25. Wetson’s
Long Island-native Herb Wetanson, founder of the Wetson’s burger chain, was inspired to launch his own restaurant after seeing the original McDonald’s while on a road trip in California.
With help from his family, Wetanson opened the first Wetson’s in the Levittown neighborhood of Long Island in 1959. Initially, the chain and its 15 cent hamburgers were a massive success.
However, the chain fell on hard times when McDonald’s and Burger King aggressively expanded into the New York market in the 1970s. By the end of the decade, Wetson’s was but a memory.
