{"id":6014,"date":"2011-08-30T15:17:23","date_gmt":"2011-08-30T22:17:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/burgersdogspizza.com\/?p=6014"},"modified":"2011-08-30T15:17:23","modified_gmt":"2011-08-30T22:17:23","slug":"10-pounds-bacon-5-49","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.peterstromquist.com\/?p=6014","title":{"rendered":"10 Pounds of Bacon, $5.49"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

No, it’s not some anniversary special price roll-back for a grocery
\nstore.<\/span> It’s what Homer Simpson could consume\u00a0 at the Shoney’s Breakfast Buffet. (“Ah, gee, Marge, you promised we could have\u00a0 pork SIX nights a week!”)<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

But why stop at bacon?\u00a0 Load up on patty\u00a0 sausage, thick-sliced country ham, artery-clogging biscuit gravy or white sauce,\u00a0 light flaky biscuits that settle in your stomach like mini bowling balls,\u00a0 scrambled eggs with 20-30 omelet-type toppings, pancakes, cereals, and one or\u00a0 two things that are actually good for you.<\/span><\/div>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n
You can do this every morning of the week at\u00a0 Shoney’s, beginning at 6AM – or you can do it once in your lifetime, truly go\u00a0 overboard, get that Homer Simpson glazed look on your face –\u00a0 ‘arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrhhhhhhhh, baconnnnnnnnnnnn’ and then call\u00a0 911.<\/span><\/div>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n
What’s the point of writing about someplace\u00a0 like this?\u00a0 Genealogy.\u00a0 Inquiring minds want to know from whence Shoney’s\u00a0 sprung.\u00a0 Don’t they?<\/span><\/div>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n
Sherman, set the wayback machine for post-WW2\u00a0 Los Angeles…..cars are whizzing, suburbs are forming, the commuter generation\u00a0 has got to eat, and at least one Angelean, Bob Wian, in suburban Glendale,\u00a0 figured it would be better to feed all those drivers than to be one.\u00a0 He sold\u00a0 his car, and opened a small restaurant called “Bob’s Pantry.”\u00a0\u00a0 Members of an\u00a0 orchestra, playing in the area, stopped into Bob’s one night and asked him if he\u00a0 could dream up something different than the “plain hamburger.” <\/span><\/div>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n
(Readers Query:\u00a0 “Peter, what’s the deal here?\u00a0\u00a0 You start out about Shoney’s in New Orleans, then we are in suburban LA with double burgers –\u00a0 what’s the connection?) (Eds. reply: I’m getting to it!)<\/span><\/div>\n

One day, a chubby boy walked into the now\u00a0 successful restaurant, Wian recalled.\u00a0 He was so amused by the boy, his\u00a0 jocularity, his love of the new sandwich, that Wian started calling him “Big Boy.”\u00a0 And thought – “why not call the hamburger Big Boy?”\u00a0 And he\u00a0 did.<\/span><\/div>\n

A sandwich innovation was born.\u00a0 A restaurant\u00a0 chain was born:\u00a0 “Bob’s Big Boy.”\u00a0 The oldest surviving original location (built in ’49) is a historical landmark, located on Riverside Drive in Burbank, not far from Warner Brothers.\u00a0 It has been completely restored to its former glory, a great example of the combination of 40s modern architecture, and the beginning of the 50s free-form design period.\u00a0 It’s noted for its spectacular 70\u00a0 foot tall Big Boy sign out front.\u00a0\u00a0 Beautiful moss-green terrazzo walkways\u00a0 surround the building.\u00a0 The fully intact cantilevered, boomerang-shaped steel awning, reminiscent of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin, covers what was originally\u00a0 drive-in parking. <\/span><\/div>\n

While all this buzz was happening on the West\u00a0 Coast, a guy named Alex Schoenbaum opened his first drive-in restaurant in\u00a0 Charleston, WV.\u00a0 In 1951, Schoenbaum acquired the Big Boy franchise rights for the Southeast, and started growing the chain regionally.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Two years later, he\u00a0 decides to launch his own concept restaurant, and in an employee contest, Alex’s\u00a0 nickname, “Shoney” emerges as the victor in the naming rights game.\u00a0 (Obviously\u00a0 long before companies decided to plunk down 25 mil or so to name stadiums and
\nsuch).<\/span><\/div>\n

1971 and Alex merges his company with Danner\u00a0 Foods, the Big Boy franchisee in Nashville, and “Shoney’s Big Boy Enterprises”\u00a0 is born, operating 130 Big Boy Restaurants throughout the\u00a0 Southeast.<\/span><\/div>\n

They start other concept chains, including\u00a0 “Lee’s Famous Recipe Country Chicken” and “Captain D’s Seafood” and ten years later are operating 300 Big Boys. <\/span><\/div>\n
And the moral of the story? <\/p>\n

Well, haven’t quite figured that\u00a0 out.\u00a0 There must be one. <\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

No, it’s not some anniversary special price roll-back for a grocery store. It’s what Homer Simpson could consume\u00a0 at the Shoney’s Breakfast Buffet. (“Ah, gee, Marge, you promised we could have\u00a0 pork SIX nights a week!”) But why stop at bacon?\u00a0 Load up on patty\u00a0 sausage, thick-sliced country ham, artery-clogging biscuit gravy or white sauce,\u00a0… Continue reading 10 Pounds of Bacon, $5.49<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,11,16,34,26],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.peterstromquist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6014"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.peterstromquist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.peterstromquist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.peterstromquist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.peterstromquist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.peterstromquist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6014\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.peterstromquist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.peterstromquist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.peterstromquist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}