Big Boy is a restaurant chain starte in 1936 by Bob Wian in Glendale, California as Bob's Big Boy. Marriott bought the chain in 1967. One of the larger franchise operators, Elias Brothers, purchased the chain from Marriott, in 1987, moving the headquarters of the company to Warren, Michigan, and operating it until declaring bankruptcy, in 2000. Following the bankruptcy, the chain was sold to investor Robert Liggett Jr., the current company CEO, who renamed the company Big Boy Restaurants International, and kept the headquarters in Warren. The company is the franchiser for more than 455 Big Boy Restaurants in the United States and Canada.