What are those stories that get passed down or talked about in your family that you've always wondered whether were true? I had the "we're descended from a Native American" tale, the "our ancestors came over on the Mayflower" thought, the "twins run in the family" bit, and many more, some of which have been debunked, some of which are absolutely true, and some that I still need to explore.
To kick off the new year, I thought it best to revisit a connection my dad told me about when I was growing up. We lived in the "South Bay" in California, which was essentially all the cities directly south of Los Angeles near the beach (west of Anaheim and Disneyland).
There were two Bob's Big Boy restaurants on Hawthorne Boulevard in Torrance, one just south of Artesia Blvd., which became a Coco's some time before 2010 (and I remember eating once at the Coco's in the year leading up to my friend's wedding), and one just off of the Pacific Coast Highway (Highway 1 or PCH, for short). The latter closed in 1995, and another Bob's Big Boy replaced it, and then that one closed in 2012 (the space is currently a Black Bear Diner).
I only recall eating at a Bob's Big Boy a handful of times (most notably at the remaining Burbank/Toluca Lake location on Riverside Drive that was deemed a California point of historical interest in 1993, because I've been there as an adult, it being just a block from my work).
As a kid, I only have a single, distinct memory of being inside of one and standing outside of one, and then one fuzzy memory inside of a diner that may have been an entirely different chain (all I can recall is I believe we were on a road trip and the restaurant still allowed smoking on one half side, which obviously could still be breathed in on our side). I'm unsure. I can't say definitively that I ever ate at the Torrance location, but considering the proximity to our house, I'd bet we did (however, 'Y' NOT BURGERS, about a mile up the street from Bob's Big Boy on Hawthorne, was more our speed).
What I remember most whenever I see that oversized statue of a boy in checkered overalls holding up the platter with a "double deck hamburger" on it has not so much to do with the diner or eating there, but more so centers on a story my dad mentioned about his dad knowing THE Bob of Bob's Big Boy.
Of course, as a child, you don't really cling to details in a story, so although my dad might have told me everything about this connection between my grandfather and Bob several times, I couldn't quite recall the specifics and had to prompt him to tell me again (this time, I recorded it for posterity). From my faded memory, I only seemed to remember him saying that his dad Harry had either worked at the original Bob's Big Boy, or a place that would eventually become the chain, with the guy who started it, and there was something having to do about selling pie!
Also, if you happened to have quizzed me before writing up this blog, I would have sworn the Big Boy statue was wearing blue checkered overalls and holding up a pie on his platter, when in fact, his overalls are red checkered (the name Big Boy on his white undershirt is printed in blue) and of course he's holding up the famous "double deck hamburger" with a slice of melting cheese on it, not any sort of dessert like pie. Memory certainly fails over time, even recent memory, especially if there's no reason for you to have to know it in the future!
For some background on Bob of Bob's Big Boy, his full name was Robert C. Wian. His father was a furniture salesman, who reportedly struggled to make ends meet. Bob grew up in and around Glendale, California (about 20 miles north of the "South Bay"). He graduated high school in 1933 and started working in the restaurant industry from the ground up as a dishwasher and fry cook.
Anyway, here is what my dad remembered about his dad, Harry Foltz, and Harry's connection to Bob Wian:
"My dad told me that in his early days in Southern California that he worked with Bob in a roadside hamburger stand I believe in Santa Barbara, or somewhere, maybe in the Ventura area, and I assume that was on Highway 1, because I think he mentioned it to me as we were driving somewhere between here and up north towards Santa Barbara. Um, this was just a two-lane highway when I grew up. We didn't have a freeway here. And it was just eucalyptus trees and a couple-lane highway here. We would come through this area often [Ventura County] to go camping and fishing and stuff.
And he said that, um, Bob's mother would bake pies, and they would sell them for 25 cents. And I think he described it as a roadside hamburger stand. But I guess that's all in your imagination what a roadside hamburger stand is like. And, um, so that's all I know about that..."
"...He came in 1932 for the L.A. Olympics. And he said in those days, he'd only make a dollar a day. Um, he'd wash people's windows or whatever. He'd earn about a dollar a day. And, I don't know if that was before or after the hamburger stand [referring to Harry's time working at El Presidio restaurant and nightclub in Santa Barbara].
And, um, we never went to Bob's. We didn't, we didn't really go out very often to things like Bob's Big Boy restaurants and stuff. But if we were on a summer trip or something like that, to San Diego or something, we might go into something like a Bob's Big Boy.
