For nearly 100 years, when Toledoans would ask, “Where’s the beef?” the answer invariably was simple: Red Wells.

But as of this week, Red Wells Roast Beef restaurant and its traditional roast beef sandwich is no more.

The family-owned cafeteria-style restaurant that served up millions of roast beef sandwiches, mashed potatoes, baked beans and tapioca pudding to hungry customers over a span of 12 decades, shut down its last location, at 1740 W. Sylvania Ave., after the close of business on Wednesday.

Owner Richard Wells, son of the restaurant’s namesake, the late Clark “Red” Wells, said on Thursday that the time had come to call it quits.

“The reason for (closing) is I’m getting too old for that. I’m 85, that’s the main reason. I have health issues,” Mr. Wells said.

“We hung around as long as we could. We’ve been there on Sylvania since 1957. But it was time to retire and that’s what I decided to do,” Mr. Wells said.

Red Wells Inc., though, almost seemed destined to go on forever.

The business, a Toledo culinary legend, could trace its origin to 1894 when Allen and Eva Wells began serving food to a few hotels, boarding houses, and saloons that they owned.

But it was when their son, Clark “Red” Wells, returned home from World War I in 1919 that the business took off. Partnering with his father, “Red” converted a saloon at the old Auburndale Hotel on Monroe Street into a restaurant, offering tasty roast beef sandwiches. Pretty soon they needed five employees to keep up with demand.

Back then the sandwiches, smothered in beef gravy, sold for a dime. Eva Wells would spend all day roasting sides of beef at the family home, and then have beef rounds transported to the hotel in a wagon.

In 1930, the family opened two restaurants downtown, one of them becoming the first Toledo restaurant to be fully electrified. Richard Wells began working in his father’s restaurant in 1946, and in 1957 he convinced the family to open the Sylvania Avenue location. It was at that point that Richard Wells went from being an employee to a business partner with his father, who died in 1986.

Over the next four decades the business thrived with its reasonable prices and menu of comfort food — roast beef sandwiches, corned beef, mashed potatoes and gravy, soup, a choice of five vegetables, and a dessert selection that included pies and tapioca pudding.

Every item was made from recipes or cooking techniques developed by Eva Wells.

Richard Wells helped expand the business, eventually owning three restaurants, on Sylvania Avenue, on Hill Avenue, and on Front Street in East Toledo.

A fourth location in partnership with The Andersons was in Maumee.

Mr. Wells also attempted to franchise Red Wells’ Roast Beef Sandwich Shops in 1994, with a franchisee opening a location on Monroe Street in Sylvania. But, Mr. Wells said, “That didn’t work out too good.”

Over the last decade, one by one the other restaurant sites closed until only the Sylvania location remained the last few years.

Mr. Wells said he is “not actively looking for a buyer,” but if the right offer came along he would sell the Sylvania Avenue building. “If somebody wanted it, I’d think about it,” he said.

However, Mr. Wells said the Red Wells name and its concept is not for sale. “I’ve done that once before and I’m not enthused about that idea,” he said.

Instead, Mr. Wells said he will let Red Wells and its tasty roast beef sandwiches fade into Toledo history.

“I hated to close, but it was time. Nothing lasts forever,” he said.

Contact Jon Chavez at: jchavez@theblade.com or 419-724-6128.

First Published September 4, 2015, 4:00 a.m.