Happy Monday, as always. I LOVE Mondays because they’re my 52 Chances a year, in which I get to share Memories of My Mom with you.
Happy birthday to Big Boy, who’s 90 years old, today! There isn’t an official Big Boy Birthday Week but many Big Boy restaurants often have special offers and events going on during this time to celebrate Big Boy’s Birthday (aka: National Big Boy Day). Big Boy has always been one of our family’s favorite restaurant chains.
In Glendale, California (1936) – the same year that Mom was born – Bob Wian started the first restaurant in the soon-to-be-famous Big Boy® chain of family restaurants with their signature, self-titled, double-decker, cheese burger.
The “Big Boy”, as it was called, was introduced to the public long before Ray Kroc started the McDonald’s fast food chain, offering the same double-decker, cheese burger – slightly changing the name of his to the “Big Mac”.
I compared the “Big Boy” to the “Big Mac” – both offer 2 beef patties with a “special” sauce, resembling 1000 Island dressing (see Mom’s 2-ingredient recipe for her imitation of Big Boy’s version, near the end of this post), lettuce, pickles, onions, and cheese on a 3-piece, sesame seed bun.
RESTAURANT vs. FAST FOOD CHAINS
At Big Boy, unless you ordered something to go, you’re seated at a table where the wait staff gives you a menu, takes your order, serves you, and more. Unless it’s pre-ordered to go, I found that the “Big Boy” is (normally) “plated” and “presented” to you, in an eye-pleasing, palatable way, at your table, by a waiter or waitress – not so at McDonald’s.
Conversely, the “Big Mac” is assembled quickly, (some would even describe it as “thrown together”), without regard for how it looks. Whether you’re getting it to go or dining in, it’s served to you in a disposable, cardboard box at the cashier’s counter or drive-thru window.
Another difference is that, at McDonald’s, you have to pay for your order first, sight-unseen. Then you can take your food to a table, yourself, to sit and eat; or you can leave with it, to eat it elsewhere.
That’s basically the three main characteristics of what separates most restaurant chains from most fast food chains – how the food is ordered, for when it’s paid (ahead of time or after), and how it’s served or received. In between, you have cafeteria style chain restaurants (like Golden Corral or Sign of the Beefcarver) that share a little in common with both.
The Big Boy® restaurants went under slightly different owners’ names per region/franchise – but always with “Big Boy” in the title. Bob’s Big Boy® is in California. Frisch’s Big Boy® is in Ohio. Big Boy® Restaurants (formerly Elias Brothers’…) are in Michigan and Shoney’s Big Boy® Restaurants are in Tennessee.
In her 40-plus years as the Secret RecipesTM Detective, Mom created about 111 Big Boy recipe imitations (that I’ve counted), as listed in her Master Index, 12 of which are currently on the Recipes tab (14 with today’s additions) and several of those are printed in her last cookbook – Gloria Pitzer’s Cookbook – The Best of the Recipe Detective.
The Big Boy Restaurants were always among her and Dad’s top favorite noshes when they traveled. If there was a local Big Boy restaurant, wherever they went, they’d stop there for a meal because they knew they’d always get really great food along with professional and friendly service.
FROM MOM’S MEMORIES…
As seen in…
Gloria Pitzer’s Secret Recipe Report (Secret Recipe Report, St. Clair, MI; Issue 84, December 1980; p. 7)
WHERE DOES THE RESTAURANT SLEUTH EAT?
EVERY TIME I TALK to a radio audience I am asked the same question – ‘What restaurant do YOU like to eat at?’ When we travel, we look for Big Boy Restaurants because we can depend on their prices, and I know the kids will be pleased.
At home, [without the kids] we frequent the Voyageur restaurant more than any other because [like Big Boy] it is consistently good, the owners are there to supervise the operation and, if they’re not, they’ve been there that day or will return later, before closing time.
[Also,] the quality is in keeping with the price and the view is relaxing – of the river and the freighters going up and down – something many folks travel to Sault Ste. Marie to see, and we have it in our own backyard.
OUR KIND OF PLACE
I remember being a member of the Big Boy Kids Club (aka: Big Boy Birthday Club) when I was in elementary school. With the membership, I got a free kid-size meal for my birthday. I always loved their comics and coloring books. When all of my children were young, I enrolled each one of them in the club, too.
When I left home, to be independent, my first job (besides the family business and babysitting) was as a “Salad Bar Prep” person at a Big Boy, in Port Huron (MI). I never shared their salad recipes with Mom. She always enjoyed figuring them out on her own. See her copycat recipes for two of their dressings near the end of this post.