And, ya know, I recall one time my dad asking the people that worked there if Bob ever dropped into his stores, and this one waitress said to him, "Oh yeah! He stops in every....year, or something like that." And so, my dad didn't know if he [Bob] still owned the place or didn't. And the waitress said, "Yeah he stops by on rare occasions." He [Harry] never spoke to him [Bob] as far as I know. That's the only story I know about that. I don't know how much validity it has to it....I don't know about it being a partnership, or if he worked for Bob. I don't know anything about that. But he probably just moved on."
My mom chimed in about the Big Boy restaurants back East carrying different names on their chains: she remembered Elby's Big Boy in West Virginia and Pennsylvania and Shoney's Big Boy further down South. And she was sure they were all just franchised locations of Bob's Big Boy, since they all looked the same, even with the statue out front.
I can confirm now, after researching, that's exactly true. And there were even at least 26 other Big Boy franchises across the nation. When Bob signed the contract to license out his restaurant idea, including the "double-deck hamburger," his stipulation was they couldn't say "Bob's" in front of "Big Boy." Each location usually adopted the name or nickname of that franchise's business owner.
Dad said, "I don't know if it was called Big Boy when my dad [Harry] sold hamburgers with him [Bob]."
I asked my dad's sister if she remembered any connection to the Bob's Big Boy restaurant chain, and she said, "I don't. But now that you bring it up, there's something way in the back of my mind that I can't seem to bring up." So perhaps after some prompting, I might jog her memory.
After getting these tidbits, I dove into researching everything I could on Bob Wian and the beginnings of his career. I even gave in and purchased the book, The Big Boy Story: king of them all, by Christian Hansen (it won't arrive until after I've published this blog, but maybe I'll learn some special details to update the article with later*).
Well, there's certainly one aspect of dad's memory that I can correct, and that is that his dad, Harry, most certainly did not work with or for Bob Wian in Santa Barbara. Of course, my dad was just speculating Santa Barbara to be the location, knowing Harry frequented and loved that city. But I can confirm Bob didn't do any business up there, and the years in which we can place Harry in Santa Barbara don't match up to when he could possibly have come into contact with Bob, either.
The two most probable explanations to support the family myth:
1) Bob Wian did indeed buy a roadside hamburger stand. It was originally called The Pantry, and it was located in Glendale, California at 900 E. Colorado Boulevard. And it was just what you'd imagine a roadside hamburger stand to look like, actually! He purchased it in 1936 (by selling his car for about $300 and borrowing some money from his father) and renamed it to Bob's Pantry. Eventually, this location transformed into the first Big Boy restaurant, which then grew into the west coast chain we know as Bob's Big Boy. Sadly, that original location has been demolished.
2) Before his entrepreneuring enterprises kicked in, and after graduating high school, Bob Wian began working at a White Log Tavern in 1933 somewhere in Los Angeles County. White Log Tavern was a chain owned by Oakland native and restaurant business owner Kenneth Bemis.
By 1939, they were doing business as White Log Coffee Shop, and there were several in and around LA. (They were famous for resembling actual log cabins from colonial or pioneering times and staying open 24/7. The architects who allegedly designed them were Nordstrom and Anderson, well known for their art deco buildings sprinkled along Miracle Mile. In downtown LA, one "log cabin" still shockingly remains intact, under different ownership with a turquoise paint job, and doing business as a patio restaurant, despite suffering a devastating interior fire in 2020. The concrete exterior saved it from all-out loss.)
An uncited source on Flickr.com claims Bob was hired at the White Log Taverns' Glendale location, but I can't be sure of that, as I haven't found any evidence to support that statement.
Bob Wian was known to have hired guys for Bob's Pantry (later, Bob's Big Boy) he worked with, or for, from White Log Tavern and also The Rite Spot (the reported birthplace of the cheeseburger at 1500 W. Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena, now considered Eagle Rock).
One such man was Davis W. Wood, who became a purchasing agent for Bob's Big Boy. Bob knew Davis from his time working under him at White Log Tavern. Davis had been his boss! Before getting married around 1940, Davis had lived in Echo Park (close to downtown LA), and he later resided in Glendale, so it's unclear which White Log Tavern he managed. There were several downtown, as well.
Another former boss of Bob's, Leonard A. Dunagan, and Bob's own sister, even, had worked at The Rite Spot and eventually came to work for Bob in some capacity. So, it's very clear, Bob recognized talent and hard work around him and capitalized on it.
