A&W Restaurants is an American chain of fast-food restaurants distinguished by its burgers, draft root beer and root beer floats. Its origins date back to 1919 when Roy W. Allen set up a roadside drink stand to offer a new thick and creamy drink, root beer, at a parade honoring returning World War I veterans in Lodi, California. Allen's employee Frank Wright partnered with him in 1922 and they founded their first restaurant in Sacramento, California, in 1923. The company name was taken respectively from the initials of their last names—Allen and Wright. The company became famous in the United States for its "frosty mugs," where the mugs would be kept in the freezer and eventually get filled with A&W Root Beer before they were served to customers.