Kirby’s idea was simple: patrons were to drive up in their automobiles and make their food requests from behind the wheel. A young lad would take the customers’ orders directly through the window of the car and then deliver the food and beverages right back out to the curb. The novelty of this new format was that hurried diners could consume their meals while still sitting in the front seat.

Of course, the Roaring Twenties were ripe for such a brazen idea. Adventurous folk perched atop flagpoles, danced the Charleston at around the clock dance marathons, and consumed bathtub gin at speakeasies. During Prohibition, freedom of travel emerged as the new thrill, fueled by automobile ownership that soared from six million to twenty-seven million motorcars by decade’s end.

When Kirby and Jackson’s Texas “Pig Stand opened along the busy Dallas-Fort Worth Highway (West Davis Street) in the Fall of 1921, hoards of Texas motorists tipped their ten-gallon hats to “America’s Motor Lunch. Here was the ultimate dine-in-your-car convenience—starring Kirby and Jackson’s newest hand-held creation, the “Pig Sandwich. Prepared with tender slices of roast pork loin, pickle relish, and barbecue sauce, it quickly gained a loyal following among harried commuters and carefree joy riders. A frosty bottle of Dr Pepper (another Texas favorite, invented at a soda fountain in Waco) accompanied the motoring meal.

But the tasty curbside cuisine wasn’t the only attraction at America’s first drive-in restaurant. The flamboyant car servers who worked the curb—or “carhops as someone coined the phrase—were truly a sight to behold. “All the car hops were young men, probably 12 to 15 years old, recalls Richard Hailey, successor to the Pig Stand throne and acting president of Pig Stands, Inc. “The carhops were very competitive. As soon as they saw a Model T start to slow down and turn tires towards the curb, they’d race out to see who could jump up on the running board first while the car was still moving.

With its good food and derring-do curb service, the legend of the carhop grew as the reputation of the Pig Stands and its signature barbecue sandwich spread. Propelled beyond the borders of Texas by one of the first franchising arrangements in the industry, the number of restaurants multiplied quickly. Between 1921 and 1934, more than 100 Pig Stands were serving up “A Good Meal At Any Time in Texas, California, Louisiana, Mississippi, New York, Florida, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Alabama.

As the demands of the American automobile owner changed, fast food innovation shaped the Pig Stand legacy. According to Hailey, “It was California Pig Stand No. 21 that pioneered drive through car service in 1931. Unheard of at the time, customers drove right up to the building to make their order, while the cook served the meals to occupants waiting in their car. Fast forward seventy years: Today, virtually every American fast-food chain restaurant relies on the “drive-thru window format to service busy commuters arriving in their motor vehicles.

Royce Hailey, patriarch of the Pig Stands clan and father to Richard, was one of the pioneers. Inspired by the same spirit of pluck and entrepreneurship that made the Pig Stands an American success story, he started his career as a Dallas carhop at age thirteen. In 1930, he leaped up onto his first automobile running board and never looked back. When he hopped off twenty-five years later, he found himself president of the company. By the dawn of the 1960s, he led the company to sell off all of the out-of-state stands and concentrate solely on the Texas locations. In 1975, he became sole owner of the company.

But a knack for business and people skills was only part of his legend. As popular restaurant history tells the tale, the visionary Hailey “invented” the chicken-fried steak sandwich during the 1930s. Not satisfied with one culinary creation to his credit, he also helped to create the super-sized slice of grilled bread most natives of the Alamo city know and love as “Texas Toast” (according to many food historians, the Pig Stands are also credited with creating fried onion rings during the heyday of the 1920s).

Son Richard purchased all interest to the Pig Stands company in 1983 and forged ahead with the tradition of serving American comfort food to a public still in love with their automobile and the freedom it affords. “Today, diners can still get an over sized piece of Texas Toast, giant onion rings, a milkshake, and a tasty Pig Sandwich, he says. “The best part is that we still sell the same Pig Sandwich made the same way that is was made so many years ago.

Along the great American roadsides, it seems that the more things change … the more they stay the same. For fans of the “World’s First Drive-in Restaurant, there’s still nothing that compares with dining on a tasty Pig Sandwich and a bottle of Dr Pepper while seated comfortably in America’s favorite dining room: the front seat of a car.

McDonalds Golden Arches (circa 1950s)

With this simple aim in the forefront, professional architects in Southern California were approached. A few interesting concepts were drafted for the brothers’ review—but unfortunately … met with immediate rejection. Later described by Richard McDonald as “squatty looking boxes,” they exhibited a blatant lack of memorable charm or character.

Undaunted, the drawings were taken home for further contemplation. Then, while Richard McDonald pored over the plans in his office one rainy night—the arrow of inspiration found its mark. He had an idea! With limited talents as an artist and unbounded intuition about what a roadside stand should look like, he began to sketch some tentative plans.

First, the height of the building had to be lifted. Tapping into personal preferences, Richard penciled in a slanted roof—sloping gradually from the front to rear. Influenced by Colonial columns dominating his twenty-five room house, he included a few variations. Though imposing, they weren’t the elusive element he desired in a fast-food restaurant.

Next, he oriented a large semi-circle parallel to the front of the square building. It looked a little funny, so he discarded the idea and proceeded to draw two arches—positioning one of them at each side of the structure. This time, he arranged them perpendicular to where the road might be. As soon as he lifted his writing instrument from the paper at the bottom of the second arch, McDonald realized he had found the answer.

