The customers pour in daily at Noodle World in Alhambra, usually expecting nothing more than a heaping plate of Thai pad see-ew or a steaming bowl of Vietnamese pho.
But on occasion, they react the way Martin Moreno did when entering the restaurant for the first time.
"Oh my God, there's a Bob's Big Boy," the furniture seller said, staring at a statue of a boy in checkered overalls. "In an Asian restaurant?"
The statue is a curiosity that has endured for 12 years, puzzling and delighting patrons who either remember eating double-decker cheeseburgers or wouldn't know Pappy Parker fried chicken if it landed in their wonton soup.
For Thai American owner John Mekpongsatorn, the statue is an essential part of his bustling business -- a perfect symbol of the Southern California melting pot he wanted his chain to reflect. The result is a restaurant many affectionately call the "Asian Denny's" for its no-fuss diner decor and a menu that spans Japan to Malaysia.
And in this fiberglass figure, this symbol of mid-20th century kitsch, is the story of how Noodle World settled into its place as a cross-cultural success -- and won over a changing community.
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Before Noodle World became a stalwart on Valley Boulevard's ethnic restaurant row, battling rival noodle houses that could pass for ones in Saigon or Taipei, it was one of hundreds of Bob's Big Boy restaurants that flourished across the nation.
By the 1980s, the hamburger chain, founded in 1936 in Glendale, was beginning to fall out of favor and closed dozens of locations. Along with a national shift away from burger joints came a huge demographic change in the largely white and Latino San Gabriel Valley. Between 1980 and 1996 -- the year that this Bob's Big Boy closed -- Alhambra's Asian population nearly quadrupled, to 47% of residents.
The 37-year-old Mekpongsatorn, who was born and raised in North Hollywood and now lives in Monterey Park, loved Bob's Big Boy as a child. He liked trying to reach up and touch the statue's hamburger when he wasn't quite tall enough.
When he heard the restaurant was up for sale, he was overcome with nostalgia. Mekpongsatorn quickly made an offer and considered the possibilities. Noodle World could be an Asian riff on an American classic, he thought.
But not all went according to plan. When Mekpongsatorn was in escrow for the property, Bob's Big Boy corporate offices had movers reclaim some of the company's decorations, most notably the statue.
