Arby's Name Doesn't Mean What You Probably Thought

Many brands take pride in honoring the people who founded them. Walk into any Publix grocery store and you'll spot a photo of George W. Jenkins on the wall, a figure as familiar to Southerns as Walt Disney himself. Then there are other brands that make the founder the literal face of the company, such as Ben & Jerry's ice cream with Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, or Wendy's fast food with Dave Thomas. Fellow fast food chain Arby's, though, has no such namesake to credit the creation of the brand, though the word is a nod to the people who founded it.

The name "Arby's" comes from an abbreviation of the initials of the two founders, the Raffel brothers, "RB." Arby was never a real person, not a cowboy parading around with a big, red hat or a single man with a vision of jumping into the fast food market. Instead, it was two family members who jumped into the restaurant equipment business and saw a gap in selling quick-service roast beef sandwiches (here's the unconventional way Arby's prepares its roast beef). The original name was supposed to be "Big Tex," but when the Raffel brothers discovered that the name was already in use, they pivoted to Arby's. Some urban legends claim the name is also a play-on for "roast beef," those same "RB" initials, but the brand has never officially confirmed this.

The Raffel brothers, Forrest "Fuzzy" and Leroy, were from New Castle, Pennsylvania, but founded the first Arby's location in Boardman, Ohio. Forrest went to Cornell University's School of Hotel and Restaurant Administration while Leroy studied at the Wharton School of Finance at the University of Pennsylvania, an ideal combination of knowledge for the future restaurant owners. By the 1950s they owned Raffel Brothers Inc. and by 1964, the pair founded Arby's with roast beef sandwiches that were nearly 50 cents higher than competing fast food hamburgers (here's what you can still order from Arby's original 1964 menu). The price tag didn't deter customers, and Arby's quickly grew to earn a spot as one of the largest fast food sandwich chains in the country.

You've probably seen the fuzzy black and white photo of Forrest and Leroy floating around the internet, two young men holding a giant, open-faced sandwich in front of an old Arby's sign. Forrest, the older of the Raffel brothers, passed away in 2008, not long after his 86th birthday. Leroy passed away in 2023 at the age of 96, with the fast food chain commemorating his legacy in a Facebook post revealing the origin of the brand's name. He reportedly visited the site of the original Arby's in 2014, where he told CBS affiliate WKBN that he "hoped that [the employees] would remember their original concept," which he explained was to serve "high quality [food], take good care of customers" and "treat everybody nice."