Big Boy May Bow to Allie : Alice S. Marriott
Goodby, Bob; hello, Allie.
As part of Marriott Corp.’s plan to revamp some of its Bob’s Big Boy coffee shops in California, two sons will show devotion to their mother.
The new name for the Big Boy units being remodeled in San Diego will be “Allie’s Family Restaurant,” or simply “Allie’s.” The name is in honor of Alice S. Marriott, mother of Marriott President and Chairman J. W. Marriott Jr. and his brother, Vice Chairman Richard E. Marriott.
If the experiment is successful, Marriott has said it may drop the chubby Big Boy and convert all 214 of its Bob’s Big Boy diners. If the experiment is not successful, the Marriott boys may have some explaining to do.
No Film at 11:00
Hungry for publicity in its drive to persuade Congress to authorize more money for its lending programs to developing countries, the Washington-based World Bank sponsored a seminar for West Coast reporters in San Francisco last week. Conspicuously absent from the City Club at the St. Francis Hotel, however, were representatives of the electronic media.
“Television and radio need short answers and we don’t have many of those,” said Bill Brannigan, a World Bank press officer and himself a former ABC network correspondent.
In fact, the all-news radio station in San Francisco called up and wanted to interview Barber B. Conable, the affable former congressman who is president of the World Bank.
“I said no,” Brannigan explained. “Radio reporters always ask what our mortgage rates are. If it’s not the first question, it’s the second.”
He’s Covering All Bets
Dick Fredericksen, a senior vice president at Lucky Stores, is apparently taking no chances as to the outcome of a possible takeover bid by American Stores. Speaking at a Mexican American Grocers Assn. conference last week in Palm Springs, Fredericksen began a speech by taking note of the takeover bid and American Stores Chairman L. S. (Sam) Skaggs. Fredericksen shouted out to the audience: “Sam, if you’re out there, I think you are a great guy.”
Reinventing Gravel
For years, gravel has come from gravel pits. Now, a Claremont chemical company has devised a recipe for mixing batches of, well, man-made gravel.
Rexor Co.’s technique involves stirring together fly ash and foam, water and air to make a fluffy goo with the consistency of “baked souffle” and then spinning it into tiny “dough balls.” Then they are dusted with cement to achieve a hard crust, “like an eggshell,” and let stand for a day, explained business manager William Koch. All this is done at a construction site.
Servings are not dirt-cheap--at least $7 a ton. That compares to $5 a ton for locally mined gravel plus transportation costs of up to another $5 a ton.
Why would anyone invent a gravel substitute? It seems that Southern California gravel quarries are emptying fast, and it is getting increasingly expensive to truck gravel from distant points.
Snow White & Valley Girls
Do they whistle while they work at IBM?
Now that Irwin Rubin plans to step down next month as chairman of former IBM supplier Computer Memories, he has disclosed in an interview what for years was one of the San Fernando Valley company’s best-kept secrets: the code names IBM and Computer Memories once used for each other.
From 1982 to 1984 the two companies worked secretly as IBM designed its PC-AT personal computer that used disk-drive data storage devices supplied by Computer Memories. The computer giant’s obsession with secrecy in its projects is well known. So, Rubin said, IBM insisted that the two companies call each other top-secret names in memos, telephone conversations and even during meetings of executives. The companies settled on “Snow White” for IBM and “Valley Girls” for Computer Memories.
An IBM spokeswoman said the company normally doesn’t assign code names to its suppliers, but did not say why Big Blue turned Snow White in this case.
