In 1965, Ruth Fertel — a divorced mother raising two children — mortgaged her house to buy Chris Steak House for $22,000 from its owner, Chris Matulich.

Matulich had run the restaurant, located near the New Orleans Fair Grounds Race Course on the border of the Bayou St. John and Treme neighborhoods, since the 1920s.

In mere months, the business began to take off under Fertel's ownership. However, in 1976, a devastating fire at the restaurant forced them to move locations.

A stipulation in the purchase agreement only allowed Fertel to keep the name Chris Steak House if she stayed in the original building, so she had to come up with a new name.

She chose her first name, giving her thriving business the clunky moniker Ruth's Chris Steak House. Today, they have more than 150 locations in the United States and abroad.