Old Clock Restaurant chain

[ja!mz]

Does anyone know if there are any original Clock restaurant's left? I remember as a kid there being one in every neighborhood, it was usually the first job you had working as a dishwasher or busboy. I tried to find original locations and history online but didnt have much luck.

[EastsideQT]

The only Clock Restaurant I remember was on Jefferson & Burns...it's been a Dental office for a long time. If I'm not mistaken a lot of the Clock's are now Ram's Horn restaurants.

[motivedetroit]

Isn't there one in Hamtramck? Not sure if it's original, but it was called The Clock.

[econ expat]

Does anyone know if there are any original Clock restaurant's left? I remember as a kid there being one in every neighborhood, it was usually the first job you had working as a dishwasher or busboy. I tried to find original locations and history online but didnt have much luck.

Mentioned in the table side juke box thread-
Canterbury Palace on Grand River, by Inkster Rd-
It was built/opened as a Clock Restaurant in 60's,
within 10 yrs, Clock started building larger places,
the franchise was cancelled at that location. Canterbury still has same layout, looks very close to the original Clock.
[[Its been Canterbury since early 70's)
Also- McVee's on Telegraph N of 9 Mile was also originally a Clock, though it has been expanded and renovated since it became McVee's, does not much resemble a Clock.

Larger Clocks, from 70's:
-Bob's Pizza on 7 Mile by Evergreen was built/opened as as a Clock about 70'
-Southfield rd, S of 10 Mile Rd was called Olympia Flame last time I was in the area.
-Ford Rd in Westland- Col's Restaurant used to be a Clock

Downsized, in last years of Clock- there was one in the KMart strip mall at 7 Mile and Farmington.

[lpg]

There was a Clock on Fort St. north of Southfield by the old Mellus Newspaper building.

[MizMotown]

My dad was an owner of a Clock restaurant back in the 70's. I can't remember which one, I'll have to ask him. He also was owner of The Palace at 6 and Telegraph and one of the Big Apples. Also the Village Place on Orchard Lake back in the day.

[jackie5275]

Isn't there one in Hamtramck? Not sure if it's original, but it was called The Clock.

There's still one in Hamtramck on Jos Campau just north of Caniff. I've only been in there once because it's kind of dumpy.

[GPCharles]

I believe that the Beverly Hills Grill on Southfield Road just north of 13 Mile Road was originally a Clock Restaurant.

[rjk]

The Hamtramck Clock closed up.

About a month or so before they closed someone who worked there said they were applying for a liquor license.

The Main Street Diner a few hundred yards north of the Clock made it look extremely dumpy in comparison.
The MS restaurant is a nice looking place.

[Bluenote132003]

They built a brand new Clock from the ground up at Harvard and E. Warren, in what is now English Village. Must have been around '70-'72 maybe. I remember playing King of the Hill on the construction sight! They knocked down a greenhouse which was previously on that corner. Is now Leonard's Restaurant.

[12468_laing]

They built a brand new Clock from the ground up at Harvard and E. Warren, in what is now English Village. Must have been around '70-'72 maybe. I remember playing King of the Hill on the construction sight! They knocked down a greenhouse which was previously on that corner. Is now Leonard's Restaurant.

Is that the one at 17017 E. Warren, two businesses off Cadieux? I worked there from about 74-79 when I was in Denby and also WSU. It was owned by Frank Monteleone who owned the burger place at Gratiot and Seymour called Monte's. His brother owned the Clock further down Gratiot from Seymour towards downtown. Have many memories of the East Warren place. Anyone ever work there?

[Don K]

Zacks of Plymouth on Main Street just south of Ann Arbor Road was a Clock for quite a while after I moved to the Detroit area in 1978, then became a Silverman's sometime in the 80's.

Also, the Thai Palace II in Dearborn [[south side of Michigan west of Maple) has the look of a building that was a Clock at one time. Don't know for sure about that, though. Maybe someone who grew up in East Dearborn can confirm or deny.

[daddeeo]

There was one on Warren just east of Greenfield in Dearborn.

