Oct 3, 2009

Mrs. Sneed and I had another blast from the past last night. We were eating dinner at a Mexican restaurant down the street when our favorite server told us that they are closing next week and the place is being remodeled into a damn sports bar. I can say with certainty that the world does not need another sports bar. This particular restaurant was a Bob's Big Boy location about 40-odd years ago. That's where the blast from the past part comes in. Big Boy was once a really big deal in the world of casual dining, but the years haven't been kind. There are few Big Boy's left and none in Arizona. During the summer of 1968, I was fresh out of high school and in need of a job. I needed some dough so that I could get out of my folks house, or madhouse, to be specific. I had just quit my previous job, working as a roofer for a guy named Eddie. It only took me a few days of slopping hot tar on the roof of a shopping center in the June heat to realize that roofing was for the birds. Plus as bosses went, Eddie wasn't the easiest to work for. Anyway, I wandered down to this Big Boy location and applied for a job. Before you know it, I was washing dishes. I would like to brag and say I was making a sweet $1.25 per hour, but Mrs. Sneed says I'm exaggerating. She says it was less. Of course, the guys who owned the Big Boy franchise knew an up and comer when they saw one and my stay in the dish room was brief. I was bumped up to the kitchen, as a trainee fry cook. After a few weeks they transferred me to another location a few miles away and it is there that I met the lovely Mrs. Sneed. The rest is history, as they say. Sports bar...yuck. Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

10 comments:

Barbara said...

Was it Big Boy that had that mile-high strawberry pie? I really believe the work ethic was different back then. We were willing to work hard for next to nothing. Kids these days would rather let a foreigner do many of these jobs.

Merle Sneed said...

Strawberry pie was one of their specialties.

Coffee Messiah said...

I'm with you....although out here, there are sports bars a plenty, 4 some reason?

We had a Mels Drive In and there was at least one in SF I remember. If the girls weren't on skates, it was still a hot place to go.

Funny, I was delivering Stock Quotations in '71, made $100.00 a week (only worked 10 hrs) but that $$$ went further than anything I've made up to now. Go figure ; (

Cheers to you and yours!

Reya Mellicker said...

You are SO RIGHT that the world does NOT need another sports bar.

Thanks for the memories, Merle!

Steve Reed said...

GREAT story! I had no idea that's how the Sneeds came together. I totally agree about the sports bar. Why is our society so homogenized?

We used to have Frisch's Big Boy here in Florida -- I loved going there as a kid, because they'd always hang a tiny plastic toy monkey or giraffe off the side of my soda glass.

The Bug said...

We had Shoney's Big Boy in NC when I was growing up - my mother loved their burgers & hot fudge cake. She woke me up one night when I was around 11 or 12 so we could watch "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" together & then we went out for hot fudge cake. My dad & brother slept through it all. Good times.

We've got Frisch's Big Boys all over the place here in Ohio - I ate in one just a few weeks ago. Couldn't tell you the last time I went to a sports bar.

Megan said...

I lost a beloved bar that way. The owner was getting old, and he sold up to a guy that turned it into a sports bar. The old clientele tried to keep on for a while, but in the end, we gave up. Sad, sad.

Kurt said...

Remember Doggie Diner? Or Der Weinerschnitzel? I still see an A&W now and then.

a. said...

My brother has a neighbor with a real Bob in the front window. Because "he just really likes that restaurant."
when I was a little girl I had a crush on bob.

Anonymous said...

I do remember getting a free CrAzY straw with a milkshake at the Big Boy.