Limoneira has Bob’s Big Boy on board for Hallock complex
By Peggy Kelly
Santa Paula News
Published: August 20, 2004
A famous food icon with a curl in his hair is coming to the Santa Clara River Valley: burger-loving Bob’s Big Boy, a new restaurant/drive-thru located in the Limoneira retail complex just off Highway 126 and Hallock Road.
By Peggy Kelly
Santa Paula Times
A famous food icon with a curl in his hair is coming to the Santa Clara River Valley: burger-loving Bob’s Big Boy, a new restaurant/drive-thru located in the Limoneira retail complex just off Highway 126 and Hallock Road.
Acquiring the Bob’s Big Boy franchise fulfills Limoneira’s desire to bring a “first-class operation and something very much on the unique side,” to the Mercantile, said Vice President Operations/Real Estate Ron Hendren.
Limoneira approached Bob’s over four months ago based on the company’s belief that Bob’s “would be a uniquely different restaurant for Ventura County, especially for Santa Paula and the Santa Clara River Valley.”
Almost 70 years ago, Bob’s Big Boy introduced a hungry public to double hamburgers, tall malts, chili spaghetti, cherry colas and the combo plate served in a fun atmosphere.
Bob’s Big Boy at the Mercantile will offer sit-down dining from its traditional American offerings and a limited drive-thru menu to ensure that window-orders can be freshly prepared.
“It’s something different for Bob’s and obviously something new and different for Limoneira…we’ve never been in the restaurant business,” Hendren noted.
Bob’s certainly has since founder Bob Wian, the owner of Bob’s Pantry in Glendale, changed the name of his 10-stool eatery in 1937 and create the restaurant icon to mirror a husky customer who worked in exchange for hamburgers. Wian, voted most unlikely to succeed upon his 1933 graduation from Glendale High School, changed the course of the nation’s culinary history.
In fact, Bob’s history ties in neatly with that of the City of Santa Paula, Limoneira and Union Oil.
“All are longtime entities,” in the area, with Limoneira and Union Oil being founded in Santa Paula and the company founders, in turn, becoming the founders of the city.
“Limoneira is tying all these things together: what Santa Paula was, is and will be in the future.”
The Mercantile will have a Union 76 gas station (which dovetails nicely with the city’s California Oil Museum, the birthplace of Union Oil), car wash, Bob’s Big Boy and Limoneira Fresh (offering fresh fruits and vegetables as well as specialty products). The convenience store will reopen and a new coffee shop featuring an array of Brazilian grown blends is planned.
“Limoneira wants the Mercantile to be something that Santa Paula will be proud of,” said Hendren.
In addition, the Mercantile will employ up to 80 people, full- and part-time to staff all of its components.
The opening of the Mercantile as been pushed back to January 1st, and “although we hope to open sooner than that, that’s our official date,” for the new complex to welcome visitors, said Hendren.
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