In 1985, Harry Rose founded The Rose Group with the purchase of five Roy Rogers restaurants from Marriott Corporation. By the end of that year, after purchasing two additional Roy Rogers locations and building two more, we operated nine restaurants.
By 1995, we began developing casual-dining restaurants and opened our first Applebee's Grill + Bar in Annapolis, Maryland.
By the mid-1990s, The Rose Group managed eighty-four Roy Rogers restaurants and owned and operated twelve Boston Market restaurants. In 1995, we also developed and sold twenty-three Einstein Bros. Bagel restaurants. By late 1996, the Boston Market units were sold back to the Boston Market Corporation, and the eighty-four Roy Rogers locations were converted into Boston Markets.
In 1999, after building fourteen Applebee’s Grill + Bar restaurants in Baltimore, Mercer County, NJ, and the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton market, we purchased the Philadelphia market of existing restaurants, bringing the total Applebee’s count to twenty-six.
In 2002, The Rose Group partnered with Doherty Enterprises to develop a chain of traditional Italian eateries known as Johnny Carino's Country Italian Restaurants. After opening four restaurants, the concept was sold back in 2005.
In 2006, The Rose Group and Doherty Enterprises developed The Shannon Rose Irish Pub, with two locations still operating in New Jersey.
In 2007, The Rose Group became the first franchisee for Corner Bakery Cafe. After acquiring three cafes from the parent company and building six more, we sold the concept back to its franchisor in 2017.
In 2008 we acquired three additional Applebee’s restaurants from the parent company in the Eastern Shore of Delaware.
In December 2020, The Rose Group opened two ghost kitchens in Philadelphia—the first Applebee's ghost kitchens in the country.
In November 2024, we acquired six Applebee's restaurants in the Harrisburg market from neighboring franchisee Keystone Apple.
In January 2025 we entered into a development agreement with JINYA Ramen Bar to build restaurants in Pennsylvania and Delaware.
In December 2025, we acquired 2 QDOBA Mexican Eats and signed a development agreement to build out 35 more.
The Rose Group currently owns and operates 54 Applebee's Grill + Bar restaurants with locations in Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, 2 QDOBA Mexican Eats in Central Pennsylvania and 2 Shannon Rose Irish Pubs in New Jersey. We are the 109th largest restaurant franchise company in the United States as ranked by the Restaurant Finance Monitor in its 2024 Top 200 Restaurant Franchisees report and are the 5th largest Family-Owned Business in Greater Philadelphia per the Philadelphia Business Journal in September of 2025. We have over 3,000 active employees.
The foundation of our business is a commitment to the community and being a part of our neighborhoods. The Rose Group received the PA Restaurant Neighbor Award seven times from the Pennsylvania Restaurant Association and has been awarded the exclusive ‘Operator of the Year’ and ‘Franchisee of the Year’ titles multiple times, in addition to receiving awards honoring The Rose Group’s top team members and Applebee’s locations.