburb, built four more by 1961, and a total of seven Shoney's Big Boys when Danner bought Croft's interest. Then known as Shoney's Big Boy of Middle Tennessee, by 1966 the company operated 10 Big Boys. That year Danner acquired the Louisville Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise, which would grow to to 22 stores over 15 years.

In 1969, Shoney's Big Boy of Middle Tennessee and the KFC subsidiary became a public company and was renamed Danner Foods, Inc., with Danner as president. The company now included 14 Big Boy restaurants, and by 1970, added one Big Boy in Columbus, Georgia and another in Opelika, Alabama. Danner wanted additional Shoney's territory but Schoenbaum was developing those areas himself, so the company opened a similar "Danner's Family Restaurant" in Louisville, the first of several. Danner Foods also opened a fast-food seafood and hamburger concept, Mr. D's. Nine stores would open by January 1971, and over the next four years, Danner's namesake Mr. D's would be renamed Captain D's, refocusing exclusively on seafood. Danner Foods also opened Mr. D's Islander Restaurant in Huntsville, Alabama, offering gourmet dining including seafood, steaks and Cantonese cuisine.

By 1971, Danner's company had become the second largest Shoney's franchisee by number of units. That year, Danner Foods bought the Shoney's trademark and assets from Alex Schoenbaum, Danner becoming president and CEO, moving the headquarters and commissary from Charleston to Nashville; Danner also changed the legal name of the companies from Shoney's Big Boy Franchising Companies, Parkette Commissary, Inc. and his Danner Foods, Inc. to Shoney's Big Boy Enterprises, Inc.. Schoenbaum became Chairman of the Board of Directors. As director of a public company, he was forced to close his personally owned Shoney's #1, the original Parkette Drive–in, by 1975.

Leaving Big Boy
Five years after being renamed Shoney's Big Boy Enterprises, Inc., stockholders approved changing the company name to Shoney's, Inc. Shoney's said this reflected the company's diverse food service brands, but added, "Shoney's is not the southern reincarnation of Frisch's Big Boy." However, as Schoenbaum's wife Betty said, the change would permit Shoney's to continue expansion beyond the boundary of its Big Boy territory.

In 1978, the several Danner's Family Restaurants in Louisville, were renamed Danner's Towne and Country using logos increasingly similar to Shoney's. In 1982, the company opened two Towne and Country restaurants in Tallahassee, Florida, also Frisch's Big Boy territory, but these were co–banded as Shoney's Towne and Country. This caused Frisch's to sue for unfair competition, claiming a strong association of both the "Shoney's" name and "Towne and Country" concept with "Big Boy". Frisch's had already filed similar civil actions against the Wheeling, West Virginia–based Elby's Big Boy franchise, which in 1971, broke ties with Frisch's and operated non–Big Boy Elby's restaurants in Ohio. In March 1984, a Federal district court denied Frish's request for a temporary injunction blocking Shoney's building additional units in Kentucky and Florida. (Frisch's appealed, but in April 1985, a Federal appeals court affirmed the denial of the injunction. )

Since Big Boy was removed from the company name in 1976, the Big Boy was becoming less and less prominent at Shoney's, disappearing completely from the company's 1983 annual report. Once called "a meal in one on a double–deck bun", a company official now called the Big Boy hamburger, "a Depression burger, a lot of bread and no meat". Following the March 1984 federal court ruling favoring Shoney's, Marriott Corporation, then owner of the Big Boy trademark, negotiated a settlement that would allow Shoney's to buyout its Big Boy franchise agreement. And in April 1984, Shoney's withdrew from the Big Boy system, paying Marriott $13 million (equivalent to $ million in ). (In August 1984, Elby's likewise dropped Big Boy affiliation, effecting its units in West Virginia and Pennsylvania.) At the time Shoney's was the largest Big Boy franchise, with 392 Shoney's Big Boy Restaurants, representing more than a third of the national Big Boy chain. Like the former Big Boy stores, the Towne and Country units were renamed simply Shoney's. Additional Shoney's restaurants opened in Frisch's Big Boy territory, three in the Cincinnati area, with plans to open three more annually until the market was saturated. ---