Years ago, Mom and Dad used to enjoy having breakfast almost every day at their local Big Boy, in Marysville (MI). They’d often have lunch or dinner there as well. They loved to meet up with several of their friends there and dine together in the big solarium off of the main dining room. Mom once said…
“In my next life, I’m going to eat nothing but Frango Mint Cookies, Sanders’ hot fudge sundaes, pizza, and strawberry pie from Big Boy!” – Gloria Pitzer, Gloria Pitzer’s Cookbook – The Best of the Recipe Detective (Balboa Press; Jan. 2018, p. 217). [A revised reprint of Gloria Pitzer’s Better Cookery Cookbook (Secret RecipesTM, St. Clair, MI; May 1983, 3rd Edition)].
I could give you a lot of history about Big Boy but I thought, since Mom wrote a lot about Big Boy in her cookbooks and newsletters, I’d share some of those stories here, as I did in one of last year’s June blog posts…
MORE FROM MOM’S MEMORIES…
As seen in…
The Secret Restaurant Recipes Book (National Homemakers Newsletter, Pearl Beach, MI; Jan. 1977, p. 5)
[BIG BOY…] YOU’RE MY KIND OF PLACE!
WHEN YOU TRAVEL in the company of very short persons, who want catchup on everything from hamburgers to table cloths, and must be within walking distance of a washroom, you must pick your restaurants carefully. There are times when I really wonder about our children.
They will turn down turkey at Thanksgiving for a hamburger and fries at Big Boy… Based on a long acquaintance with the dish and five kids who think happiness is one-to-go-with-everything, I have developed a special liking for the hamburger sauce that the Big Boy people put on their [Big Boy®] burgers.
Duplicating it wasn’t difficult when I was finally able to identify it [as] a good Thousand Island dressing. The Big Mac® “special [sauce]” is much like the Big Boy® hamburger sauce, with the exception of a few spices, I’m sure.
What makes the sauce a favorite is, again, the exceptionally talented people who advertise their products. But anybody who has ever tried to make a hamburger at home taste the way it does out, knows it can’t be done [exactly].
So the trick is to cover it up with something that helps you forget you’re not being waited on in a place where somebody else clears off the table and does the dishes. It’s really the sauce…
Gloria Pitzer’s Secret Fast Food Recipes (Secret RecipesTM, St. Clair, MI; March 1985, p. 39)
THE BIG BOY TRADEMARK IS BEING REPLACED!
IMITATION IS WORTH the attention we are willing to give it, simply because the food industry is constantly changing. Very few companies within the field have retained their original logo or trademarks or identifying signs.
Recently, Bob’s Big Boy (based in California) announced that the chubby little kid in the checkered overalls would be replaced with another trademark symbol. The full information about this pioneering franchise food company was originally published in our “Book 1” [revised edition] – dated February 1981.
For the sake of memories – and a little for the sake of history, too – I have reprinted that information [here]… ROBERT C. WIAN Enterprises, Inc., of Glendale, California, founded the “The Big Boy” restaurant chain. Over 1,100 Big Boy units were in operation in 45 states, Canada, and Japan as of February 1981.
For over 45 years [as written in 1985], this food chain has been making history in the food industry. When Depression-Era entrepreneur, Bob Wian, started his own restaurant, he was content to keep things “local” and conventional.
As the legend goes, he attempted to please customers at every turn and, being imaginative as well as consumer conscience, he came up with the notion of slicing a burger bun [horizontally] twice so that two meat patties would fit into it.
The double-decker hamburger was probably Bob Wian’s personal creation, for it [was invented] long before McDonald’s “Big Mac” was even a gleam in the eye of its founder, Ray Kroc.
Bob Wian had four rules to be followed in his company: “Serve the best food… At moderate prices… In spotless surroundings… With courtesy and hospitality.”
In Colorado, the Big Boy chain is called “Azar’s”. In West Virginia they run as “Elby’s”. In the northeast, “Shoney’s” is the name. The “J.N.’s” are in Kansas. In Alaska, they are only called “Big Boy”. But, in Michigan and parts of Ontario, Canada they are known as Elias Brother’s Big Boy.
In Ohio, “Frisch’s” is the name over the Big Boy restaurants. Twenty companies make up the Big Boy Restaurants. It is now a division of Marriott. “Bob’s Pantry” was the 10-seat diner, home of the 10-cent cheeseburger, and the original “Bob’s Pantry” is pictured [above].
They like to hire teenagers, today, who have no pre-conceived notions about the restaurant business so that they can be trained form the beginning by Big Boy. Some of their top executives, today, started as dishwashers or busboys, themselves.
Menus will vary a little, depending on the location and ownership supervisor. You’ll note [as I did] there is a big difference between the tartar sauce served in Ohio and that of the Michigan restaurants, which causes some of our readers to write and complain that the recipe I have published is NOT like the tartar sauce they were served.
