Frisch's Big Boy is a regional Big Boy restaurant chain headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. Founded in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1939 by David Frisch, the chain became an early Bob Wian Big Boy licensee in the 1940s and in 2001 acquired perpetual rights to the Big Boy trademark in Indiana, Kentucky, most of Ohio, and parts of Tennessee independent of Big Boy Restaurant Group. , the chain operates 31 locations across Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio.
Excluding the original Bob's Big Boy in California, Frisch's is the longest-operating regional Big Boy franchisee. Family ownership passed from founder David Frisch to his son-in-law Jack C. Maier and grandson Craig F. Maier until 2015, when the company was sold to Atlanta-based private equity fund NRD Capital. The same year, NRD entered a sale-leaseback agreement covering 74 of the chain's 121 owned locations; in 2024, Frisch's was unable to meet rising lease payments and was evicted from most of those stores, shrinking from 95 to 31 locations within four months. In November 2024, a group of senior managers acquired the remaining locations and branding rights from NRD.
History
Origins and early restaurants In 1905, Samuel Frisch opened the Frisch Cafe in Cincinnati, Ohio. Five years later he closed the café, moved to the Norwood suburb of Cincinnati, and opened another café. Success brought a new building in 1915 for the restaurant then known as Frisch's Stag Lunch. When the elder Frisch died in 1923, three of his sons, David, Reuben and Irving, continued operating the café; twenty-year-old Dave took his father's lead role.
In 1932, Dave Frisch sold his interest in Stag Lunch and opened his own Frisch's Café. Frisch's Café was a success and in 1938 a second location opened, this one across from the Stag Lunch in Norwood. Frisch could not meet the expenses of the Norwood restaurant; facing bankruptcy, both cafés closed in 1938. Fred Cornuelle, a local businessman, counseled Frisch and provided money for a new restaurant. In 1939 the Mainliner opened on Wooster Pike in Fairfax, Ohio. Cincinnati's first year-round drive-in restaurant, it was named after a passenger airplane that flew into nearby Lunken Airport. By 1944 a second Frisch's restaurant opened, designed to resemble George Washington's Mount Vernon home.
Big Boy affiliation Immediately after World War II, Dave Frisch visited one of Bob Wian's Big Boy restaurants in California. Although he did not meet Wian on this trip, Frisch was struck by the double-deck Big Boy hamburger and saw advantages in cooking two thinner beef patties rather than a single thicker one.
Wian was concerned that drive-in operators outside California were using the Big Boy name and hamburger without permission. To maintain national trademark protection he needed authorised Big Boy restaurants in other regions, so when the two men later met Wian offered Frisch a low-fee licensing agreement of $1 per year for a four-state territory. The territory included the Cincinnati tri-state region of Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana and added Florida to increase Big Boy's national span. Frisch accepted and became the first Big Boy franchisee.
As the first franchisee, Frisch operated under an ad hoc arrangement that gave him unusual latitude. His double-deck Big Boy hamburger differed slightly from Wian's. Dave Frisch also created his own Big Boy character: a thinner boy with reddish or blond hair, wearing striped rather than checkered overalls, presented in a running or skipping pose. Known as the East Coast Big Boy, this mark represented Frisch's and its licensees Manners and Azar's through 1969. Most Frisch's Big Boy restaurants still display statues from this design, albeit usually repainted with brown hair and checkered overalls. In 2017 a redesigned statue resembling the West Coast Big Boy was introduced.
Dave Frisch began selling Big Boy hamburgers in 1946 at Frisch's Mainliner Drive-In. After signing a licensing agreement with Wian in 1947, the first Frisch's Big Boy Drive-In restaurant, Big Boy One, opened on Central Parkway north of downtown Cincinnati.
Expansion and franchise territories (1949–1991) David Frisch opened three more Big Boy Drive-In Restaurants in 1949 – including the first in Kentucky – and opened his fifth drive-in the following year. By 1954 Frisch's operated 20 units in Greater Cincinnati and was subfranchising Big Boys elsewhere. In 1953 and 1954 Frisch's subfranchised Azar's Big Boy in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, and Manners Big Boy in the Cleveland, Ohio TV market. In 1955, Frisch's subfranchised northwest Ohio to Toledo brothers Milton and David Bennett, to operate under the Frisch's Big Boy name. By the fall of 1961 upwards of 150 drive-ins were in service by Frisch's and its franchisees.
Louisville operations Around 1956, Frisch's opened two locations in Louisville. None of these locations remain today. One was close to the Dixie Drive In (now a Mazda/VW dealership), the other in Saint Matthews (now a Mike's Car Wash). The next year, they opened one near Rubbertown, (now a mobile home park) and in 1958, one opened near Jeffersontown (now a family center). According to former marketing executive Karen Maier, Louisville-area Frisch's restaurants were franchised through the 1970s and operated by several different owners.
Frisch's also licensed or subfranchised Big Boy operations in several nearby markets through Manners (Cleveland), Azar's (Fort Wayne), the Bennett brothers (northwest Ohio) and Elby's (Ohio Valley). Disputes with Elby's and Shoney's over territorial rights and non-Big Boy operations near Frisch's territory contributed to both chains leaving the Big Boy system in 1984 after extended litigation. Alex Schoenbaum, founder of Shoney's (originally the Parkette Drive-In), was a close friend of Dave Frisch; Frisch introduced Schoenbaum to Bob Wian and encouraged him to become the Big Boy franchisee for West Virginia. Eat'n Park in Pittsburgh, founded by Larry Hatch in 1949 after he observed Frisch's drive-in operation, was the second Big Boy franchisee and did not renew its franchise in 1975. Both Eat'n Park and Shoney's continue to operate independently.
