Sambo's Restaurants, Inc.

Product Details

Nicely engraved antique stock certificate from Sambo's Restaurants, Inc. dating back to the 1970's. This document, which carries the printed signatures of the company President and Secretary, was a printed by the Jeffries Bank Note Company, and measures approximately 12" (w) by 8 1/4" (h).

The vignette features the company's logo, which borrowed images from the book The Story of Little Black Sambo - which featured a boy from South India and a tiger.

Images

You will receive the exact certificate pictured.

Historical Context

Sambo's was started in 1957 by Sam Battistone Sr. and Newell Bohnett. Though the name was taken from portions of the names of its founders, the chain soon found itself associated with The Story of Little Black Sambo. The character of Little Black Sambo in the original story is from South India, not Africa as so many assumed. Battistone and Bohnett capitalized on the connection by decorating the walls of the restaurants with scenes from the book, including a dark-skinned boy, tigers, and a pale, magical unicycle-riding man called "The Treefriend". By the early 1960s, the illustrations depicted a light-skinned boy wearing a jeweled Indian-style turban with the tigers. A kids club, Sambo's Tiger Tamers (later called the Tiger Club), promoted the chain's family image.

By 1979, Sambo's had 1,117 outlets in 47 American states. In the late 1970s, controversy over the chain's name drew protests and lawsuits in communities that viewed the term Sambo as pejorative towards black Americans. Several of the restaurants were opened as or renamed "The Jolly Tiger" in locations where the local community passed resolutions forbidding the use of the original name or refused to grant the chain permits.

Additional corporate level decisions made at the time also led to Sambo's corporate demise. Pressure to take Sambo's into a more normal, salaried manager compensation package was one issue. Their unique "Fraction of the Action" promotion – whereby managers were entitled to 20% of the profits from their stores, with employees allowed to bid for a percentage of the remaining profits – was an early company expansion plan, and the growth of the company outpaced its control.

In March 1981, in a further attempt to give the chain a new image the company again renamed some locations, this time to "No Place Like Sam's". By November 1981, the company filed for bankruptcy. Neither the name change nor bankruptcy protection reversed this downward trend, and by 1982 all except the original Sambo's at 216 West Cabrillo Boulevard in Santa Barbara, California closed their doors.

By February 1983, 618 of the locations were renamed Season's Friendly Eating. Several locations were sold to Denny's, including the Fort Lauderdale store. Bakers Square's parent company acquired Sambo's in California in October 1984. Many Sambo's locations were converted to Bakers Square restaurants and the ones that weren't were sold to other chains, including Denny's.

Sam Battistone, Jr. was also the original owner of the New Orleans Jazz in the NBA. He later moved the team to Utah and sold it. Battistone's grandson, restaurateur Chad Stevens, owns the only remaining Sambo's.

The chain's notoriety is parodied in F Is for Family as "Sam's Starving Boy", with its decor resembling many of the 1970s locations, and its mascot being a cartoon slave.