Our Rich History: Frisch's Big Boy plays major role in history of fast-food restaurants in NKY - and beyond - NKyTribune (2024)

By Paul A. Tenkotte, PhD
Special to the NKyTribune

(First of an occasional series about NKY’s fast-food restaurants)

When I was growing up in the 1960s and 1970s, our family ate at restaurants only very occasionally. Like many suburban middle-class mothers during those years, my mom (Mary, or Margie as she preferred) grew up poor during the Great Depression. In addition, women of that time period had few opportunities for higher education or for employment outside of traditional “socially acceptable” roles of teacher, secretary, nurse, or salesclerk.

Growing up as the last sibling in a large and poor family, Margie had little access to the kitchen of her mother (my grandmother). Instead, she had other assigned duties around the household. When she and my father, Harry, married in 1950, dad taught mom how to cook, just as his sister had instructed him after their mother had died. Mom’s delicious, home-cooked meals and dad’s often-overtime work schedule precluded our need to eat at restaurants.

On the few occasions when our family ate at restaurants, it was usually during short vacations from home, or sometimes simply to partake in some “fast food.” I especially liked Frisch’s Big Boy®. Dad would drive our 1965 Ford Custom coupe, or later our family’s metallic blue 1968 Ford XL fastback, to either the Covington (KY) or Ft. Mitchell (KY) Frisch’s. Before today’s drive-through windows, Frisch’s had a “carhop” service. You would park your car in a so-called open “stall” under a large canopy/awning (to protect against rain and sun). Then, you pressed a button on a callbox situated on a pole that had an attached menu under glass. You would order your food and drinks, and then carhops (servers) would bring your order to your car and place it on a contraption that attached to the driver’s rolled-down window.

Refreshing Coca-Cola with crushed ice, delicious Big Boy® sandwiches with special tartar sauce, and French fries or onion rings were tasty treats for a young boy like me. Plus, the carhop service itself—and eating in your car—made it a special event. In addition, Frisch’s had free Big Boy® comic books. By far, Frisch’s was my favorite childhood treat.

In Christian Hansen’s 2002 book entitled, The Big Boy Story: King of them All, the author relates how he started working in 1946 as a dishwasher at Bob’s Big Boy No. 2 in Burbank, California. After pursuing a college education on the GI Bill, Hansen returned to the company, serving in many roles. Hansen knew the founder of the Big Boy restaurant chain, Bob Wian. In 1936, during the height of the Great Depression, Wian “sold his pride and joy, a 1932 DeSoto [automobile], for $300 and bought a ten-stool lunch stand called the Pantry” on East Colorado Boulevard in Glendale (Los Angeles County), California.

Wian worked “sixteen hours a day, seven day a week, as cook, waiter, and dishwasher,” Hansen relates. Then in February 1937, a late-night band playing at the Biltmore Hotel requested “something different.” Wian recalled that “‘I split the regular hamburger bun through the middle twice instead of once. Between each slice I placed a grilled hamburger patty, mayonnaise, lettuce, cheese, salt, and a special relish.’” It was the beginning of the double-decker hamburger (Hansen, p. 11).

For a short time, the new burger sandwich was simply called “the special.” Then, Bob Wian happened upon an idea. A “chubby 6-year-old named Richard Woodruff . . . would sweep up and do little odd jobs for Bob in exchange for the special. The poor little fellow was “always dressed in loose long trousers held up by a pair of sagging suspenders.” “One day Bob momentarily forgot the young man’s name when calling out to him to sweep out the diner. He said, ‘Hey, Big Boy …,’ ” and the rest was history (Hansen, p. 11).

Buying additional property next door, Bob Wian expanded his restaurant to include a drive-in carhop service. He trademarked the Big Boy® name, and a later-Disney animator created the first Big Boy® mascot, originally not carrying a hamburger. During his years at the helm of the company, Wian created a Pension Trust Fund for his employees, where he “put all the money in the fund and the employees contributed nothing but loyalty, good performance, and faith in the future of Bob’s Big Boy” (Hansen, p. 52).

