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In 2010, Cara Operations exited the airline catering business with the sale of Cara Airline Solutions. It owned as a franchisee Eastern Canadian Outback Steakhouse restaurants. At the time,Ĭara fully owned Swiss Chalet, Harvey's, Second Cup, Kelsey's Neighborhood Bar & Grill, and Montana's Cookhouse. On February 26, 2004, Cara went private, with the Phelan heiresses buying out the minority for $8 a share or $345 million, after a short battle in which they had offered $7.625 a share for the 46.5% of the company they didn't own. 88% of the business comes from the restaurant services, with the remaining 12% deriving from airline catering. In the same year, sales for the company were C$1.9 billion.

Cara Operations also went on to purchase Milestones, Montana's, and Kelsey's in 2002. In 1977, Cara Operations purchased Foodcorp Limited in a deal that included restaurants like Swiss Chalet and Harvey's. Total sales of all the various operations was C$30 million in 1968. At that time, its primary business was catering to the transportation sector (airline and rail meals), but it did operate restaurants and coffee shops in various office towers and airport terminals in Canada. The name Cara was derived from the first two letters of each of the words " Canada Railway".Ĭara was owned solely by the Phelan family from its inception in 1883 until it went public in 1968. In 1961, the company merged Canada Railway News Company and Aero Caterers and changed its name to Cara Operations Limited. By 1951, it was serving about 1,500 meals a day.

Then, in the 1930s, the company began offering catering services to the airlines and by 1941, Aero Caterers Limited was launched. Canada Railway News soon moved into the food business, catering to a boom in passenger rail traffic in Canada.

The company's roots go back to the mid-1850s, when Thomas Patrick Phelan was selling apples and newspapers to train passengers on the Niagara Steamboats. The company was originally chartered in 1883 as Canada Railway News Company, selling newspapers, magazines and confectionaries at railway stations.