![]() Sambo scoops up the tigers-turned-butter, takes them home, and has his mother make a feast of pancakes out of their remains. Unwittingly outsmarting the hungry predators with his flashy new cloths, Sambo eventually tricks the tigers into chasing one another to exhaustion, when they all melt into a giant puddle of ghee, or Indian-style clarified butter. Originally written in 1899 by Helen Bannerman, the wife of a British colonial agent in Madras, Little Black Sambo tells the story of a South Indian boy who contends with four tigers in the jungle one day. ![]() The two decided it would make a perfect marketing theme with “excellent promotional potential,” and soon, colorful billboards were popping up across Santa Barbara to tempt would-be patrons.īattistone and Bohnett drew upon the children’s book Little Black Sambo for their marketing platform. Their hopes of building a pancake franchise and the clever combination of the owners’ names fit with a popular children’s story about a boy named Sambo who ate 169 pancakes. Grasping for a name both could agree upon, the partners combined their names, Sam and “Bo,” to create “Sambo’s.” The name worked in another way, too. Coffee sold for a dime a cup and a stack of pancakes cost only 40 cents. Hoping to tap into blue-collar workers and middle-class vacationers, they opened up a joint-venture pancake and coffee house featuring moderate prices. On June 17, 1957, Sam Battistone and Newell Bohnett saw the first fruits of their entrepreneurial vision ripen along Cabrillo Boulevard in Santa Barbara, California. ![]()
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