The Frisch family’s relationship to Bob’s Big Boy was rather tenuous at the start. Dave Frisch was the ninth of ten children. When his father died, he and his brothers inherited the operation of Frisch’s Stag Lunch in Norwood, Ohio, a suburb of Cincinnati. In 1939, Dave Frisch opened the Mainliner in Fairfax, Ohio (a suburb of Cincinnati), the city’s “first year-round drive-in” restaurant. It featured a little airplane mascot, the Mainliner, which was “the first tri-motor passenger airplane” (“Story,” Frisch’s Big Boy, https://www.frischs.com/story/ ).

During the course of World War II, Dave’s brother Irv visited Bob’s Big Boy in Glendale, California. Irv “thought the concept might be good” for Dave. “Dave was intrigued but short of funds at the time, put the idea on hold.” Hansen continues:

“Irv, better off financially, sent the train fare to his brother. But Dave, wanting to have a few dollars to spend during the trip, cashed in the train ticket and took the bus to California. Unable to make contact with Bob, Dave returned to Ohio, where he designed his own version of the Big Boy character, a running Big Boy in blue striped pants and cap. Recipe wise, he simply used an old family recipe of tartar sauce for the dressing and the rest is history. Family recipe? There’s more. When Dave put the Big Boy name on the restaurant all hell broke loose because the crowds were enormous. A shocking development; so waitress Gert Davis really didn’t know what sauce to use with this new creation called Big Boy. Mayonnaise, mustard, catsup, thousand island, what? Brainstorm: they did have a good supply of the tartar sauce they served with the fish entrees. You got it. Tartar sauce became the secret sauce of the Frisch’s Big Boy hamburger . . . believe it or not!” (Hansen, pp. 113-114).

In 1947, Frisch’s formalized their arrangement with Bob Wian in a “licensing agreement.” In Hansen’s words, the initial meeting between Dave Frisch and Bob Wian was “to protect the Big Boy’s U.S. Registered Trademark more” than anything else (Hansen, p. 114).

In 1952, Frisch’s adopted a slightly different “running” mascot, who had saddle oxford shoes, red-striped pants, and a slingshot in his back pocket. Called the “East Coast Big Boy,” it remained the mascot until 1982, when checkered pants replaced the striped ones. In 1992, the slingshot disappeared (“Story,” Frisch’s Big Boy, https://www.frischs.com/story/).

After the Frisch’s scenario, Wian began to franchise his Big Boy® brand. In 1952, he offered the first “official” franchise to brothers Fred, Lou, and John Elias of Detroit, Michigan. “There was no franchise fee, but they paid a modest one percent of sales to Robert C. Wian Enterprises, Inc., to use the Big Boy logo.” Further, the Elias Brothers were allowed to keep their restaurant name, simply adding “Big Boy” to it (Hansen, p. 111).

Other franchises included: Kip’s in Texas; Marc’s in Wisconsin; Shoney’s throughout the American South; and many more. Elias Bros. and Frisch’s became two of the most prosperous chains in the franchise. In 1967, Wian sold his company to Marriott Corporation. Twenty years later, in 1987, Elias Bros. bought it. Declaring bankruptcy in 2000, the chain was sold to Robert Liggett. In 2001, Liggett and Frisch’s reached an agreement whereby Liggett bought franchise territory of the Frisch’s group in Florida, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas, while Frisch’s — given co-registrant status to the Big Boy trademark® – proceeded on its own separately, with locations in Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, and parts of Tennessee. (Hansen, p. 112). In 2015, a private equity firm in Atlanta, Georgia purchased Frisch’s.

Paul A. Tenkotte, PhD is Editor of the “Our Rich History” weekly series and Professor of History and Gender Studies at Northern Kentucky University (NKU). He also serves as Director of the ORVILLE Project (Ohio River Valley Innovation Library and Learning Enrichment). ORVILLE is now recruiting authors for entries on all aspects of innovation in the Ohio River Watershed including: Cincinnati (OH) and Northern Kentucky; Ashland, Lexington, Louisville, Maysville, Owensboro and Paducah (KY); Columbus, Dayton, Marietta, Portsmouth, and Steubenville (OH); Evansville, Madison and Indianapolis (IN), Pittsburgh (PA), Charleston, Huntington, Parkersburg, and Wheeling (WV), Cairo (IL), and Chattanooga, Knoxville, and Nashville (TN). If you would like to be involved in ORVILLE, please contact Paul Tenkotte at tenkottep@nku.edu.