[jcole]

8 Mile west of Gratiot north side

[Bluenote132003]

Is that the one at 17017 E. Warren, two businesses off Cadieux? I worked there from about 74-79 when I was in Denby and also WSU. It was owned by Frank Monteleone who owned the burger place at Gratiot and Seymour called Monte's. His brother owned the Clock further down Gratiot from Seymour towards downtown. Have many memories of the East Warren place. Anyone ever work there?

Never worked there, but lived just down the street at Harvard and Frankfurt. Ate there all the time. Cut through the alley in back, man, did those grease drums STINK!!

[12468_laing]

Never worked there, but lived just down the street at Harvard and Frankfurt. Ate there all the time. Cut through the alley in back, man, did those grease drums STINK!!

You're telling me! I used to have to dump the grease in those drums. So far as I know, the original franchises all went out of business.

[Bong-Man]

Corner of Groesbeck & 12 Mile.....now occupied by Nat'l Coney Island.

Also where I had my first job, bussing tables on the midnight shift. I was so naive. All these people started pouring in at 2am. I remember asking a co-worker....what are all these people doing up ?

Also fired for sitting down in the booth to clear the tables. I was tired.

[lpg]

I beleive there was another Clock at Fort St. and Oakdale in Southgate. It's a Busy Bee Coney Island now. A guy that I used to work with had a brother who was a Wayne County Deputy and he was shot and killed in the lobby. Some kind of domestic argument. I don't remember all the details.

[ja!mz]

Wow, thanks for all the info everyone. I'm going to do some searching to see if I can find a scan of an old menu. Back then for your first job you worked there or you pumped gas.

[eastland]

Is that the one at 17017 E. Warren, two businesses off Cadieux? I worked there from about 74-79 when I was in Denby and also WSU. It was owned by Frank Monteleone who owned the burger place at Gratiot and Seymour called Monte's. His brother owned the Clock further down Gratiot from Seymour towards downtown. Have many memories of the East Warren place. Anyone ever work there?

The Clock on Harper north of 8 later became Monte's. Same owner I assume. It is now a medical facility.

[Philbo]

In the 1970s there was one on Gratiot in the Houston Whittier area.

[Hamtragedy]

The one in Hamtramck we usually made fun of. Q: "How do they clean the bathrooms at the Clock?"

A: "They remodel them every seven years."

[smogboy]

It'd be an interesting photo project going around town documenting all of these "new" restaurants that now occupy old Clock franchises. With many of these, one can still see the original architecture and signage that once made Clock an iconic place.

As far as any history of the places go, here's what's written about Clock in wikipedia:

Clock is a Swedish hamburger restaurant chain originally founded by an off-shoot from the US based Carrols. The chain suffered from mismanagement and declared bankruptcy; as the government had acquired the forfeited company, it was incorporated into the state-owned restaurant chain SARA.

As Carrols Clock used the McDonald's concept with names for hamburgers such as 'Big Clock' [['Big Mac'). Using a huge clock as its logo, the chain grew to be very successful and widespread during the 1970s and 1980s, even branching out to China, but got into economic problems in the 1990s and started closing or selling restaurants. In 1996 Clock actually sold six restaurants [[four in Stockholm and two in Gothenburg) to McDonald's. The same year, as part of what turned out to be a new business strategy, the company bought the hotel and restaurant company Provobis, which had the same main owner, Rolf Lundström, who thereby consolidated his holdings. It also attempted to reduce its own ownership in restaurants and increase the number of franchise restaurants, but by 1998 only 14 Clock restaurants remained, of which six were sold the same year and the remaining eight at the beginning of 1999. The company took the name Provobis, and was in 2000 bought by the large Scandic Hotels corporation.

McDonald's continued to expand in Sweden during this period [[as did other American chains such as Burger King and Pizza Hut), but in an interview in 1996 the CEO of Clock explained the problems of his company with the increasing competition from other types of fast food such as kebab and sandwiches.

Clock is as of 2007 a registered trade mark of Swedish company F&S.

[softailrider]

If I remember correctly, the Clique restaurant, attached to that motel on East Jefferson used to be a Clock back in the day.

[rid0617]

Don't know if it's the same chain but we have 8 or 9 Clock Restaurants around here. Several of them are still drive ins and are giving Sonic a run for their money