Monday, April 27, 1998 | 9:19 a.m.
In his southwest Las Vegas home, Chris Hansen has written the great American novel -- but the narrative is non-fiction.
And it is as much a part of American history as the mass production of the automobile or the development of the motion picture industry.
Hansen, 73, recently compiled a history -- which he hopes will interest publishers -- of Bob's Big Boy, the restaurant chain that changed the course of culinary history in America.
A generation ago, the colorful statue of the pudgy, black-haired, hamburger-toting lad was a familiar sight in cities from Las Vegas to Boston. The chain was founded in 1936 in the Los Angeles bedroom community of Glendale by Bob Wian, a 1933 graduate of Glendale High School, who was voted "most unlikely to succeed."
"That's because Bob was the nicest guy at Glendale High School," Hansen said. "He always put others before himself, and he just wasn't the type who cared about business or making money."
Wian's classmates were right: The last thing in the world Wian wanted to make was money. What he wanted to make was the perfect hamburger.
Four years after he graduated from high school, Wian sold his old DeSoto for $350, and used the money as a down payment on a 10-stool lunch stand in Glendale. The name of the restaurant: Bob's Pantry.
In Wian's first pamphlet to new employees, he spelled out his culinary philosophy: "To serve the best food at reasonable prices and in an immaculate restaurant, with courtesy and hospitality."
In early 1937, two things happened that would seal Wian's fate as one of the 20th century's premiere restaurateurs.
In February of that year, a Los Angeles musician named Stew Strange asked Bob "for something different." Wian thought for a moment, and then split a regular hamburger bun twice instead of once, and placed in it two hamburger patties instead of one, and then wrapped the world's first double hamburger in paper to keep it warm.
Later that year, a chubby little boy named Richard Woodruff caught the attention of Wian. Woodruff would come around the restaurant and offer to sweep the pantry and do other odd jobs for a free burger. But Wian could never remember the name of the boy dressed in loose, long trousers held up by a pair of sagging suspenders.
"Hey, Big Boy," Wian called out, stopping mid-sentence to consider what he had said.
Within days, the name of the restaurant was changed to Bob's Big Boy, and a local artist was commissioned to draw a caricature of a smiling, big-eyed and well-fed boy with a black cowlick. The portrait was hung in the restaurant.
As business grew, Wian expanded his restaurant several times. Within two years it had seating for 120 and drive-in capacity for another 50 customers. "That restaurant marked a movement away from the greasy spoon type of establishment," Hansen said. "The Big Boy restaurant quickly earned a reputation for cleanliness, hospitality and large portions at reasonable prices."
The burgers certainly were big enough.
Hansen explained that after Wian perfected his double burger on a grilled sesame seed bun, he never looked back.
"You couldn't get a single burger at Bob's," Hansen said, adding that the restaurant owner also prided himself on offering milk shakes "so thick you could eat them with a spoon."
Through the '40s, Wian expanded to other Los Angeles suburbs, including Burbank, Montrose, Eagle Rock, Alhambra and Pasadena.
Each of the early restaurants were designed by Wayne McAllister, the architect who also planned the Sands and El Rancho Vegas hotel-casinos in Las Vegas. With their sloping roofs, expansive plate glass windows and wide dining areas, the restaurants had an openness to them that seemed to attract business.
A typical example of the early Big Boy restaurants is the one in Burbank, built in 1949, and featured in the 1995 film, "Heat." It was the backdrop for a scene of a meeting between Robert De Niro, the thief, and Al Pacino, the police detective. Hansen joked that if the scene were real, the two would have had to wait for a table.
"That restaurant is the highest grossing coffee shop in the country that does not serve alcohol," Hansen said. "It does $3.6 million a year."
Hansen, a World War II Navy veteran, worked at the Burbank restaurant as a dishwasher and a lot man, a security position in the drive-in area, after the war ended. "We were as popular as Elvis," Hansen said. "You couldn't get near the place on Friday nights. It seemed like everyone in town stopped at Bob's that night. They were attracted by the good food, gorgeous waitresses and the action. There was always something going on at Bob's Big Boy.
Members of classic car clubs frequented the Big Boy restaurants to show off their vintage automobiles. But there were many other motorists who pulled up at Bob's Big Boy because they didn't want to be noticed. Often stars would pull up to the drive-in for a grilled double burger and an opportunity to be treated just like a common citizen.
"Bob Hope stopped by the Burbank store at least once a week. He would pull into the darkest space he could find, so he wouldn't be recognized," Hansen said. "A lot of other actors stopped by. We'd see Mickey Rooney, Dana Andrews, Jonathan Winters, Anthony Quinn and many others."
By the late '60s, Wian had built 22 restaurants in Los Angeles County, and he had franchised hundreds of others to owners in cities throughout the nation.
"In 1966, Big Boy was the fourth largest food service operation in the country," said Hansen, who over the years worked his way up from dishwasher to vice president of marketing. "There were 620 restaurants that were either company-owned or franchised."
In Las Vegas, two Bob's Big Boy restaurants were franchised in the late '60s. One was at the corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Oakey, and the other was built on South Maryland Parkway.
Hansen said the restaurants were open for only a few years because in 1967, something happened that would inexorably alter the successful path of the Big Boy chain. It was during that year that Wian sold all his holdings in the Big Boy chain to Marriott Corp.
Hansen resigned his marketing position six months after the sale went through. "I figured there was no point in staying after the sale because Bob was gone," he said. "It just wasn't the same after the sale."
Within 10 years, Marriott added more than 130 Bob's Big Boy restaurants throughout the nation. The rapid proliferation represented a marked difference from Wian's type of operation. "Bob believed you should purposely grow very slowly," Hansen said. "That way, you maintain quality control."
As the number of Bob's Big Boy restaurants grew, troubles began to mount. "It was a bad situation," Hansen said. "All the stores had been run on the concept of good food and service at reasonable prices, and the corporate guys were bottom-line guys. They were just interested in profits."
Faced with growing competition from other major restaurant chains in the '70s and '80s, Marriott decided to throw in the towel in '88.
Spokesman Richard Sneed announced that year that all the Bob's Big Boy restaurants owned by Marriott would be sold to other restaurant chains or converted to different formats. Sneed also said that market surveys showed that "people want a contemporary atmosphere and trendy food items at moderate prices."
In Las Vegas, the Big Boy on Las Vegas Boulevard closed, and the one on Maryland Parkway was converted to a Carrow's restaurant.
Wian spent his retirement years playing golf and entertaining friends at his hacienda in Valyermo, Calif. The founder of Bob's Big Boy died March 31, 1992, and Hansen was among those who attended the funeral.
"Bob's death wasn't widely known until the day before the funeral," Hansen said. "Nevertheless, the Pacific View Memorial Chapel was filled. It was a short, simple ceremony -- and the food was delicious."
Although the company-owned Bob's Big Boy restaurant is a thing of the past, there are still 381 franchised restaurants in the United States and 88 more in Japan.
Hansen, who holds a masters degree from the University of Southern California, said he hopes to bring back some of the flavor of the early Bob's Big Boy restaurants through his narrative, which has generated some interest among producers at Home Box Office and the Arts & Entertainment network.
"It's a wonderful story," Hansen said.
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