By Michael Karl Witzel ©2007-2008
“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!”
Robert Wian learned the restaurant business the hard way.  When his father’s furniture business faltered during the early thirties, he took a job washing dishes at the White [...]

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 Michael Karl Witzel ©2007-2008
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 [...]