Sambo's restaurants...pictures - Beyond Tiki

BD Bamboo Dude Member Orange Countiki, CA Joined: Jul 05, 2004 Posts: 164	BD Bamboo Dude Posted posted on Fri, Sep 17, 2004 9:23 AM Unfortunately, I never felt enough of a connection with that job to take and save pictures, so I can't help you out there, but I can give you a little more information about the 'waning' days of Sambos. Can't remember if this was '82 or '83 when Sambo's brought in a new CEO. His name was Bob Lucky ('not Lucky enough' is what I used to say!). Bob was the son of the guy who founded Chart House Restaurants, a very high end steak/seafood house, the original being a little place on PCH in Newport Beach (restaurant row). Bob was a bigger than life kinda guy...a very large man, who liked to live large. One of his first acts was to secure a $15 M investment in Sambos from Godfather's Pizza which was rapidly growing at the time, and probably viewed their involvement as buying into the eventual demise of the chain, and being able to cherry pick the best locations...which is kinda what happened. Then Mr. Lucky organized 'pep rallys' in each of the 5 regions. I don't know, in total, how much was spent on these pep rallys, but at the one here I heard the figure was comfortably over $200,000 (today it'd be like spending half a mil or more)! The event, held at the Sheraton Universal Hotel, was well publicized in the LA Times, the Ram's Cheerleaders (at the time, the LA Rams were calling them "The Embraceable Ewes"...'embraceable' fer sure!) were there, and every manager was put up in the hotel for the night, so we could drink ourselves sick at the open bar, and crash there for the evening. The idea of rallying the troups was a noble thought, but the unrestrained free spending for these events was inappropriate for a company circling the drain! As the fortunes of Sambo's were grinding to a halt, a last ditch attempt was made to reinvent the chain into a quasi Marie Callendar's/ Coco's type restaurant named "Season's". The first opened up near the Corporate offices in Carpinteria (just south of Santa Barbara), but in the end, the chain went under, and Godfather's Pizza along with Coco's, go many of the primo locations. The Katella Sambo's went to Coco's, the second best location in Anaheim was a block away and close to the Disneyland Hotel...that went to Godfather's.

Unfortunately, I never felt enough of a connection with that job to take and save pictures, so I can't help you out there, but I can give you a little more information about the 'waning' days of Sambos.

Can't remember if this was '82 or '83 when Sambo's brought in a new CEO. His name was Bob Lucky ('not Lucky enough' is what I used to say!). Bob was the son of the guy who founded Chart House Restaurants, a very high end steak/seafood house, the original being a little place on PCH in Newport Beach (restaurant row). Bob was a bigger than life kinda guy...a very large man, who liked to live large. One of his first acts was to secure a $15 M investment in Sambos from Godfather's Pizza which was rapidly growing at the time, and probably viewed their involvement as buying into the eventual demise of the chain, and being able to cherry pick the best locations...which is kinda what happened. Then Mr. Lucky organized 'pep rallys' in each of the 5 regions. I don't know, in total, how much was spent on these pep rallys, but at the one here I heard the figure was comfortably over $200,000 (today it'd be like spending half a mil or more)! The event, held at the Sheraton Universal Hotel, was well publicized in the LA Times, the Ram's Cheerleaders (at the time, the LA Rams were calling them "The Embraceable Ewes"...'embraceable' fer sure!) were there, and every manager was put up in the hotel for the night, so we could drink ourselves sick at the open bar, and crash there for the evening.

The idea of rallying the troups was a noble thought, but the unrestrained free spending for these events was inappropriate for a company circling the drain!

As the fortunes of Sambo's were grinding to a halt, a last ditch attempt was made to reinvent the chain into a quasi Marie Callendar's/ Coco's type restaurant named "Season's". The first opened up near the Corporate offices in Carpinteria (just south of Santa Barbara), but in the end, the chain went under, and Godfather's Pizza along with Coco's, go many of the primo locations. The Katella Sambo's went to Coco's, the second best location in Anaheim was a block away and close to the Disneyland Hotel...that went to Godfather's.

Post #115180 by Bamboo Dude on Fri, Sep 17, 2004 9:23 AM