Arthur Treacher's Fish & Chips is an American fast food seafood restaurant and restaurant chain that specializes in fish and chips. At the peak of its popularity in the late 1970s, it had 826 stores. As of 2025, there are only three standalone Arthur Treacher's locations remaining, all in northeastern Ohio. The menu typically offers fried seafood or chicken, accompanied by french fries (chips). The fish recipe is authentic, having been purchased from Malin's in Bow, London, the first recorded fish-and-chip shop in England.

The franchise was established in 1969 in Columbus, Ohio, as National Fast Food Corp. The founders included S. Robert Davis, his friend Dave Thomas (the future founder of Wendy's), and L. S. Hartzog. They were looking to sell authentic British fish and chips. The company investigated the roots of the dish in Bow, London, where in the 1860s Joseph Malin opened the first recorded fiish-and-chip shop, called "Malin's in Bow". For over 100 years, the Malin family ran that restaurant until closing in the early 1970s. In 1969, Malin's sold the exclusive rights to their recipe to Arthur Treacher's. The chain kept the same recipe and cooking methods, thus their slogan "the original". At one point in 2021, only one Arthur Treacher's restaurant was left, in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, making it the only place in the world that still served the historic recipe.

The chain was also looking for a namesake, so they purchased the rights to Arthur Treacher (1894–1975), an English character actor typecast as "the perfect butler" for his performances as Jeeves, a butler in several Shirley Temple films, in addition to the role of Constable Jones in Mary Poppins. At the time the chain was founded, Treacher was best known as the announcer and sidekick to Merv Griffin on The Merv Griffin Show. Although Treacher never confirmed whether he had a financial involvement in the restaurants, he was "a spokesman for the restaurant chain in its early years, underscoring the British character of its food." Treacher sometimes visited the restaurants, arriving in a red double-decker bus.

In 1970, Fisher Foods swapped capital with and licensed franchises from National, with a total of 550 franchises sold (106 to Fisher alone), but only 99 stores were actually in operation. Long John Silver's, Captain D's, Skipper's and Alfie's Fish & Chips likewise employed the fish franchise concept about the same time. Aided by Arthur Treacher's advertisements, these companies introduced British fish and chips to northeastern America.^{[citation needed]}

By the early 1970s, National Fast Food had become Orange Co. Under this name, Davis conducted an aggressive expansion campaign from 1972 through 1976. Lacking equity, he relied on generous sale-leaseback agreements. Under the terms of the agreements, Orange Co. would sell to investors sites for new restaurants and then sign long leases unconditionally guaranteeing to continue lease payments if the restaurants failed.

On November 21, 1979, Orange Co. sold Arthur Treacher's to Mrs. Paul's. However, under the terms of its original sale-leaseback agreements, Orange Co. remained liable for millions of dollars of payments to investors.

The "Cod Wars" between the UK and Iceland over fishing rights in Icelandic waters during the 1970s caused cod prices to double. Mrs. Paul's responded by replacing Icelandic cod in Arthur Treacher's recipe with less expensive pollock. The move exacerbated tensions with franchisees, some of whom had already withheld a total of $5 million in royalties for what they perceived to be a declining level of service. Litigation arising from the conflict eventually reached the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

After losing the case to the franchisees and having no way to compensate them, Mrs. Paul's sold Arthur Treacher's to a Youngstown, Ohio, group of investors called Lumara Foods of America Inc. in March 1982. Lumara Foods filed for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code four months later.