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PETE TITTL: Hiya, Big Boy -- you haven't changed a bit

The Bakersfield Californian | Friday, Jul 30 2010 01:11 PM

Last Updated Friday, Jul 30 2010 01:11 PM

By PETE TITTL

Contributing columnist

e-mail: ptittl@bakersfield.com

In the history of American coffee shops, Bob's Big Boy has an iconic name. My college roommate got his first job as a cook at Bob's Big Boy, shortly after McDonald's introduced the Big Mac. That event wounded the whole chain's pride. It's an open sore to this day, based on the lights you see on the new Ming Avenue Bob's Big Boy: "Home of the Original Double Decker!!" (The use of the two exclamation points tells me the bitterness is thriving.)

That it is, and some might say a better product, too. Julia Child famously put down the Big Mac as having "so much bread," commenting on the thick center section. The Big Boy version has that special sauce you expect but also a relish on top, and onions are available only on request. The patties and American cheese are remarkably similar.

We managed to visit the new Bakersfield Big Boy for both breakfast and dinner without too long a wait, though our timing was just right. On the way out we noticed long lines. For some reason Bob's Big Boy has inspired loyalty that few coffee shop chains can claim. Though the local outlet is well run and had an exceptionally professional and adept staff, I'm not seeing why the food would inspire that.

Bob's Big Boy has evolved over the years to stick with the times. For breakfast you can get multi-grain hotcakes ($6.99) made with almonds, walnuts, rolled oats and buttermilk. Yet the famous seasoning salt still has MSG in it. (At least the kitchen didn't douse our French fries with it, allowing us to use it at the table if we wished. Smart.)

At breakfast my daughter skipped the healthy hotcakes for a Belgian waffle with fresh strawberries and the inevitable strawberry glaze ($7.49). It was OK, but that glaze probably is the same one used on their strawberry pie, and it just sucks the flavor out of the berries.

I ordered one of the specialties, the Big Boy Scramble ($7.99) made with green peppers, onions, tomatoes, ham and cheddar cheese. My son went one better getting a "design your own" omelet with four ingredients (pepper jack cheese, bacon, sausage and cheese).

Both were served with fresh-cut hash browns that were cut into wide, thin strips, looking like fettuccine noodles. Inexplicably, mine were barely cooked while his were exceedingly crunchy and nearly perfect. The kitchen needs to be more consistent.

At dinner, we tried one of the restaurant's other specialties, Pappy Parker's chicken ($9.49), which consists of three pieces of chicken with fries and a salad. Pappy Parker's doesn't have the Colonel's herbs and spices, but the pieces are huge and the cooking process creates something very dark and crunchy on the outside and moist on the inside. It reminds me of the old Midwestern "broasted" chicken that was popular about 40 years ago. I tried the Double Decker burger (they have bigger versions now, too, with a half pound of meat in the two patties, owing to modern habits, I guess) but the smaller patties do just fine.

My son ordered a California chicken sandwich with avocado and bacon that was so thick and overstuffed it was difficult to eat.

Sometimes things can seem better in your memory than they are when you revisit them. This applies, I think, to the hot fudge cake ($4.79) which my children said was best described as "storebought." The cake was average, the soft serve ice cream average, the hot fudge average. When you get spoiled by what's served at Rosemary's and Moo Creamery, it's had to go back to something like this.

The restaurant has been through some hard times, and I'm not talking about the statue of the boy with the Ronald Reagan haircut that was kidnapped earlier this year. The chain went bankrupt in 2000, and many of the California restaurants closed. This is the 13th now in the state. Baker's Square, the previous tenant, was also a bankruptcy victim.

By the way, if you're ever down in Burbank, you can visit the original Bob's Big Boy at 4211 W. Riverside Drive. It's actually a State Point of Historical Interest as the oldest operating Big Boy in the nation.