Oldest Remaining Restaurant
The Bob's Big Boy Restaurant located at 4211 Riverside Drive in Burbank, California, is the oldest remaining Bob's Big Boy in the United States. Built in 1949 by local residents Scott MacDonald and Ward Albert, it was designed by noted Los Angeles architect Wayne McAllister, "incorporating the 1940s transitional design of streamline moderne style, while anticipating the freeform 1950s coffee shop architecture. The towering Bob's sign is an integral part of the building design and its most prominent feature." The building is said to have "made McAllister's reputation," and he is credited with creating the restaurant's circular drive-through design.
The restaurant was designated a California Point of Historical Interest in 1993. McAllister worked to preserve the structure as a historic landmark. McAllister was the architect for the original Lawry's restaurant on La Cienega Boulevard in Beverly Hills, and the original Sands Hotel casino and Desert Inn casino in Las Vegas. He designed some 40 coffee shops in the Los Angeles area in the late 1940s, and each with a distinctive look.
The Bob's Big Boy building represents a distinct period in the region's architectural history, often referred to as Googie architecture. Creative coffee shop designs started in Los Angeles because of the popularity of automobiles, and then spread across the nation. The building features curving windows and oversized roof overhangs with 1950s "free-form" style of cantilevered roofs and tall display signs.
The Riverside Drive Bob's Big Boy was designed as a drive-in, in which carhops brought food to the cars, and now has a drive-thru window.
The MacDonald family acquired the restaurant in 1993, rehabilitating the tower sign, adding a patio and remodeling the dining room. Carhop service was reintroduced on weekends and a weekly classic car show is hosted in the parking lot.
Bob Hope and other movie personalities such as Mickey Rooney, Debbie Reynolds, Jonathan Winters, Dana Andrews, Martha Raye, Alexis Smith and Craig Stevens, were once regulars at the restaurant. Hope frequented the Burbank drive-in because it afforded him privacy.
Famed British musical group The Beatles dined at the Burbank location during their 1965 U.S. Tour. The table is the last booth on the right as one walks in, where the end of the windows facing out towards Riverside Drive's stop. For many years a plaque described the event (the plaque has been stolen many times by fans, and has been replaced each time. Many regulars to the restaurant call this table and booth "The Beatle Booth".
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