"Bob's Big Boy and Big Boy restaurants started with Bob's Pantry in 1936 when founder Bob Wian bought a local Glendale restaurant. Wian supposedly originated the double-decker hamburger and came up with the Big Boy character. Bob's Big Boy became a California chain and began franchising in the 1940s. Unlike chains like McDonald's, Wian did not require uniformity, and franchise owners were free to name their restaurants whatever they wanted. The restaurants were known as Frisch's Big Boy in Ohio and Elias Brothers Big Boy in Michigan."The Elias brothers had their own restaurants before becoming a Big Boy franchisee in 1952. They kept the Elias name adding the Big Boy character and "Home of the Big Boy" to their signage and advertising. In 1987, they acquired the Big Boy chain's franchise rights from Marriott Corp. Big Boy is now Michigan-based and has about 450 restaurants in California, Arizona, Hawaii, North Dakota, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, and North Carolina."
Since I wrote about food the past couple of days, I was doing a bit of research about the California years. Make no mistake, I don't think that Bob's Big Boy, or any other Big Boy, is a great eatery. It will do in a pinch now -- if you're traveling cross-country by car, starving, out in the middle of nowhere, and see a sign announcing Big Boy just up ahead, at Exit 271.
To be fair, it's not all that bad. The double-decker burger preceded and basically launched the Big Mac, which has certainly enjoyed a long tenure of success. The onion rings used to be good; I don't know what they do now. It was the kind of hamburger joint/coffee shop hybrid that worked well for all kinds of gatherings. The place itself was more the draw than the food.
Even if the food wasn't that great, the sight of the big, plastic Big Boy on the outside was always friendly and seemed, to me, to promise more than the inside could deliver. For American Boomers, it's a sight from childhood that communicates that you know what you see, you've been there before, and you already know what you want to eat.
It didn't really hit me until this morning. The hair should have been a dead giveaway. The plasticity would have been another clue.
No, I completely missed the unfortunate resemblance.
Rod Blagojevich looks just like Big Boy.
I wasn't paying much attention to the latest Illnois governor to walk in handcuffs to a waiting federal motorcade. I didn't pay much attention to him during the General Election. It's not like the laundry list of scummy friendships and associations from the Chicago political machine attached to Obama really needed one more name. It was old news that slum lord/robber baron/beneficiary of Obama's senate largesse Tony Rezko was probably singing like a canary; but, somewhere along the line, I had read that the governor was probably on his "greatest hits" list.
I had never really taken a good look at him. Now that I see him for what he really is, I think it's fortunate for him that he's not been trying to build a hamburger restaurant empire on the side. He definitely would have been held in violation of trade dress laws. Brand defamation complaints would not have been far behind.
Nevertheless, damage has been done. It's just criminal.
Big Boy deserves better than this.
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