Southern California has given the world so much. And fast food too
LOS ANGELES — In the history of everything, there have been two Big Bangs.
One happened 13.8 billion-some years ago, and it created the universe.
The other one happened in mid-20th-century Southern California, and it created Fast Food America, a universe of its own, with a constellation of burger-and-burrito chains, all composed of the basic elements of salt, fat, sugar and pleasure.
It’s pretty obvious what birthed this second Big Bang in postwar California: a vertiginous economy, spreading suburbia, and cars — cars with fins and radios and young drivers, teenagers and nuclear families, all mobile, and all hungry for easy eats.
Southern California was a-boom with postwar prosperity. Wartime industry had slid easily into high-gear Cold War defense manufacturing. Aviation and automobile companies worked pedal to the metal.
George Geary, who wrote “Made in California! The California-Born Burger Joints, Diners, Fast Food & Restaurants That Changed America,” and who is at work on the second volume, said that “a lot of companies were working 24 hours,” and swift, round-the-clock food services like Denny’s expanded their stores, their menus and their hours to match.
It’d almost be easier to list the fast-food chains that did not begin in these palmy latitudes. For a manageable definition here, “fast food” means selling on-the-go, eat-with-the-hands sandwichey foods and some kind of sweet drinks or desserts — no table service, no tablecloths. That lets out a great many chains, like Baskin-Robbins (founded 1945 in Glendale), See’s Candy (founded in 1921 on Western Avenue in Los