[As of 1985…] The Marysville [MI] Big Boy was recently owned by the Mourad Brothers – with another Big Boy on Cooley Lake Road in Union Lake and one on East Grand River in Howell [MI] – the ingenuity used in presenting their salad bar selections indicates that there is a good deal of liberty exercised among the 20 companies.
The original slanted roof unit used some 25 or 30 years ago [circa 1955-1960] by the Big Boy restaurants can still be visited at East Lansing [MI] on Stadium Road and also in Torrance [CA] on Hawthorn Blvd. Paul and I have been to both and it’s like stepping back into a time when we were younger – a nice experience.
Eating Out at Home (National Home News, St. Clair, MI; September 1978, p. 12)
[FOOD FOR THOUGHT]
FOR THE FIRST TIME, the entire system is co-opting advertising dollars nationally, the only difference being the franchisee of the operation (Elias in Michigan, Frisch’s in Ohio, Bob’s in California, etc.).
Even if the owners of the former Dixie Drive-Ins had not been granted the Big Boy franchise in Michigan by California’s Bob Wian, in 1951, chances are they would’ve been extremely successful [anyway].
Probably the biggest single reason for Elias Brothers’ success is their commissary – a warehouse operation that sells more than 95% of the food, equipment, and supplies needed by its 172 Big Boy operations in addition to three experimental Fast Freddy’s, the Pontiac Silverdome, and the Michigan International Speedway.
No other restaurant chain has a similar system for providing its outlets with the goods necessary to maintain quality, consistency, and reasonable prices.
LAST THOUGHTS…
Thanks for visiting! I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about my memories of my mom, her memories, and other related things. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to email me at therecipedetective@outlook.com. You can also find me on Facebook: @TheRecipeDetective. I look forward to hearing from you!
IN CLOSING…
Additionally, in honor of TODAY, being Big Boy’s Birthday, here’s TWO of Mom’s copycat recipes – first, for “Big Boy 1000 Island”, as seen in her self-published cookbook, The Original 200 Plus Secret Recipes© Book (Secret RecipesTM, Marysville, MI; June 1997, p. 7) – a different, quicker version than I shared six years ago…
…As well as her copycat version of “Big [Boy Style] Pickle Juice Italian Dressing”, as seen (under the name “Big Ploy”) in… Gloria Pitzer’s Cookbook – The Best of the Recipe Detective (Balboa Press; Jan. 2018, p. 47). [A revised reprint of Gloria Pitzer’s Better Cookery Cookbook (Secret RecipesTM, St. Clair, MI; May 1983, 3rd Edition)].
As always, asking only for proper credit if you re-share these.
P.S. Food-for-thought until next Monday…
The month of June celebrates… National Fresh Fruit and Vegetables Month, National Candy Month, National Camping Month, National Caribbean American Month, National Country Cooking Month, National Dairy Month, National Great Outdoors Month, National Iced Tea Month, National Papaya Month, National Soul Food Month, National Rose Month, and more.
This week celebrates… Men’s Health Week (14th-21st, for 2026), as well as National Little League Week and National Flag Week (14th-20th, for 2026).
Today is also… Nature Photography Day and National Smile Power Day. Plus, as the start of the third work week in June (15th-19th, for 2026), it’s also the start of… National Boys & Girls Club Week.
Tomorrow is… National Fudge Day AND Mom and Dad’s 70th wedding anniversary (1956).
Wednesday, June 17th, is… National Eat Your Vegetables Day, National Stewart’s Root Beer Day, National Apple Strudel Day, and National Cherry Tart Day.
Thursday, June 18th, is… National Go Fishing Day and National Splurge Day.
June 19th, is… Juneteenth and National Martini Day. Plus, being the Friday before Father’s Day (for 2026), it’s also… National Wear BLUE Day. Additionally, as the third Friday in June (for 2026), it’s also, National Take Back the Lunch Break Day.
Saturday, June 20th, is… American Eagle Day, National Vanilla Milkshake Day, and National Ice Cream Soda Day.
June 21st, is… National Peaches ‘N’ Cream Day, National Daylight Appreciation Day, National Selfie Day, National Arizona Day, the Summer [Solstice] (the longest day of the Year), and National Seashell Day (always the first Day of Summer). Plus, as the third Sunday in June (for 2026), it’s also Father’s Day and Turkey Lovers’ Day (it’s National Turkey Lovers Month, too).
Additionally, as the third Sunday in June, it’s also the start of… National Play Catch Week, Animal Rights Awareness Week and Universal Father’s Week (21st-27th, for 2026).
Have a great week!
…24 down, 28 to go.
