Restaurant owner John Mekpongsatorn was a Bob’s Big Boy customer as a child. He installed a Big Boy statue in his Asian restaurant to reach out to customers who may feel the same nostalgia he does.

ALHAMBRA, Calif. — The customers pour in daily at Noodle World in this suburban Los Angeles city, usually expecting nothing more than a heaping plate of Thai pad see-ew or a steaming bowl of Vietnamese pho.

But on occasion, they react the way Martin Moreno did when entering the restaurant for the first time.

“Oh my God, there’s a Bob’s Big Boy,” the furniture-seller said, staring at a statue of a boy in checkered overalls. “In an Asian restaurant?”

The statue is a curiosity that has endured for 12 years, puzzling and delighting patrons who either remember eating double-decker cheeseburgers or wouldn’t know Pappy Parker fried chicken if it landed in their wonton soup.

For Thai American owner John Mekpongsatorn, the statue is an essential part of his bustling business — a perfect symbol of the Southern California melting pot he wanted his chain to reflect. The result is a restaurant many affectionately call the “Asian Denny’s” for its no-fuss diner decor and a menu that spans Japan to Malaysia.

And in this fiberglass figure, this symbol of mid-20th century kitsch, is the story of how Noodle World settled into its place as a cross-cultural success — and won over a changing community.

Before Noodle World became a stalwart on an ethnic restaurant row, battling rival noodle houses that could pass for ones in Saigon or Taipei, it was one of hundreds of Bob’s Big Boy restaurants that flourished across the nation.

By the 1980s, the hamburger chain, founded in 1936 in Glendale, Calif., was beginning to fall out of favor and closed dozens of locations. Along with a national shift away from burger joints came a huge demographic change in the largely white and Hispanic San Gabriel Valley. Between 1980 and 1996 — the year that this Bob’s Big Boy closed — Alhambra’s Asian population nearly quadrupled, to 47 percent of residents.

The 37-year-old Mekpong-satorn, who was born and raised in Los Angeles and now lives in nearby Monterey Park, loved Bob’s Big Boy as a child. He liked trying to reach up and touch the statue’s hamburger when he wasn’t quite tall enough.

Restaurant, but no statue

When he heard the restaurant was for sale, he was overcome with nostalgia. Mekpongsatorn quickly made an offer and considered the possibilities. Noodle World could be an Asian riff on an American classic, he thought.

But not all went according to plan. When Mekpongsatorn was in escrow for the property, Bob’s Big Boy corporate offices had movers reclaim some of the company’s decorations, most notably the statue.

Mekpongsatorn was crestfallen. He’d lost his prized symbol. At the same time, it was becoming clear that the neighborhood had lost something, too. As much as the area’s new residents might welcome a noodle house, for some old-timers the disappearance of Bob’s Big Boy — the burger joint as well as the statue — was an uncomfortable reminder that the community had changed. Some could not accept that the ketchup and mustard on the tables were gone, replaced with chili oil and jalapeño-spiked vinegar.

“I remember older ladies coming in thinking it was still a Bob’s Big Boy, putting the menu down and asking, ‘What’s going on here?’” Mekpongsatorn said. “They’d get up and walk out.”

Mekpongsatorn was troubled. He did not feel the need to apologize for the community’s changes, but he also did not want to erase some of its fonder memories.

As the months passed, Mekpongsatorn gained more Asian clientele, but he did not see many of the non-Asians who had filled the place when it was a Big Boy.

Then Mekpongsatorn stumbled upon a slightly smaller Bob’s Big Boy statue at a flea market in Pasadena. Perhaps this would do the trick, he thought, and reach out to those who felt left out as the community changed. He paid $200 and installed it above a divider between the kitchen and the dining room.

An attraction and a lawsuit

The chubby figure was a hit. People heard about it through the neighborhood grapevine, as one old-timer told another that a Big Boy statue had taken up residence inside the noodle house.

Mekpongsatorn started seeing more whites and Latinos venture in.

“The families started coming back,” Mekpongsatorn said.

Several years passed, and Mekpongsatorn’s business continued to grow. He opened other locations. He dabbled in Thai-Western fusion but never found a strong enough following for curiosities like bratwurst with tamarind.

Then in 2002, a Los Angeles Times food critic, Max Jacobson, wrote a review lauding Noodle World’s Thai dishes and the statue. A week after it was published, Mekpong- satorn received a letter from Big Boy Restaurants International in Warren, Mich., saying he was violating the company’s trademark.

“We demand that you immediately cease and desist your use of the character and words,” the letter said.

Fearing a lawsuit, Mekpongsatorn removed the statue.

“The next week, there was madness,” he said. “I had so many people say, ‘Where’s the statue? My kid wants to see the statue.’ Then people would come up to me and tell me how their aunt used to work at the Big Boy’s and how they used to take their son’s basketball team to the Big Boy’s. It was all these stories about how the restaurant was a pillar. I had to get the statue back.”

He decided to write a letter to Big Boy Restaurants. Mekpongsatorn described visiting the chain as a child, always asking for a coloring book and looking at statuettes in the glass case by the cashier.

Corporate OK

“I chose to display the statue in my restaurant for nostalgic reasons,” Mekpongsatorn wrote. “I just wanted others to recall the fond events of their childhood as well; and I felt that seeing the statue would bring back the memories of happiness and joy that Bob’s Big Boy brought to them.”

A month later, Mekpong- satorn got his answer.

“In light of your personal history with Big Boy,” the letter started, “we would be willing to offer you a license agreement to allow for your continued use of the Big Boy statue. The fee under the license agreement would be $1 per year.”

Mekpongsatorn was instructed to put a plaque under the statue explaining the agreement. The letter signed off, “We hope that this arrangement will allow your continued use of our icon without too much trouble.”

“It was a good feeling dusting off the statue,” said Mekpongsatorn, who had kept it warehoused.

Recently Mekpongsatorn com- pleted a new year’s ritual — making his annual payment to use the statue.

“A nice, crisp dollar bill,” he said. “Certified mail.”