Ever stopped in at Frisch’s Big Boy for a Brawny Lad or a nice Swiss Miss? I sure have, at the Anderson, Indiana, location on Broadway Street. Believe it or not, though, Anderson once had three Frisch’s restaurants. One of them even sat right downtown, just across from the Madison County Courthouse. It must have been fun to smash a big burger in the heart of the city.
Frisch’s Big Boy traces its roots to 1946, when Cincinnati restaurateur Dave Frisch crossed paths with Bob Wian and was introduced to his hefty double-cheeseburger known as the “Big Boy.”
Frisch loved the idea, but couldn’t resist making it his own by adding a distinctive tartar sauce that became the chain’s signature1. Frisch’s personalized take finally reached Anderson in 1960, when the Broadway Street Big Boy opened its doors2.
Anderson’s downtown Frisch’s came online the following year in the downstairs storefront of an 1894 building3 that had been home to Hook’s Drug Store4. Outside, the remodeled structure hardly appeared that ancient, with a folded plate facade, brown Norman brick in stack bond, and a massive Big Boy emblem outlined in red neon5.
Owned by Jack Crandall and Loyd Holtzclaw, Frisch’s downtown was open every day from eight to midnight except for Fridays and Saturdays, when it stayed open until one6.
Frisch’s received a fresh remodel in 19677. Just four years later, an expanded menu with hits like the Swiss Miss steak sandwich, and a fish-and-chips platter that proved enormously popular with diners8.
By the mid-1980s, nostalgia had become part of Big Boy’s appeal. In 1985, a remarkable 95% of customers at Anderson’s Big Boy locations voted to keep their forty-nine-year-old Big Boy mascot exactly as he was, proving that some things were better left untouched9.
Frisch’s on Broadway remains popular to this day, but it’s hard to tell exactly when the downtown branch closed. It appears to have been open as late as 199310, but I guess that the restaurant was shuttered in or around 199511. The Madison County Commissioners purchased its former home around 2003 to serve as a government annex12, but the conversion never happened.
Instead, the old Big Boy changed hands once more in 2013- this time for a scant $7,20013. Eleven years later came a new chapter: the building was announced as the future home of the 901 Event Center14. That plan stuck, and today the former Big Boy lives on as a gathering place rather than a diner.
Today, there’s little to suggest that a Big Boy once presided over downtown Anderson. Still, for a few decades, the southwest corner of Ninth and Meridian wasn’t about paperwork or events; it was about late meals, familiar sandwiches, and the comfort of something dependable in the middle of a changing city.
Sources Cited
1 Story (n.d.). Frisch’s Big Boy. Web. Retrieved January 18, 2026.
2 Frisch’s New Downtown Restaurant Nears Finish (1960, October 29). The Anderson Daily Bulletin. p. 7.
3 Moyer, T.L. (2013, August 22). Downtown building sells for $7,200. The Anderson Herald Bulletin. Web. Retrieved January 13, 2026.
4 Frisch’s New Downtown Restaurant Nears Finish (1960, October 29). The Anderson Daily Bulletin. p. 7.
5 Frisch’s Big Boy Goes ‘Downtown’ (1961, June 10). The Anderson Daily Bulletin. p. 7.
6 New Menu Features Have Been Added At Frisch’s (1971, March 7). The ANderson Herald. p. 37.
7 Newly Redecorated Frisch’s Is Fine Place To Dine (1967, June 10). The Anderson Daily Bulletin. p. 12.
8 (See footnote 5).
9 Alexander, M. (1985, May 1). Restaurant’s Big Boy mascot apparently here to stay. The Anderson Daily Bulletin. p. 17.
10 Legal Notices (1993, March 29). The Elwood Call-Leader. p. 4.
11 Loyd Holtzclaw, 76 (1998, January 14). The Muncie Star Press. p. 2.
12 It appears to have been open as late as 199310, but my guess is that the restaurant was shuttered in or around 199511.
13 (See footnote 12).
14 de la Bastide, K. (2024, September 6). Downtown Frisch’s to become event center. The Anderson Herald Bulletin. Web. Retrieved January 13, 2026.
In 1971 I was living in Greensboro, Henry County, where my dad owned McDonald’s Market, a small general store. We had moved there in 1965 from Anderson, where I was born. After I graduated from high school that fall, I felt like I was done with Henry County and moved back to Anderson. As a nineteen-year-old, Frisch’s was one of the places I ate at now and then.
In 1974 I was working for my dad again, living on Pearl Street in Anderson and working afternoons and evenings at the store in Greensboro. The store closed every night at 10:00 PM, and I would make the twenty-five to thirty minute drive back to Anderson.
Quite often I would make a detour to the downtown Frisch’s and go to the take-out counter to order a late meal, usually two Big Boy sandwiches and some chili. I loved the food there and can still remember it today. That was a nice location. I hated seeing it gone, like so much of the Anderson I knew as a kid and a young adult.
I’ve always been fascinated by that very mid-century trend to take older downtown buildings, especially ones with more ornate facades, and put “blank” panels over it and/or block upper windows in an attempt to make it look “modern”. Glad they restored the Big Boy building and the one that adjoins it to something resembling their former glories.
It was an intriguing trend. There are a several survivors like that in Richmond, Indiana, on the old National Road- the result of a project to turn downtown into a pedestrian mall after an explosion blew up parts of it.
I’ll have to take some pics and write them up next time I’m down there.
Those were some funky … eaves, maybe? On the corner, below the word “Frisch’s.” That’s a shame to fill in!
Yeah they were cool. Called folded plate canopies.
I think I may have eaten there once in the 80s when I was in a trial in Anderson. But other than that, I cannot recall much of a Big Boy experience. When I was a kid in Fort Wayne, it was Azar’s Big Boy. Then I learned one summer when some older cousins listened to CKLW radio that it was Elias Brothers Big Boy in the Detroit area. Now you have me wanting to find a Big Boy, and the one in Anderson is probably as close to me as any.