Tiny's Drive-In, San Jose 1950s

Restaurateur William ‘Tiny’ Wallace – the nickname came from the restaurateur being six feet four in height and weighing 325 pounds- has often been described as Californian restaurant royalty.

He started his illustrious career in the 1920s with Tiny’s Waffle Shops, seen as forerunners to modern coffee shops, and also went on to open Tiny's drive-ins and Biff’s (named after his son.) All told, there were about 40 locations of his outlets in Southern California.

Cartoonist George McManus, famous for creating the comic strip Bringing Up Father, designed this menu cover for the Tiny's Drive-In.

This cartoon version of Tiny bears some resemblance to McManus’s famous cartoon character Jiggs. He was a working-class Irish immigrant to the US who won a million dollars in the sweepstakes and reluctantly joined the ranks of the nouveau riche.

He wanted to continue going out on the town with his gang of boisterous, hard-drinking pals but his upwardly mobile wife Maggie had other ideas and brandished her rolling pin to keep her husband in line.

The syndicated cartoon series ran for a remarkable 87 years from 1913 till 2000. After McManus died in 1941, other cartoonists continued the stories.

The Tiny's Drive-In in San Jose, California, was a perfect example of Googie-style, the type of futuristic architecture that originated in Southern California and was influenced by car culture, jets, the Space Age and the era of atomic energy.

Designed by famed architect Douglas Honnold, the circular building looked like a spaceship had landed in the middle of town, especially at night when it was  lit up. Some great black and white photos of it still exist.

The drive-in opened in 1949 and offered service inside and outside. Servers in roller skates would deliver food to cars parked outside.

Located at 1205 The Alameda, near the Auditorium Roller Rink. (where it’s likely some of the servers practiced their skating skills) the drive-in was a favorite hangout for locals for decades. In addition to serving great food, there were mini juke boxes on every table and a cocktail lounge.

This menu illustration is from the 1950s. We believe the San Jose drive-in closed in 1979, but the building still stands and has three existing tenants including the Five Guys restaurant chain.

Tiny Naylor died in 1959, but his restaurant chain continued operating until the 1980s. In 2004, Biff Naylor came out of retirement to purchase the Du-Par’s restaurant chain with his chef daughter Jennifer Naylor. The company sold in 2018.