Sambo's
Battistone and Bohnett capitalized on the coincidence by decorating the walls of the restaurants with scenes from the book, including a dark-skinned boy and tigers. Denny s acquired some of them, as their operation is nearly identical to Sambo s.Several of the restaurants were opened as or renamed to The Jolly Tiger in locations where the local community passed resolutions forbidding the use of the original name or refused to grant the chain permits. In its last days as a chain, Sambo s was sued by Dr Pepper for plagiarizing the latter s popular television commercial in a spot Sambo s ran to promote its new senior citizen discount program. Many of the closed Sambo s buildings are still standing, and they are being used as restaurants. He later moved the team to Utah and sold it.
Though the name was taken from portions of the names of its founders, the chain soon found itself associated with The Story of Little Black Sambo. However, in the late-1970s, controversy over the chain s name drew protests and lawsuits in communities that viewed the term Sambo as pejorative towards African-Americans, particularly in the Northeastern states.
Battistone s grandson, restaurateur Chad Stevens, owns the only remaining Sambo s. By the early 1970s, the illustrations depicted a light-skinned boy wearing a jeweled Indian-style turban with the tigers.
He expresses a desire to revive the chain. While there is a Lil Sambo s restaurant in Lincoln City, Oregon, it was never part of the Sambo s chain. . Sambo s is a restaurant, formerly an American restaurant chain, started in 1957 by Sam Battistone and Newell Bohnett.
An original Sambo s is distinguished from a Denny s in that a Sambo s is a square-shaped building with a mansard roof-line, and a Denny s has a peaked-roof. Battistone is also the original owner of the New Orleans Jazz in the NBA. A kids club, Sambo s Tiger Tamers (later called the Tiger Club), promoted the chain s family image. By 1979, Sambo s had 1,200 outlets in 47 US states.
