Big Deal for Big Boy: $65-Million Sale OKd : Acquisitions: Irvine’s Restaurant Enterprises will purchase 104 locations and convert them to Carrows and Coco’s units. But Bob’s Big Boy’s day in California is not done.

Come summer, 104 California boys will be looking for work.

Restaurant Enterprises Group Inc. of Irvine has agreed to buy 104 Bob’s Big Boy restaurants in California from Marriott Corp. in a $65-million deal. The family-style restaurants, famed for the signature statue of a smiling boy holding a hamburger, will be converted to Coco’s and Carrows restaurants.

The purchase, which also includes 16 Allie’s restaurants in San Diego County, should be completed by early summer, said Mike Malanga, vice president of corporate development for Restaurant Enterprises.

As a result, the future of most of the chubby fiberglass Big Boys, which stand 4 to 8 feet tall outside each restaurant, is uncertain. But some could be back before long.

“We will probably end up buying (the statues) and putting them in some of our new Big Boy restaurants around the country,” said Tony Michaels, vice president, marketing, for Elias Bros. Restaurants Inc. of Detroit, which controls the franchise for more than 900 Big Boys in North America and Japan.

“We have a commitment for 10 to be built in the Los Angeles area in the next year or two, so some of those guys will be staying there,” he said, noting that the company recently opened a Big Boy diner in the Glendale Galleria, at the site of the original Bob’s Big Boy.

Besides Coco’s and Carrows, Restaurant Enterprises runs El Torito, Reuben’s, Charley Brown’s, Baxter’s and jojos restaurants. The company, the nation’s 13th-largest food service firm, operates 514 restaurants that had $900 million in sales in 1990, according to Nation’s Restaurant News.

“We believe our acquisition of these restaurants provides a unique opportunity to strengthen (the company’s) presence in California, our most important market, where our Coco’s and Carrows restaurants already enjoy a strong position,” said Norman N. Habermann, president and chief executive officer of Restaurant Enterprises, in a prepared statement.

Malanga said there are no plans to sell any of the restaurants, even though the conversion will put some Coco’s and Carrows close enough to each other that they will be competing for customers.

Bob Wian of Newport Beach opened the first Bob’s Big Boy in Glendale in 1938. He modeled the famed Big Boy statue after Richard Woodruff, a 6-year-old boy who wore checkerboard overalls and, as legend has it, cleaned counters in exchange for the double-decker burgers Bob’s introduced to the Southland.

Wian could not be reached for comment, but Michaels said he has spoken to him about the changes. “I don’t think he’s taking (the Marriott sale) very well, but he’s very confident we will put Big Boy back in his place in California,” Michaels said Wednesday.

Wian, now 77, bought the original 10-seat diner on Colorado Boulevard in Glendale with $350 he raised by selling his car. He added 21 more restaurants before selling the chain to Marriott in 1967 for $7 million.

He held onto the original diner until 1989 when he sold it to a mall developer. The original restaurant was demolished to make way for the Glendale Galleria, where a new Big Boy has been opened.