Interestingly enough, while I was conducting this research on the LA-based restaurant chains, I discovered my own grandfather, Harry Foltz, had also worked at a White Log Tavern! I had never known this fact, but ran across a Los Angeles city directory from 1936 giving his current address as 5731 1/4 Carlton Way and his occupation as Asst. Bartending Manager. Within that same year, he moved north to Pasadena.
I don't know how long he had been residing on Carlton Way or working at White Log Tavern. I also don't know which location he worked at. There were two very nearby: the closest was only a couple blocks around the corner from his place, at 6101 Sunset Blvd., and the other was 1.5 miles south of him at 5347 Melrose Avenue (what's now on the Paramount Studios lot, which was probably more accessible to public access in those days). I'd venture to guess he worked at the closer stop, but then again, he was known to have ties to the film industry, so that might have been his "in." There's just no way to know at this time.
As an interesting aside, my dad also recalled his father owning a restaurant in Pasadena that didn't have any sort of name on the signage above. Instead, it just said something like "Sizzling Steaks." If his memory served him right, his father sold the place in advance of the city widening the street, which would cut the square footage in half and diminish his investment. Considering Pasadena was indeed in the throws of street widening discussions during those years, I gave this memory a lot of merit.
But then during my research on the White Log Tavern chain, I found this photo of one of the cabin facades in Oakland, California on 14th and Webster Streets:
Notice the signage above the frame? It says "Tender STEAKS Juicy." And nowhere (at least visible at this angle) does it say the name White Log Tavern or White Log Coffee Shops. I wonder if my dad's memory is a combination of two distinct stories: 1) Harry worked at a place that said something like "Sizzling Steaks" above it, and 2) Harry sold a restaurant in Pasadena before the street it was located on was widened.
So, is it possible Harry worked with Bob at White Log Tavern? Sure! Maybe that's the full story, even. Perhaps they were coworkers once upon a time, and Harry just said he had worked with Bob before Bob's Big Boy became a thing.
Or is it possible they worked together, and then when Harry moved up to the Pasadena area in 1936, Bob enticed him to work at Bob's Pantry and sell his mom's pies alongside the "double-deck hamburger"? The pies part of the story really stands out for me, but interestingly, it's not written up in any of the Bob's Big Boy history I've read. So, is that piece true? Did he sell pies that his mother baked for him? Who knows?*
Bob Wian did a television interview in his later years where he said, "People had a...they were squeamish about eating a ground beef product, because in the old days, they threw everything in the ground beef, including the ears. And we ground the beef in front of the customers, and that made our product a little more fresh and...and with hamburger, it's not aging that makes it better. The food tastes better in a place that feels comfortable." The "double-deck hamburger" made him famous, but it wasn't what built his restaurant. Homemade pies may very well have been part of his origin story, but just left off the record.*
Or maybe Harry did get hired at Bob's Pantry, but not because they had known each other previously, but solely based off of his past experience working at another White Log Tavern. One of the problems in proving this connection is that I do not know definitively which White Log Tavern (or Coffee Shop) any of these men worked at.**
It's entirely possible Harry could have worked at Bob's Pantry in Glendale. Once he moved up to Pasadena in 1936 (when Bob purchased the Pantry), Harry only lived about an 11-13 minute drive down the street from the roadside stand, at 64 W. Colorado Boulevard. His voter's registration that year lists his occupation as manager.
Knowing that Harry was willing to do all sorts of odd end jobs to make a living, but especially had an interest in bartending and managing restaurants, this family lore that he sold hamburgers with Bob Wian at a roadside stand seems to carry a lot of weight. I don't know if I'll ever be able to prove the connection outright, but I certainly believe it's legitimate.
*Pies Update: A week after publishing this blog, I received Chris Hansen's book The Big Boy Story in the mail. I quickly skimmed through it to see if it happened to include any details on pie being sold at the original Bob's Pantry, and sure enough, it did!
In a 1972 interview with a journalist, Bob Wian explained which chains and restaurants he borrowed ideas from to begin his Big Boy formula. He mentioned, "All the kids were going to Tom Croupiers for them. Shakes and pie à la mode -- they were going to Sternbergers' for their hamburger, and The White Log Cabins were making all the money. Pie à la mode was a tremendous seller, if the pies were good. They had to be. I used to make that damn dough by hand. I'm not kidding you, it was tough."
Hansen included, "Bob's grandmother on his father's side baked the pies in the kitchen of her apartment for the first six months. But the demand was so great that Bob bought a bakery. He would go to work at 3:00 in the morning and bake the pies."
