The classic diner with the best breakfast sandwich in California

There’s an allure to it when you drive by, yet at first glance, it can feel a little nostalgic for nostalgia's sake. But once you pull off Riverside Drive and into the oversized back parking lot, you’ll soon find it’s more than just a place where a sepia past dwells. It’s a spot that persists on relevance over past glories. 

It’s the original Bob’s Big Boy, and it’s worth the stop. On a recent morning, I was there not to take in the decor or fawn over the streamlined midcentury aesthetic but for the food. Namely, the breakfast sandwich. 

Why? I’d been told by a handful of longtime Angelenos that the breakfast standard was a Los Angeles staple, a standout. In January, the Bob’s breakfast sandwich was championed by LA sandwich aficionado and TV editor Jonathan Kramer, who tweeted, “the breakfast sandwich at Bob’s Big Boy in Burbank is simple and solid” as part of his 2023 sandwich recap. 

I went to find out what made this version of bacon (or sausage), egg and cheese stand out among the dozens of similar offerings in the area. 

I wasn’t disappointed. 

‘Why in heaven’s name would you be anywhere else?’

After checking in at the front stand, a host led me toward the back of the restaurant, past a long lunch counter that curves with the restaurant’s contours. 

We strode past a giant half-moon-shaped corner booth that separates the counter area from three rows of four-top booths that extend to the back of the restaurant. A small plaque commemorates the meal the Beatles enjoyed when they played the Hollywood Bowl in the summer of 1965.

I settled into my booth and took a quick glance at the menu. Although I was there for the breakfast sandwich — described as “scrambled eggs, American cheese, and your choice of bacon, sausage or ham on grilled sourdough with home fries or hash browns'' — the item below it, Pappy Parker’s Fried Chicken n’ Waffles, caught my eye, especially because the guests at the table next to me had waffles dropped in front of them as I sat down.  

Right away, I knew I’d be back, perhaps even later in the day, to sample another offering on the menu. But this wasn’t the time for improvising.

A server promptly delivered a glass of water, and I gave her my order. My next task: find out who in the industry might be fueling up before their daily trip into the bowels of a writers’ room or a production meeting. 

In the booth next to me, I overheard a pair of friends, one talking rhapsodically about San Francisco. I scooted over and casually (awkwardly) mentioned I was a reporter from up there doing a story on Bob’s breakfast, and he invited me to slide on over for a second. 

He introduced himself as Ted Lang and his dining companion as Barbara Sharp. I asked why they were at Bob’s, to which Lang quickly responded, “Look around you — why in heaven’s name would you be anywhere else?” It rolled off his tongue so smoothly that it almost felt scripted. 

Sharp, a Burbank-based attorney and TV news reporter, said she's a vegan and added, “Maybe surprisingly, Bob’s does vegan options very well.” She mentioned the veggie and vegan burgers as must-haves for afternoon and evening dining. Today, she was starting out with her morning favorite, oatmeal and fruit. “Yes, it’s nostalgia coming here,” she said. “But they do food really, really well too.”

“They should. They’ve been here awhile,” Lang chimed in. Again, right on cue.

‘The best, period’

I asked Lang if he ever saw any industry people around here and got the answer I (sort of) expected. 

“Well, I’d say over the years, there’s been some folks of note that have wandered in here from time to time,” he said, suddenly becoming cagey. “I guess you could say I was one of them.”

And how. 

Lang, according to his IMDB page, was born and raised in San Francisco and got his start as a concert promoter in the 1960s, specializing in hosting shows at Longshoreman’s Hall. He moved to LA in 1968 to work as a comedy writer and eventually wrote for Bob Hope, Joan Rivers and Dom DeLuise.

“Yeah, I worked on a lot of things,” he said. “They’d bring me in to help out a lot — you know, uncredited.”

Was he a script doctor, too? He said yes. “It was always fun to punch something up. A good day's work,” he laughed. 

I wanted to know who he thought the best script doctors were, and he said there were too many to count. Then he leaned in, “You know, most everyone knows this, but Carrie Fisher. She was the best, period.”

Lang got rolling on a few stories of his exploits alongside his wife, Angel Tompkins. Tompkins was discovered by Woody Allen and starred in 1970’s "I Love My Wife" with Elliott Gould and Brenda Vaccaro and received a Golden Globe nomination for the role. Lang scrolled through a number of pictures on his iPad before landing on one of Tompkins posing, smiling next to Johnny Carson.

“One of the greats next to one of the greats,” beamed Lang. 

