I just received an email from Chris Nichols with a link to a new website, followed with the words, "WOW! The Jack Laxer of Sambo’s... Tim Putz! Must...pick...up...jaw".
I couldn't agree more.
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The photos of the old Buena Park Sambo's posted above are just a sample of the scores of amazing images you'll find on photographer Tim Putz's Sambo's Photos website. According to the site, "From 1964 to 1986 [Putz] operated one of Santa Barbara’s most successful photographic studios, specializing in commercial and portrait photography... Tim was a personal friend of the Battistone family (the original owners of the Sambo's Restaurant enterprise) and therefore in 1964, was commissioned to photograph the first 25 Sambo’s restaurants in this growing chain..."
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The photo below is from the Sambo's at 1100 W. Katella Ave. in Anaheim, just across from Disneyland. (It's now a Coco's.) I always loved those back-lit panels on the dropped soffit, which told the story of Sambo and the tigers. How can you look at an interior like this and not wax nostalgic the golden age of Googie?
Speaking of Coco's, I noticed an obituary for Coco's co-founder Audrey McIntosh (1923-2009) in yesterday's Register. She and her husband, John Reuben McIntosh, bought the Snack Shop in Corona del Mar in 1948, a business which "subsequently grew into Far West Services, the parent company of Snack Shops, Coco's, Reuben's, Reuben E. Lee among others." She was a 65-year resident of Newport Beach, and served in the USMC at El Toro during WWII.