Friday, November 24, 2006

Coco's

Coco's, Garden Grove, CA.




Designed by the Googie architects Armet & Davis, this Coco's sits nestled on the corner of Chapman and Harbor Blvd. minding its own business. Little has changed about the exterior of this building since it opened as the first Bob's Big Boy designed by the legendary architects in 1957. Those concrete pillars holding up that beautiful sloping roof used to be covered in flagcrete, but considering the preservation apparent in the rest of the bulding, its removal can be forgiven. Those jutting pylons still shoot out of the sign, announcing yet a another greasy spoon off the road.

Unfortunately there's nothing left of the original interior (I doubt it was "Coco's" enough), so I stuck to the outside. At least there's something left of this building's history, unlike the Coco's right up the street on Katella and West, which used to be a glorious Sambo's on the lot of Stovall's Space Age Inn-- there's nothing left of this Googie landmark but the basic foundation. It's a regular ol' modern-day diner. So much for preservation.

2 comments:

Chris Merritt said...

My God! That is a gorgeous former Bob's... We have a former Bob's - now Coco's here in Sunland as well - unfortunately, it is a 80s model...

Jim said...

Holy cripes! It's our Bob's! I grew up down the street near the intersection of Chapman and Haster in the sixties. This was a "special" place to eat out for our family. We often got our hands stamped as we left Disneyland for the dinner hours and my Dad would drive us down Harbor Boulevard to this location to have a pancake dinner before returning to the Magic Kingdom for the fireworks. BTW, there used to be a real cool Jessups Dairy Drive-Thru (not Drive-In) outlet right next door facing chapman. Thanks for posting.