The story
Founded by Bob Wian in 1936, in Glendale.1
Creation by Bob Wian
Big Boy began as Bob's Pantry in 1936 by Bob Wian in Glendale, California. There, he assembled his special double-decker hamburger. Created as a joke for a customer wanting something different, the novel hamburger began drawing business. The name given to the popular sandwich provided a new name for his restaurant: Bob's Big Boy.
The restaurants became known as Bob's, Bob's Drive-Ins, Bob's, Home of the Big Boy Hamburger, and commonly as Bob's Big Boy. It became a local chain under that name. Nationally it was franchised by Robert C. Wian Enterprises; Wian only required franchisees to use Big Boy and not include Bob's.
In the late 1940s, Wian licensed two operators in the East to sell his Big Boy hamburger, Frisch's Big Boy in Cincinnati and Eat'n Park Big Boy in Pittsburgh; this served Wian's goal to procure and maintain a national trademark. In 1951, the third licensee Alex Schoenbaum of Shoney's Big Boy sold Wian on a formal franchising system, and with the popularity of the drive-in restaurant, a series of franchising and subfranchising Big Boys followed in the 1950s. The franchisees were required to sell the Big Boy hamburger and use their own name with Big Boy, not Bob's.
Marriott and Elias Brothers ownership
Marriott Corporation bought Big Boy in 1967. One of the larger franchise operators, Elias Brothers, purchased the chain from Marriott in 1987, moved the headquarters of the company to Warren, Michigan, and operated it until bankruptcy was declared in 2000.
Big Boy Restaurants International
During the bankruptcy, the chain was sold to investor Robert Liggett Jr., who took over as chairman, renamed the company Big Boy Restaurants International and maintained the headquarters in Warren. Immediately after Liggett's purchase, Big Boy Restaurants International – then known as Liggett Restaurant Enterprises – negotiated an agreement with the other large franchise operator, Frisch's Restaurants. The Big Boy trademarks in Kentucky, Indiana, and most of Ohio and Tennessee transferred to Frisch's ownership; all other Frisch's territories transferred to Liggett. Thus Frisch's is no longer a franchisee; instead, Big Boy Restaurant Group and Frisch's are now independent co-registrants of the Big Boy name and trademark.
The previous Michigan-based owner of the Big Boy chain, which chiefly franchised previous Elias Brothers Big Boy restaurants in Michigan, has suffered a gradual loss of franchised restaurants. About 175 Big Boys existed in July 2006, compared to 76 in July 2019.
On April 16, 2017, the last Big Boy restaurant in the city of Detroit closed. The Big Boy in Fenton, Michigan, was expected to close in 2017. Both properties were sold to developers. Likewise, in 2016, the Jackson, Michigan, Big Boy closed after the site was purchased by a developer.
Other franchisees simply left the Big Boy chain. In April 2017, the Danville Big Boy, the only unit in Illinois, dropped Big Boy and rebranded as the Border Cafe. In 2016 both the Ann Arbor, Michigan, restaurant (on North Zeeb Road) and the restaurant in Houghton Lake, Michigan, continued to operate but not as Big Boy restaurants. The Tecumseh and Alma, Michigan restaurants announced they will allow their franchise agreements to expire on November 1, 2017, and early 2018, respectively, and both will continue to operate independently. The Marine City, Michigan, Big Boy closed in February 2018, to reopen independently by a new owner. However, in the same month, Big Boy added a new franchisee, an existing restaurant reopening as a Big Boy, in Woodhaven, Michigan. In April 2018, the Coldwater, Michigan location closed, media sources noting multiple health code violations and poor customer reviews.
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Company-owned restaurants have also closed for under-performance.
Big Boy Restaurant Group
In 2018, Big Boy was sold to a group of Michigan investors and renamed Big Boy Restaurant Group, with David Crawford as chairman, CEO, and co-owner of the new company. In January 2020, Tamer Afr replaced Crawford as chairman, CEO, and co-owner. The company moved its headquarters from Warren to nearby Southfield in 2020.
In August 2020, a partnership was announced with Terrible Herbst to expand into Southern Nevada. On November 8, 2020, the first Big Boy restaurant opened in Indian Springs, Nevada. A second Big Boy opened in May 2022 in the Centennial Hills neighborhood of Las Vegas; called Big Boy Tavern, it includes a bar and small casino area. In June 2021, it was reported that a Big Boy restaurant will open on July 14, 2021, in Germantown, Wisconsin, a Milwaukee suburb. The franchisees will also operate two Big Boy food trucks and plan to open additional Big Boy restaurants in southeastern Wisconsin over a three-year period. The grand opening was pushed back to July 21 due to equipment shipping delays.
Big Boy Restaurants International tried a new fast casual concept known as Big Boy's Burgers and Shakes. The restaurant opened in 2016 in Mayfield Heights, Ohio, operated in strip mall instead of a larger traditional stand-alone building. The restaurant was closed by January 2020.
In November 2020, the Big Boy restaurant in Sandusky, Michigan, was stripped of its franchise when it refused to comply with Michigan's COVID-19 restrictions. Since then, it operates as Sandusky Family Diner.
In June 2023, Big Boy began to open restaurants with no table service and a fast-food menu and, harkening to their origin, called them Bob's Big Boy. The first two locations announced are in Michigan in the Detroit suburb of Farmington and Lansing.
On February 14th, 2025, the owners of Frisch's Big Boy, known as New Frisch's, sued Big Boy Restaurant Group for allegedly negotiating with NNN Reit to reopen formerly closed locations as Big Boys, which would violate the agreement settled with the parent organization in 2001. In March, Big Boy Restaurant Group started opening new restaurants in the evicted units, branded as Dolly's Burgers and Shakes, before swiftly closing them in October of the same year due to the lawsuit not going in their favor, as well as numerous food safety violations and poor performance.
Southeast Asia and Western Pacific locations
A franchise briefly operated at the beginning of the 21st century with three Big Boy restaurants in Bangkok and one in the southern beach town of Pattaya, but the business ultimately failed because the native Thai customers did not understand nor appreciate American-style food at that time. The restaurants adapted the menu to local tastes. Some Thai customers regarded the Big Boy statues as religious icons or had superstitions about them.
In 2019, Singapore-based Destination Eats signed a franchise agreement with the Big Boy Restaurant Group to initially open restaurants in Thailand, and later in Australia, China, Indonesia, Vietnam, Singapore, and the Philippines. In May 2020, the first Thai Big Boy restaurant opened in Bangkok, operated as a delivery-only service due to the COVID-19 pandemic. A second restaurant was opened in Pattaya in October 2020. The company is obligated to open 70 restaurants in its overall territory.
By May 2026, the franchise was reduced to one location in Bangkok that was first opened in 2022 at the MBK Center shopping center replacing the previous two locations that opened in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to serving the classic Bigboy sandwich, french fries, and onion rings the new "flagship store" also offers Thai Rice Bowls to satisfy the tastes preferences of the local population.
From Wikipedia’s article on Big Boy Restaurants, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4