As storied as McDonald's Big Mac is, it's not actually the first burger to take on that double-decker, two-patty, bread-in-the-middle burger format. That distinction falls upon a much different burger chain, one that's not as widely spoken of. It has a blue-eyed, brown-haired boy as its mascot: Bob's Big Boy.
It was founded by a man named Bob Wian in 1936, and was originally called "Bob's Pantry." The explains that its original creation, simply dubbed the "Big Boy", involved Wian entertaining a request from a regular customer, who "asked for something 'different.'" If the Big Mac sounds a lot like that sandwich, that's because it's a direct translation of the Big Boy version.
In the late 1960s, Jim Delligatti, a McDonald's franchise owner in the Pittsburgh area who had once worked as a Big Boy manager, decided to try a similar style of burger to boost his lagging sales. He tested that same burger format at a few of his McDonald's locations, and the Big Mac became a part of McDonald's permanent menu starting in 1968. Let's just say the Big Mac ended up performing pretty darn well, .
Most Big Boy restaurants live in one particular state The legacy of Big Boy is a little bit complicated, and that's because there's multiple versions of the chain. The original version, called Bob's Big Boy, now has four remaining locations in California. When Wian decided to turn the chain into a franchise, he allowed franchisees to take some liberties with their names; provided they still use the.