Frisch's created the "Brawny Lad" and "Swiss Miss" chopped-sirloin sandwiches, served on rye buns and introduced in the 1950s and 1970 respectively; both were later added to many other Big Boy franchisee menus. Frisch's "Filet de Sole" fish sandwich and the use of the term "platter" rather than "combination plate" for entrée plates also spread within the Big Boy system.
Frisch's branded tartar sauce has been distributed to local grocery stores since 1960. The Silverton, Ohio–based Food Specialties Co. has produced the sauce for Frisch's since 1946 under what the company describes as a handshake agreement between its founder and David Frisch; Food Specialties owns the recipe but not the Frisch's brand name.
In 1963, McDonald's launched the Filet-O-Fish in Cincinnati in a marketing push that local press described as aimed at Frisch's.
Separation from Big Boy Restaurants (2000–2015) In 2000, Frisch's had the opportunity to purchase the national Big Boy chain, which was in bankruptcy, but declined the offer. Instead Robert Liggett purchased the national chain. Early the following year, Liggett's operation, renamed Big Boy Restaurants International made a deal with Frisch's, paying $1.2 million for Frisch's territories in Florida, Georgia, Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas, and granting Frisch's perpetual ownership of the Big Boy mark in remaining territories. The bankruptcy threatened Frisch's right to operate and franchise Big Boy restaurants but was forever resolved by the separation. The separation also relieved tensions for Big Boy, who charged other franchisees royalties and licensing fees that Frisch's was exempt from. Frisch's franchise agreement with Bob Wian, which had no expiration, required a trivial $1 per year licensing fee.
Frisch's sold the former Kip's territory as well as Georgia and Florida to Big Boy Restaurants International in 2001. Frisch's also remodeled, demolished or rebuilt older units around this time.
In December 2013, Frisch's switched from Coca-Cola to Pepsi products, citing a better supplier deal. The change drew complaints from customers attached to the chain's "cherry" and "vanilla" Coke offerings. In 2018, Coca-Cola returned to Frisch's restaurants under chief executive Jason Vaughn; Cincinnati Reds catcher Tucker Barnhart poured the first Coca-Cola at the Mainliner location on July 27, 2018.
NRD Capital ownership (2015–2024) Frisch's previously owned and operated numerous Golden Corral franchise restaurants in Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia; after closing six under-performing stores in 2011, the company sold its remaining 29 Golden Corral units in March 2012.
On August 24, 2015, Frisch's was sold to an Atlanta-based private equity fund. The new owner, an affiliate of National Restaurant Development (NRD) Partners, paid approximately $175 million to purchase outstanding shares of Frisch's stock. On September 4, 2015, Frisch's Restaurants, Inc. ceased to be a listed, publicly traded company. Aziz Hashim, CEO of NRD Partners, assumed Craig Maier's position as Frisch's president. In April 2016, Jason Vaughn was hired as CEO. (NRD had previously made a tentative bid in 2012 to acquire Frisch's remaining 29 Golden Corral units, before that sale was blocked by Golden Corral itself.)
The sale ended family ownership of the chain. Craig Maier, the chief executive, and his sister Karen Maier, vice-president of marketing—both grandchildren of founder David Frisch—retired from the company. However, both remain active as franchisees, operating individual Frisch's Big Boy Restaurants. Other family members were either uninvolved in the business or too young, and none expressed interest in continuing the family's role at Frisch's.
NRD Partners planned to expand Frisch's presence in existing and smaller markets, including expanding statewide in Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio outside of Greater Cleveland (which is served by Big Boy Restaurants International) while enjoying its Big Boy rights in Tennessee by expanding into that state, including Nashville.
In March 2017, Frisch's unveiled a redesigned statue resembling the original West Coast Big Boy with pompadour hair, striped overalls and modern footwear. The first new statue, in a Cincinnati Reds uniform, was placed at Great American Ball Park; a second was installed at the Dry Ridge, Kentucky, location, the chain's last newly built standalone restaurant.
Absent since closing its last downtown Cincinnati restaurant in 2004, Frisch's returned in June 2018, opening a Big Boy restaurant on the ground floor of the Carew Tower; it closed in 2020.
COVID-19 impact and closures The COVID-19 pandemic prompted Frisch's to permanently close seven locations and to scale back operations at seven others. The closures included two restaurants in Louisville, the Carew Tower restaurant in Cincinnati, and several smaller Ohio locations; the scale-backs were all in Ohio. During the pandemic, Frisch's introduced "Big Boy's Market" sections selling essential grocery items at most of its locations.
Following the appointment of a new chief executive in 2022, Frisch's accelerated store closures in 2023, citing economic conditions and inflation. The company also began converting some corporate-owned locations to franchises. The planned Tennessee expansion did not occur.
Three further locations closed in April 2024, continuing a decline in the chain's footprint. Four days later, Frisch's closed its downtown Covington location.
On April 8, 2024, Aziz Hashem, managing partner of NRD Capital, attributed the closures to lease expirations and financial losses. He also confirmed a fifth location would close, which was in Beavercreek, Ohio.
2024 evictions