This Popular Fast Food Chain Only Has One New Jersey Location Left

While New Jersey has plenty of local eats, like its Trenton tomato pie and Famous River hot dogs, the state is also awash in fast food spots. You can get everything from McDonald's to Chick-fil-A to Wendy's to White Castle; basically, if it's a national brand, you can find a drive-thru in Jersey. However, there is a popular chain whose footprint has diminished so much that there is only one location within the boundaries of the Garden State. It might surprise you to learn that seafood restaurant Long John Silver's has reduced its number of locations to a single spot in Mantua Township.

One reviewer on the restaurant's Google Maps page wrote that finding this singular location was like a "blast from my childhood ... I'll always be a repeat customer." Another reviewer added: "Catch this throwback before it disappears all around."

What's unique, too, about this Long John Silver's is that it's actually a hybrid restaurant, sharing a building with a Taco Bell. That could have something to do with the fact that, once upon a time, Taco Bell and LJS were both owned by Yum Brands, though Yum did sell the seafood chain to a group of franchisees in 2011.

Long John Silver's is like that old friend you only see once a year, but when you do, you're reminded of how great they are. Unfortunately, this dynamic does not make for a successful brand, and the company has closed more than 100 locations in the 2020s. In New Jersey, there were actually three Long John Silver's open until 2020, when a hybrid LJS/KFC closed in Howell, leaving just two locations, including the still-open Mantua restaurant.

Long John Silver's has struggled to stay afloat since the late 1980s, due in part to the market price of fish, as well as public questioning of both the provenance of the seafood it sells and its nutritional value. But it's not taking these setbacks lying down (it's one of the seafood chains making a resurgence, after all). The company has begun to offer items that are baked instead of fried, and it has even implemented mobile ordering to keep up with the times. Refreshed spaces are another priority, and a recent brand redesign might also help, one that emphasizes that the chain also sells chicken.

Have LJS execs been hanging around Reddit? If they had, they would've seen the thread where people praised the chicken planks to the high heavens, so the chain must be doing something right. Ultimately, if LJS can get people through its doors with regularity, it has the tools to regrow what it has lost — including, perhaps, a few more locations in New Jersey.