Swelled with the post-invention confidence typical of any vanguard, he presented Fontana architect Stanley Meston with the idea. Unprepared for the abstract incarnation of Coffee-shop Modern, Stan posed his question: “Dick, did you have a bad dream last night?” The garish arches assaulted his design sensibilities! He wanted no part of them—detailing their obvious impracticality to the brothers (amazingly, he would lay claim to the arch idea—decades later).

Unfazed by the response, McDonald stuck to his vision. He wanted those arches and would have them! If Meston wouldn’t work with the idea, then they would get someone else. Predictably, he eventually caught the vision and cooperated with sign maker George Dexter to amplify the golden wings with neon.

After further refinements were made, an eye-grabbing rendering was drawn up. Now, curved circles became taught parabolas—flaring gradually at their base. The upper portions of the dual yellow bands—along with the edges of the flying wedge roof, were rimmed with tubes of neon. Walls, striped with dramatic red and white tiles, jazzed the exterior.

Businessman Neil Fox and associates took the hook and became the first McDonald’s franchisee in America to construct the arched design. In May of 1953, the illuminated arches born on a scrap of paper finally came to life in Phoenix, Arizona. As they brightened the opening night with their futuristic energy, lines of customers were dazzled by the sight. To many, it was obvious that the age of drive-ins and carhop service … was over. The amazing success story of Richard McDonald’s golden arches was just beginning.

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

In 1937, Robert Wian created his signature two-story cheeseburger at a five-stool lunch counter in Glendale, California and along with it—gave birth to a new roadside icon. At the time, six-year-old Richard Woodruff was a regular customer there, always on the make for free food. Occasionally, Wian let him sweep the floor in exchange for a burger snack. Charmed by the lad’s droopy overalls, pudgy physique, and limitless appetite for grilled patties of ground beef, he decided that his new multi-level sandwich should be called the “Big Boy.

Later, a local cartoonist sketched a rendition of the hungry urchin on a napkin and before the decade was done, the toddler with tousled hair, red and white checkerboard overalls and big belly was a trademark for hamburgers, adorning advertising signs, wrappers, and even the front facade of Bob’s Pantry.

Spurred on by the memorable images, news of Bob Wian’s delectable “double-deck cheeseburger spread and by the 1950s, he was franchising the tasty Big Boy sandwich and its endearing trademark to restaurateurs in six states (McDonald’s modeled their own Big Mac after the Big Boy burger). Within a time span of twenty years, the portly kid was greeting hungry customers nationwide!

By that time, he was a larger-than-life statue sculpted of painted fiberglass—holding a deluxe platter of burgers and Fries high in the sky for all passing by to see. More adorable than the Burger King, Wendy, or even Ronald McDonald, his burger-lovin’ smile and friendly demeanor entreated motorists to drive in and chow down. Despite an obvious weight problem, he liked food and wasn’t ashamed to display his culinary passions in public.

In spite of this quiet success, the Big Boy’s best years as an outdoor burger salesman were somewhat short-lived. After Wian passed away, stewardship of the chunky chap was assumed by what else: a corporation. As hard as it was for loyal customers to believe, the bean-counters in charge were contemplating his dismissal! After an unfavorable response from the public brought them to their senses, the ousting of the over sized mascot was put to a vote. Should the Big Boy stay or should he go? The answer came back a resounding yes: Americans liked the little butterball and wanted him to remain as company mascot and doorman.

Nevertheless, some in the radical fringe weren’t happy with the decision. The controversy came to a head in 1994 when bandits pilfered a 300 pound, six-foot high Big Boy statue from a Toledo, Ohio restaurant. Showing little respect for the edifice, they dismembered it with a hacksaw and dumped the pieces at Big Boy outlets in the surrounding area. Notes that were attached to the ragged fragments declared “Big Boy is Dead.

After a short investigation, detectives apprehended eight college boys and two underage youths and charged the entire gang with criminal mischief. As part of their punishment, the mutilators were forced to repay the $3,000 required to replace the fast food icon. Why did they steal the defenseless Big Boy and degrade it with such wild abandon? “We were bored, retorted eighteen-year-old “Bobnapper Tom Martinez.

And the saga continued: A short while later, California artist Manfred Bernhard was relieved of his duties as the talent behind the popular Adventures of Big Boy comic book (he’s been drawing the chubby character for thirty-eight years). Craig Yoe of Yoe! Studios has been contracted by the restaurant chain to pen a newer, more streamlined version of the burger boy and make him look like someone who has his fast food cravings under control. Shoveling down piles of burgers will be a definite no-no.

According to Tony Michaels, Vice President of Big Boy marketing, it’s the “kids that have been asking for a more athletic looking Big Boy! So, to placate the demand for a more spindly representative, the Big Boy will receive a long-overdue cholesterol check and a tummy-tuck. Although high morals will still be his guide, Bob’s revamped lifestyle will be completely updated for the nineties. Along with the slimmer midriff and freshly cleansed arteries, he will acquire his very own personal computer and cellular phone!

Die-hard double-deck cheeseburger fans can only guess what the Big Boy—or should I say “Trim Boy will be toting next. A Tofu sandwich slathered with a generous slice of melted goat cheese? Soyburgers topped off with a fresh heap of sprouts? Seaweed Panini sandwiches on gluten-free bread? As the business of American roadside food moves into the 21st Century, we can only shake our heads and wonder what time and changing tastes have in store for the hapless Big Boy.