Yee-Haw! Burgers for Dinner

Norco, California: Horsetown, USA.



That's how Norco refers to itself. They have signs proclaiming their horsetown-ness all over the place. A bit of Norco, California trivia for you: Norco's neighborhoods are lined with horse trails instead of sidewalks. Homes have horsetrails across their driveways, as do many of the major roads in town. Oleander is illegal in Norco because it is poisonous and horses might eat it. Homes that have oleander bushes have to have them removed, even if they aren't near any horse trails or corrals. (Someone once told me that the pollen could also be a problem if animals breathed it in. Now you know, too.) Norco is the kind of place that has two crosswalk buttons at each traffic light post, one at walker's level and one easily accessible to horseback riders.

Businesses along one of the main drags, 6th Street, have corrals in the parking lots so that riders can park their steeds while dining and shopping. Indeed, 6th Street boasts several feed stores. Many residents in the community have horse related businesses on their properties from riding schools, to boarding facilities to training centers for "Cattle Horses." Most of the time, businesses are small and locally owned. Almost all of them boast advertisements for local fairs, and local teen girls advertise to solicite votes for the various "Miss Norco" or "Miss Rodeo" contests during the year. Norco High School boasts of their strong agricultural program and FAA affiliation.

Norco may be well known for its rodeo. It may also be known for the once glamorous Lake Norconian Club, parts of which are today behind the secured walls of the Naval Weapons Center Seal Beach Detachment Corona, which is neither in Seal Beach nor Corona. The Corona was just recently added to the name to better recognize the actual location. I realize that this may seem odd considering it is not actually in Corona but in Norco. It makes me shake my head and tsk. Finally, right next door to the Norconian Club, housed in some of the former buildings of the Norconian Club and, again, hiding some beautiful architecture behind its walls, lies the California Rehabilitation Center, which is code for Norco Men's Prison.

Have I adequately portrayed a small, ranchy community? In many ways, you might never expect to find a town like Norco so close to the large Metropolitan area of Los Angeles County but as the burbs have expanded eastward, there it is on the edge of Riverside County.

Several years ago, Norco and the company which owns and runs Bob's Big Boy restaurants, entered negotiations to bring a Bob's Big Boy location to the City of Norco. With the rodeo grounds in the north-east corner of the city, the city council has been (slowly) courting restaurants and lodging to the area, in the hopes of attracting more business to the rodeo grounds. But Norco has standards. Before Bob could move to Horsetown, USA, the city council determined that, to better fit in with the feel of the city, Bob needed a cowboy hat.

And so on this day, during our week of "DaddyDoc and Mr. Genius have yet again abandoned us to go Scout Camp" I packed "the littles" in the Honda Accord (DaddyDoc took Millie the PerkyMommymobile,) and we ventured out to Horsetown, USA's very own, unique Bob's Big Boy.

You can't miss Bob from the freeway. A statue of Bob, without his hat, adorns the rooftop of the restaurant. Just look to the West of I-15 to find Bob.

Once there, the boys posed for the first picture:



Our delightful server had an almost perfect name, just one letter off from the most perfect name. She began by asking if she could bring me an iced tea or a Pepsi. I enthusiastically ordered that Diet Pepsi. And a glass of water because I really am trying to cut back.



Sneaky But Sweet determined that children's menu burgers are too small for him so he ordered the Car Hop without mustard or pickles... which is essentially just a cheeseburger with grilled onions on it and nothing else. But it made him happy.



Captain Stubborn chose the Grilled Cheese, but really his primary mission was to find a way to order onion rings. I must say, I normally only like beer batter onion rings because I find that many crumb coated onion rings are too... crummy. I cannot explain it. But these rings were really good. He let me have a bite.



I went classic: A Big Boy Combo. I may have had the salad with bleu cheese dressing (on the side) too.

I promised the boys shakes for dessert. Even though Bob's offers mint chip shakes, CS chose chocolate, the same as the ever-predictable SBS. I asked for my chocolate malt with double malt, please, in a to-go cup. My "add double" version was pretty good, much better than their regular version. Ruby's is still the only place that really knows how much malt to add.



We ate the whipped cream off the top of our cups. I paid our bill and gushed on our delightful server with the Almost-Perfect Name to the manager on duty at the register. With the sun behind the hill across the street from the restaurant, we took a better picture with Bob in his Cowboy hat. With that, we moseyed on home.