I was looking through the Euclid News Journal and found this picture. It was from June 10, 1971 talking about a new restaurant named Lawson's. I grew up in Euclid and had never heard of a restaurant named Lawson's. Growing up, the only Lawson's I had known of was the Convenient store. They sold bread, milk, and other food. They were most famous for their French Onion dip and chipped chop ham. They had a commercial in the 1970's talking about the freshness of their orange juice. This was before refrigerated trucks.
This help wanted ad for Lawson's in October 1972 lists the address of the restaurant as 263 Babbitt Road. The Lawson's Convenient store was only about 10 feet around the corner from the restaurant.
"LAWSON'S RESTAURANT & MOTELS 16201 Euclid Avenue Cleveland, Ohio 44112, Phone 216-851-2600; Restaurants and Motels in Ohio, Motels in Stow, Montrose, North Canton, Amherst and Macedonia. Swimming pools; Color T.V. and phones in all rooms." According to this postcard from the Cleveland Memory project 4 locations had Lawson Hotel-Restaurants.
By January 1973 the Lawson's at 263 Babbitt had become a Manners Big Boy restaurant. In 3 months the Babbitt location had changed names. Manners-Big Boy was founded by Robert Manners. Manners and his wife in the late 1930's had the first Drive-In in Cleveland. A Drive-In was a restaurant were you would park your car and a waitress would come and take your order. You would never get out of your car. When the food was done, a tray would be placed and attached to your window. You would never go inside which was a revolutionary idea back then. Manners-Big Boy was known for its double-decker hamburger and milkshakes.
In 1956 Manners bought 7 new restaurants. This brought the number of restaurants that Manners owned up to 38.
In 1968, Robert Manners sold his 38 restaurants plus 2 being built to Consolidated Foods of Chicago. Consolidated Foods of Chicago also owned Lawson's Milk Company which ran Lawson's Convenient store. This explains why the quick transition was made in only 3 months from Lawson's restaurant to Manners-Big Boy. The Manners name was dropped from the Big Boys in Northeast Ohio sometime in the late 1970's.
In 1995 Robert Manners died at the age of 90. Today there are only a few Big-Boys left in Northeast Ohio.
My name is Paul Trolli. I started working for BigBoy restaurants in 1979 in the position of
ReplyDeletemaintenance supervisor. I was interviewed by Steven Bambrick at the Lakewood Bigboy. I replaced Bob Martin ,who went to work for Brown Derby restaurants in Ohio. Marriott corporation franchised the chain in 1978 till 1985.Elias brothers took over in 1985 and I continued working for them. This was a big mistake.After 10 years they went Bankrupt. Bob Manners son Chris was still in the picture getting a piece of the profits.