Robert C. Wian; Founder of Bob’s Big Boy Restaurants

Robert C. (Bob) Wian, the founder of the Bob’s Big Boy restaurant chain known throughout the world for its double-decker hamburgers and chubby mascot, died Tuesday. He was 77.

Wian, who opened his first restaurant in Glendale in 1936 with $350 he got for selling his car, died at Hoag Memorial Hospital in Newport Beach of complications from a cerebral hemorrhage, which he suffered earlier this month.

“Bob was a giant in the restaurant industry,” said William H. Morgan, senior executive vice president of Elias Bros. Restaurants, which owns the franchise rights to the chain. “His restaurants will always be a part of Americana.”

The native Philadelphian nurtured a 10-stool hamburger joint called “Bob’s Pantry” into a 1,000-restaurant franchise with outlets in Japan and the Middle East that is one of the most recognizable and successful family dining chains.

Wian also blazed a trail in employee relations and was among the first restaurant owners to give his employees profit-sharing and health insurance plans. In 1967, Wian sold his interest in the chain to Marriot Corp., which later sold it to Elias Bros.

In addition to the restaurant business, Wian embarked on a brief political career in Glendale, where he was elected to the City Council in 1948 and later served as mayor.

The source of his fame, however, remained his inventiveness in the food-service business. A few years after opening Bob’s Pantry, Wian changed the name to Bob’s Big Boy and converted it into a drive-in restaurant, offering 10 hamburgers, french fries and shakes “so thick you can eat them with a spoon.”

But it was his double-decker hamburgers with sesame seed buns that drew rave reviews.

Wian said the idea for the double burger actually started as “a joke” when he slapped it together for a friend who asked for a different kind of hamburger.

“The whole idea just took off,” Wian told a Times reporter several years ago. “In those days, people were skeptical of hamburger meat,” he said, “so we ground it ourselves.”

Equally as famous was the fat little boy with the bright red and white checkered overalls. It was a trademark that Wian fashioned after a young customer at the original Colorado Boulevard restaurant named Rick Woodruff. Woodruff would take a stool at the counter and stay for more than one hamburger. “His grandmother would have to drag him out of the place,” said Casey Wian, Wian’s 31-year-old son. A friend drew a sketch of the boy on a napkin, Casey Wian said, and “the rest is history.”

Wian retired from the restaurant business in the 1970s, and moved his family to a 800-acre ranch in Valyermo, Calif., about 30 miles southeast of Palmdale. He was an avid hunter, rancher and yachtsman.

Seven years ago, Wian and his wife, June, moved to Newport Beach.

He is survived by his wife, his sisters, Doris Weis and Katharine Kurvink; daughters Barbara Baehler and Julie Wian; sons Chapman Baehler and Casey Wian, and three grandchildren.

Funeral services will be held at 11 a.m. Thursday at Pacific View Memorial Park in Newport Beach. Donations in Wian’s name may be made to the Hoag Hospital Foundation General Fund.