I bid farewell to the pair as my breakfast sandwich arrived. It appeared rather ordinary. The eggs, fluffy and light yellow, had mingled with the American cheese to create a sherbety swirl divided by pieces of sausage, cut up and skillfully placed at one-inch intervals. 

The sliced sourdough was buttered and flattop-grilled to a crisp golden brown. I folded back the bread tops and shook some Tabasco on the egg, sausage and cheese concoction. I gave it all a second to settle and then took a generous bite.

“As long as there’s some combination of bread-meat-egg-cheese-bread, I’m a happy man,” SFGATE Editor-in-Chief Grant Marek once wrote while spending a year sampling breakfast sandwiches around the Bay Area, and I have to agree.  

Happily, my breakfast sandwich came out just right. Usually, when I’m eating to report, it’s a few bites, some pictures, some notes, and that’s that. With Bob’s breakfast sandwich, the majority somehow disappeared before I could uncap my camera lens. 

‘It’s preserving banality’

Stopping at Bob’s Big Boy in Burbank should not be taken for granted. It was, after all, almost destroyed 30 years ago. 

The building was designed by architect Wayne McAllister (Desert Inn, Sands Hotel). Though his early Vegas casinos were noteworthy, McAllister’s “specialty was the much classier predecessor of today’s fast food drive-thrus — the circular drive-in, including the chain Bob’s Big Boy,” an NPR story on a book celebrating his work reported in August 2007. 

McAllister’s signature restaurant still sits 4 four miles north of the TCL Chinese Theater (originally Grauman’s) in the heart of Hollywood. It’s tucked into a neighborhood where rolling hills were long ago replaced with sound stages and film executive offices. The building itself is impossible to miss: a half-block-long Atomic Age version of an American diner announced to speeding motorists with a three-story-high neon-enhanced sign. 

In the early 1990s, building owner Philip R. MacDonald — a Newport Beach resident whose father Scott teamed up with Bob’s Big Boy founder Robert C. Wian to build the restaurant in 1949 — sought to tear it down.

MacDonald wanted to build an office complex on the property, and he showed no love for the restaurant’s bold design at the time. “It’s preserving banality," he told the Los Angeles Times in March 1992. “That building is dull and trite and needs to be scrapped.”

MacDonald fought to prevent the building from attaining protected status for more than a year. 

But on Nov. 12, 1992, he lost the battle for good. Thanks to the efforts of the Los Angeles Conservancy, the Bob’s Big Boy building and sign were registered with the California Office of Historic Preservation. The MacDonald family still owns the property and now seems to embrace it. 

Today, it's easy to see why the then-43-year-old restaurant was saved. Approaching the building's double glass doors, diners are greeted by the restaurant's mascot, the “Big Boy.” He's a wide-eyed, 6-foot-high cherub statue dressed in red-and-white check overalls. He sports a quiff haircut and a knowing grin as he permanently hoists a burger parallel to his searching eyes.

After spending some time in the clean, generous space with high ceilings and “order up” calls echoing from the kitchen, I realized the aesthetic, service and food combined to create a welcoming, anticipatory feeling — like walking through the Disneyland turnstiles. 

You’re the same you, but you know you’re somewhere different, somewhere better. 

‘It’s something special’

Energized and ready for the day, I quickly grabbed the check and started to make my way out. That's when Onnie Blackburn, who was here from San Rafael to visit her brother, Monterey Park resident Chris Quinones, flagged me down. 

She’d been eavesdropping and caught part of my conversation with Lang and Sharp.

“I’ve got a good story,” she said. “My two brothers used to work here. One met his spouse here.” Quinones nodded his head to corroborate his sister's tale. 

“It’s true,” he said. “This place is a true family place for us. It’s the food, of course — the burgers — but when you come here, there is a sense of being at home.”

“I make him take me as soon as I get into town,” she said. 

Settled up and on my way out, I enjoyed a brief conversation with the restaurant’s marketing manager, Gencer Pedrigala, who wanted assurance that everything was satisfactory. He spied on my receipt that I’d had the breakfast sandwich, and he grinned. “That’s our sleeper, man,” he said. 

I asked Pedrigala what he thought kept the restaurant going and why it continues to be popular. 

An employee of 15 years, he said he started as a cashier at age 17, noting that since his first day, every time someone walks in — no matter who it is — they’re given special treatment. He claimed there's a “little magic” in the building, the kind that makes people feel comfortable enough to share a meal of standards done right — with plenty of good laughs.

“Once, not too long ago, Adam Sandler came in at 3 a.m. with about 10 friends,” he said. “I was here, and, you know, it was great. When he gets going, watching him tell stories, [everybody] really enjoying themselves. 

“When you have a place people can let it go and be who they are, it’s something special.”