This all but confirms my grandfather worked with Bob at the original Bob's Pantry some time during the first six months of its founding! Of course, my father's recollection was that his dad had said Bob's mother baked the pies, not his grandmother, but that's a small discrepancy that I'd expect in a story retold more than 85 years after the event.
Wian recounted more about those early days, "All those pies...cherry, berry, apple, fresh baked...used to wheel them in at 11:00 every morning and, man, they were a superb cut of pie. Never forget it. I'd fill up the back end of my Chevy, take them, and put them in the case. They were so hot that when I cut into them, the glass case would steam up. That was the whole deal. I'd be out of pies by 4:00 in the afternoon. You're thinking, 'On purpose.' Well, not really. We just couldn't bake enough. They were so super good, you know...the real old-fashioned pie with sugar on the top. God, they were pretty."
I'm surprised that I couldn't find any of this backstory during my previous research. The only thing tying Big Boy's to pies that I had run across before had to do with their signature strawberry pie that they still serve today. But I had read it was only introduced to the menu some time in the '40s or '50s, so that did not support the narrative I was trying to prove.
Considering Hansen's book was only published in 2002, about a decade after my father had first told me about my grandfather's connection and probably several decades after my father had first learned of the story from his dad, there's little to no chance this story was fabricated by my grandfather (unless, of course, he read or heard that initial 1972 interview with Bob Wian). There's no reason to believe that's the case.
The only other deviation in my family's story to what actually took place, was the cost of the pie. I think my dad just misremembered it being a quarter. It was likely closer to a dime. An undated, but earlier version, of the Bob's Big Boy menu was printed in Hansen's book and included pies for 10¢:
Note in this menu, there is no mention of the "Double Deck Hamburger," which likely means this menu pre-dates its invention and could very well be the original Bob's Pantry menu. If so, then the dessert option (lower right) was priced at 10¢. By 1955, a Bob's Big Boy menu showed an increased price listed at 20¢ for a slice of pie and 30¢ for pie à la mode. That seems about right for inflation.
**White Log Tavern Update: Thank you to Christian Hansen for including the exact location Bob Wian began working at! On page 33 of his book The Big Boy Story, Hansen gives the address at 2nd Street and Broadway in downtown Los Angeles. It goes on in detail saying, "He [Bob] had graduated from Glendale High School in 1931 and coaxed his mother to drive him down to the White Log LA office for an interview. They only interviewed once a week, and there was usually a line of people outside waiting to get in. He got the interview but not the job. So his mother brought him back the following week, and he was hired as a dishwasher on the midnight shift by Los Angeles District Manager Larry Gorvad. At 19, Bob was the manager."
The cross streets mentioned in the book were the 200 S. Broadway White Log Coffee Shop address. It was located in the Historic Broadway district of downtown L.A., just a block from the famous Grand Central Market and Angel's Flight (now, just a parking lot with new subway construction). If you scroll back up to the 1939 city directory I posted, you'll see the district manager Gorvad, who hired Wian, was listed in it! It makes me wonder if all of the local hiring for the chain occurred downtown, and if so, is that a similar interview process my grandfather may have experienced before he began working for White Log?
Sources:
Christian Hansen, The Big Boy Story: King of Them All (Santa Barbara, CA: Haagen Printing, 2002).
https://bobs.net/pages/history
https://www.dailybreeze.com/2012/08/17/bobs-big-boy-in-torrance-to-close/
https://burgerbeast.com/bobs-big-boy/?unapproved=50003&moderation-hash=2d1f256defac5c57bc301f7e7b378b77#comment-50003
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob%27s_Big_Boy#cite_note-Hansen_2002-12
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheeseburger
https://skyscraperpage.com/forum/showthread.php?t=170279&page=370
https://digitallibrary.usc.edu/asset-management/2A3BF1O51VZW4?WS=SearchResults&FR_=1&W=1341&H=645
https://www.flickr.com/photos/sminor/17870163678
https://localwiki.org/oakland/White_Log_Tavern_restaurants
https://www.roadarch.com/eateries/cala3.html
https://calisphere.org/item/e80cd1be7ce1a9f7d8ffb3b27e244cfe/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Rite_Spot_in_Pasadena,_CA.jpg
https://www.pasadena-chamber.org/blog/plaque-commemorating-invention-cheeseburger-pasadena-dedicated-la-financial-credit-union
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gbgaq6QbVzs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtEDpkGhwMI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3sESIV7Kto
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Boy_Restaurants#Bob's
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5K_E5JOvqw
https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/person/tree/2869533/person/-1808669577/facts
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