The restaurant chain Ruby Tuesday was founded in 1972 in a former residence in the Fort Sanders neighborhood and catered to UT students. In 1972 Samuel E. (Sandy) Beall was a 22-year-old University of Tennessee, Knoxville student majoring in finance, who on the side helped William Kholmia manage a group of Pizza Hut restaurants. Kholmia suffered a massive heart attack that year. On his deathbed, Kholmia, wanting his protégé to be his own boss, offered Beall $10,000 to open a restaurant. Beall accepted the offer, and together with four of his college buddies scraped together another $10,000 to open the first Ruby Tuesday. Beall named the restaurant after the then ubiquitous Rolling Stones’ song “Ruby Tuesday.” The restaurant featured barn wood walls, fake Tiffany lamps over the tables, and a $1.45 hamburger served on an English muffin. Beall also secured the first liquor-by-the-drink license in Knoxville, which enhanced the restaurant’s popularity with students.
Ruby Tuesday’s subsequent success made Beall too busy for school, so he dropped out to devote himself full time to his venture. Over the next several years, Ruby Tuesday grew slowly, adding a new outlet about every nine months, and was a 15-restaurant chain 10 years after its founding. Beall sold Ruby Tuesday to Morrison’s in 1982 for $15 million in cash and stock, with Beall in charge of the Specialty Restaurant Division of Morrison’s. Beall became president and COO of Morrison in 1986. In 1992 Morrison restructured itself, emphasizing restaurants over cafeterias by changing its name to Morrison Restaurants Inc. The dinner house restaurants—Ruby Tuesday, L&N, and Silver Spoon—were positioned within Morrison Restaurants as the Casual Dining Group, later known as the Ruby Tuesday Group. The year 1992 also saw Beall become CEO of Morrison and Morrison post its first $1 billion revenue year. In May 1995 Ruby Tuesday entered into a license agreement with Jardine Pacific to develop Ruby Tuesday restaurants in the Asia-Pacific region. The first Ruby Tuesday located outside the United States opened in Hong Kong in July 1995. Ruby Tuesday came full circle in 1996, when Morrison was split into three separate public companies, one of which was Ruby Tuesday. Legally, Ruby Tuesday Inc. was the successor company to Morrison Restaurants Inc.; Beall retained his position as president and CEO of Ruby Tuesday, which remained based in Mobile.
In the summer of 1998 the company returned to its roots, moving its corporate headquarters to Maryville. The new corporate campus also included an onsite training facility. When the 20-year lease expired on the original Ruby Tuesday location, it was closed—on Saturday, February 1, 1992, the restaurant closed during the dinner hour, when construction crews began dismantling the decor, with Beall saying that the Ruby’s on campus did not fit the image of the chain.