When two elderly ladies considered selling out their ten-stool lunch counter on Colorado Boulevard, Wian saw his opportunity. Still, he had to make a painful decision: sell his prized 1933 De Soto roadster to get the bulk of the $350 asking price or pass over the deal.  It was a clear choice.  The car found a new owner and Wian got the money he needed.  The eatery was his!  He renamed it Bob’s Pantry and began to work the counter alone.

Members of Chuck Foster’s Orchestra adopted the Pantry as a late-night hangout and stopped in frequently after gigs.  High-school pals of Wian’s felt comfortable there, filling up with numerous hamburgers, gallons of Hires root beer, and packets of cigarettes.  One frosty night in February of 1937, bass musician Stewie Strange became bored with the usual midnight snack and uttered the historic question, now ensconced in legend: “How about something different for a change, Bob?”

In a teasing mood, Wian was quick to accommodate.  He proceeded to cut a sesame seed bun into three slices and flipped two burgers onto the griddle. While the meat sizzled, the band watched in fascination as leaves of lettuce and slices of cheese were readied on the sideboard.  Finally, the cooked patties were lifted from the hot plate.  Wian plopped on some relish, and began stacking up a ridiculous caricature of the hamburger—a double-decked delight pushing burger creativity to the outer limits. The band loved it!

A few days later, chunky Richard Woodruff wandered in through the front door.  He lived down the street and often came in to sweep the floor and perform other busy work for Wian.  Only six years old, he was already exhibiting a “Wimpy sized appetite for hamburgs [sic]—with a stomach to match.” HE figured out his own way to get ‘em and charmed both the lunch time customers and Wian with his plump physique and droopy overalls.  It came as no surprise to the regulars why Bob Wian christened his unique sandwich the “Big Boy!

After a local cartoonist sketched a rendition of the urchin on a napkin, the tousled hair and chubby cheeks became a trademark adorning the front facade.  News of the great-tasting “double-deck” cheeseburger spread and within three years, Wian opened a second eatery in Los Angeles.  By 1949, he was franchising his sandwich (and its youthful mascot) to operators in a half-dozen states.  Meanwhile, a trio of his own Big Boy dinettes prospered. Featuring “snappy service drive-in lanes and inside seating,” their transitional design bridged the carhop era with the coming age of coffee-shops.  In 1964, Wian’s built his last open-air unit.

Bob's Double-Deck Big Boy Cheeseburger

A few years later, McDonald’s franchisee Jim Delligatti wanted to bring out a “new idea for a sandwich” when he remembered Wian’s tasty double.  During the fifties, he managed a West Coast drive-in and was impressed by the numerous imitators of the twin burger.  But whether whether or not he was influenced by nostalgia or his own imagination remains unclear … what’s certain is that he developed a close copy of the bi-level Big Boy.  Later, he admitted that the conception of this burger clone “wasn’t like discovering the light bulb—the bulb was already there … all I did was screw it in the socket.” Of course, no credit was given to Wian for his original creation.

Delligatti’s Big “Mac” was introduced nationwide at McDonald’s outlets in 1968.  The stacked sandwich was an immediate hit, soon accounting for nineteen percent of sales! But, that was no surprise for Robert C. Wian, Jr.  His double-decked sandwich—created at the spur of the moment to satisfy the desire for something different—had already built a food empire.  Another variation on the theme couldn’t hurt. He—and everyone else acquainted with hamburger history … would always know the Big Boy was Bob’s. ]]> http://michaelwitzel.com/wordpress/bobs-big-boy-burger/feed/ 0 http://michaelwitzel.com/wordpress/hamburger-architecture/ http://michaelwitzel.com/wordpress/hamburger-architecture/#comments Sun, 22 Jun 2008 05:00:43 +0000 Michael Witzel http://michaelwitzel.com/wordpress/?p=171 By Michael Karl Witzel ©2007-2008

Hamburgers made their debut on the food scene as irregular lumps of chopped beef, hand shaped according to the improvisational jazz of lunch counter short order. During the early years, long before the cookie-cutter aesthetics of the Big Mac came into vogue, concerns over circular uniformity and ingredients were minimal.

When fry by the seat of your pants legends Charlie Nagreen and Frank Menches formed ground round for the griddle, personal artistry insured that every burger was a unique one. Irregularly molded perimeters of meat—with one piece more or less hanging out at one side or the other—didn’t affect taste. At the time, it was all part of their appeal.

Redeemed of their dubious reputation by the mid-1930s, the individuality of America’s beef patties slowly waned. Suddenly, the proprietors of roadside food businesses followed the preparatory parameters of the White Castle outlets. Mixing in just the right amount of fat became a major concern, the quality of meat of utmost importance. Approved by the public, the unvarying look of the “assembly line became the credo for hamburger standardization.

Aiding this quest for a perfect burger blob, manufacturers of restaurant equipment soon introduced a useful arsenal of kitchen gadgetry. The Sanitary Hamburger Press Company marketed a hand-operated device capable of producing meat cakes possessing identical specifications. With the speed and accuracy of three hyperactive butchers, eleven precise “patties of meat could now be extracted from just one pound of grind.

For even the most addle-minded burgermeister, creating an exacting succession of identical “hamburger sandwiches was now second nature. Anybody could do it: a minced batch of meat was loaded into one end and a crank was turned. Extruded wheels of beef, 3 1/2 inches in diameter by 1/4 inch thick plopped out from its bottom—untouched by human hands! The age of burger boredom had officially arrived.

Fortunately, the visual aspects of the hamburger were re-energized when restauranteur Bob Wian created his famous double-decker creation in 1937. By simply adding a center slice of bun, what had fast become a mundane marriage of beef and bread was elevated to a new level. In a perfect example of art imitating life—or in this case food mimicking architecture—multiple stories of beef, lettuce, cheese, relish, and sesame seed bun resulted in what would become the motoring crowd’s ultimate Dagwood.

Reincarnated as a fast-food representation of the streamlined designs typical of Simon’s, Herbert’s, Carpenter’s, and a long list of structures being erected to serve customers within their chariots, the once disreputable hamburger attained an aura all its own. All grown up and dressed to the hilt, it was a “Big Boy now—a hand-held monument to American ingenuity and culinary pluck.

By the 1950s, hundreds of millions of hamburgers were being sold each year. Coming as no surprise, the popularity of hot dogs, barbecue, grilled cheese, chili con carne, steak sandwiches, and even the chipped beef platter fell quickly to a position at the bottom of the menu. The culture born of the motorcar finally had a food it could hold in one hand and still eat while driving the strip.

Portable, palatable packages perfectly suited for eating-on-the-go, hamburger sandwiches are now solidly established for all forms of bench-seat snacking. To this day, they continue to sizzle as the quintessential staple of the American road.

• Big Country Burger® image courtesy of the Country Kitchen http://www.countrykitchenlathrop.com/lunch_menu.html