Bob's Big Boy

Bob's Big Boy is a casual dining restaurant chain founded by Bob Wian in Southern California in 1936, originally named Bob's Pantry. The chain's signature product is the Big Boy hamburger, which Wian created six months after opening his original location. Slicing a bun into three slices and adding two hamburger patties, Wian is credited with creating the original double-decker (or "double-deck") hamburger.

When Wian began franchising his restaurant across the United States in 1940s, the name "Bob's Big Boy" was only used for the directly owned-and-operated locations, while franchisees were required to substitute a different name for Bob's. This arrangement continued after the parent corporation was sold to Marriott Corporation in 1967. In 1987, Marriott sold the Big Boy trademark to Elias Brothers, the Michigan Big Boy franchisee, but the Bob's Big Boy name was retained for Marriott's locations, now as a franchisee. Marriott decided to divest itself of its food service operations in the early 1990s, and upon being sold most Bob's Big Boy locations were rebranded, often outside the Big Boy system.

At its peak in 1989, there were over 240 locations throughout the country that included "Bob's" name. With the closing of the Calimesa, California restaurant in 2020, only four locations remain using the full "Bob's Big Boy" branding, all in the Los Angeles, California area. Among those restaurants, two are now protected historic landmarks: the Burbank location on Riverside Drive and the Downey location, previously known as Johnie's Broiler. The other two Bob's Big Boy restaurants are in Norco and Northridge. The other locations across the United States, either directly under the Big Boy Restaurant Group or operated independently by trademark co-registrant Frisch's Big Boy, continue to omit "Bob's".