chain . for other uses see red robin disambiguation . red robin gourmet burgers inc. type public traded as nasdaq rrgb industry restaurant founded seattle washington u.s. september 1969 ; 47 years ago 1969 09 headquarters greenwood village colorado 2000 number of locations 538 2015 1 products casual dining website www.redrobin.com red robin gourmet burgers and brews or simply red robin is a chain of casual dining restaurants founded in september 1969 in seattle washington . in 1979 the first franchised red robin restaurant was opened in yakima washington . 2 red robin is now headquartered in greenwood village colorado and as of 2015 has 538 locations including 499 that are company owned and 99 that are franchised . 1 contents 1 history 2 see also 3 references 4 external links history the original red robin stood at the corner of furhman and eastlake avenues e. in seattle at the southern end of the university bridge . this building dates from 1940 and was first called sam s tavern . the owner sam sang in a barbershop quartet and could frequently be heard singing the song when the red red robin comes bob bob bobbin along . he liked the song so much that he eventually changed the name to sam s red robin . 3 red robin restaurant exterior 2015 red robin s gourmet bacon cheeseburger in 1969 local seattle restaurant entrepreneur gerry kingen bought the restaurant and expanded it . the business dropped the sam s and simply became red robin . the first restaurant was 1 200 sq ft 110 sq m . it was a favored hangout for university of washington students . 4 5 kingen continued to operate the location as a tavern for a few years but later added hamburgers to the menu eventually giving fans 28 different burgers to choose from and sales skyrocketed . after 10 years of building the red robin concept kingen decided to franchise it 6 which proved to be significant in the development of the chain . through franchising and through one franchisee in particular the chain drew its strength . kingen s association with the company he founded later ended but the franchising system endured creating disciples of the gourmet burger format that extended the physical presence and geographic reach of the enterprise for beyond the efforts of its creator . in 1979 kingen sold michael and steve snyder the rights to open a red robin in yakima washington and the snyder group company became red robin s first franchisee . in 1980 red robin opened a restaurant in portland oregon . in 1983 red robin adopted a mascot named red . in 1985 red robin boasted 175 restaurants when the corporate headquarters was moved from downtown seattle to irvine california after ceo kingen sold a controlling interest in red robin corp. to skylark corporation of japan and where michael snyder had red robin offices . with marginal successes and poor financial performance under skylark s management kingen then a minority owner in 1995 stepped back into red robin with michael snyder to nurse the company back to profitability . in 2000 the company opened its 150th restaurant . the headquarters was moved to the denver tech center . in 2000 red robin merged with the snyder group and snyder became president chairman and ceo of the merged company . snyder took the company public in 2002 . as of fiscal year 2015 the company has 538 restaurants with a revenue of us 1.257592 billion . 1 the original red robin closed on march 21 2010 due to prohibitive maintenance costs for the old building . 7 8 9 10 it was demolished on august 28 2014 . 11 recently red robin has added a simplified line of restaurants called red robin s burger works featuring quick service and with locations in washington d.c. illinois ohio and colorado . 12 see also food portal companies portal list of casual dining restaurant chains list of hamburger restaurants references a b c red robin gourmet burgers 2015 annual report red robin annual report morningstar . about us . red robin . hillestad kimberly a long dry spell the daily university of washington april 8 1999 vu tiffany bye bye birdie the daily university of washington march 5 2010 history of red robin gourmet burgers inc. . fundinguniverse.com . local news original red robin restaurant to close march 21 . the seattle times . red robin to close original seattle location march 21 . the seattle times . guzman monica red robin publishes seattle memories of shuttered restaurant seattle post intelligencer blog march 23 2010 the stranger march 25 2010 the end of a red robin era linked 2014 08 31 savage dan august 28 2014 . this red robin is no more it has ceased to be this is an ex robin . slog blog . the stranger . retrieved 2014 08 31 . red robin s burger works external links wikimedia commons has media related to red robin . official website retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title red robin & oldid 737179016 categories 1969 establishments in washington state companies based in greenwood village coloradocompanies listed on nasdaqhamburger 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