Unknown Artist

Apparently, Yoda’s Big Boy was one of the earliest Shoney’s restaurants. It later merged with Lendy’s, also of Salem. Back when it was Yoda’s competitor, Lendy’s was simultaneously a Big Boy and a Kentucky Fried Chicken. Confused? That makes two of us.

I got the above info from the Lendy’s section of oldroanoake.net, which contains plenty of pictures. This page shows Col. Sanders (in person and in sign form) in front of a Big Boy, along with a newspaper ad for “Shrimp, golden fried the Yoda way”. For a picture of the actual Yoda’s building, scroll down this page. Spoiler alert: not as cool as the drawing, but it does have a Big Boy statue.

Most importantly: YES, they gave out Big Boy Comics!

I’m not sure who drew this one. I seem to remember the artist’s last name was Yoder, but maybe that’s just me seeing “J.Y.” in the signature and wanting a Yoda drawing by a Yoder. Ideas, anyone?

Another unknown artist. Why can’t I remember these people?

I’m not sure when the Berkeley location closed, but the last Ground Cow (in Penryn, CA) ceased operation just a couple of months ago. Their Facebook page is still up, with lots of nice pictures of things you could’ve ordered.

New sketchbook theme, as promised. These are restaurant names I found in a 1966 edition of the National Restaurant Association member directory. The Association still exists, but no longer publishes a list of members.

Dante’s Furnace seems to be long gone. The only evidence I was able to find of its existence was this 2-sentence observation  from a 1964 New Yorker article.

As for the artist on this one: I’m not sure. All I remember is that I met him that same day, and he was pretty excited about getting to make a literary reference.