Abe Gustin

Abraham Joseph Gustin Jr (born December 12, 1934 in Birmingham; died October 7, 2010 in Kansas City, Missouri) was the founder of Applebee's International.

Gustin graduated from John Carroll Catholic High School the University of Alabama and worked at the Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company and for a Coors distributor in Kansas City before partnering going into restaurants. He owned 17 Taco Bell locations in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

Discouraged from expanding his Taco Bell holdings, Gustin instead partnered with W. R. Grace & Company in the second-ever franchise of the Applebee's restaurant chain in 1986. In 1988 he founded Applebee's International which now operates 1,160 locations. He retired in 2000.

Gustin died in 2010 and was survived by his wife, Linda, three children and nine grandchildren. He is interred at Pleasant Valley Cemetery in Overland Park, Kansas.

References

• Prewitt, Milford (August 5, 1996) "Abe Gustin: making Applebee's a winner." Nation's Restaurant News
• "Abraham J. Gustin Jr, co-founder of Applebee's International, dies after brief illness." (October 11, 2010) Associated Press/Fox4KC.com