Kip's Burger Boy.

Kip's Burger Boy

Hayward, California

This unusual Burger Boy is an offshoot of the Big Boy restaurant franchise, according to its current owner and statue collector, Bruce Kennedy. Some regional clumps of Big Boy franchisees added the owner's name to their respective restaurants: Frisch's Big Boy, Marc's Big Boy, etc. Starting in 1958, a franchisee in Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas was named Kip's, "Home of the Big Boy Hamburger." The giant fiberglass burger boy figure might date from the late 1950s, according to Bruce.

At some point in Kip's run from 1958 to 1972, the franchise was absorbed by another Big Boy clump, and the more standard mascot was adopted. The Kip's figure was hauled away. It sat in a yard behind a house for twenty years.

Bruce bought it and arranged for it to be transported to his roadside statue preserve in Hayward, California, adjacent to his Bell Plastics fabrication business. He intends to restore it; in August 2018, visitors could see the top half of this fast food mascot rarity.

Update, Aug. 29, 2018: Although this statue is large and unique, roadside architecture historian Debra Jane Seltzer isn't buying the Kip's connection. She wrote to us: "There's no way that Bruce's statue was part of that chain. The guy that started Kip's, Tom Holman, worked at Bob's Big Boy in California and was awarded a new franchise name, Kip's, when he retired in 1958. Kip's was always part of Big Boy (it did not start as an independent operation) and used the very same character that is used today in advertising, menus, matchbooks, and statues. The Big Boy statue/mascot that we recognize today was completely entrenched by 1956."

So there's more to come on the history of this burger boy....