Woody’s Smorgasburger pioneers the dress-it-yourself hamburger

Woody's Smorgasburger was co-founded by Ralph Wood Jr., who later founded Admiral Risty in Rancho Palos Verdes. (Credit: Old Los Angeles Restaurants website)

Woody’s Smorgasburger was co-founded by Ralph Wood Jr., who later founded Admiral Risty in Rancho Palos Verdes. The Culver City location, above, was the first Woody’s, opening in 1956. (Credit: Old Los Angeles Restaurants website)

Restaurateur Ralph Wood Jr. may be best known in the South Bay for opening the Admiral Risty Restaurant, named for his wife, Barbara “Risty” Wood, in the Golden Cove Shopping Center on October 10, 1966.

Wood passed away on Jan. 25, 2015, at the age of 90, just a year before the 50th anniversary of the upscale steak and seafood landmark in Rancho Palos Verdes that will take place this October. (His wife died in 2012.)

Torrance Herald ad, Oct. 13, 1960, Page 8. (Credit: Historical Newspaper Archives database, Torrance Public Library)

Torrance Herald ad, Oct. 13, 1960, Page 8. (Credit: Historical Newspaper Archives database, Torrance Public Library)

But Wood first made his mark on the Southern California restaurant scene with burgers. In 1956, he and his uncle, Charles Cramer, co-founder of the Mayfair Markets chain, opened the first of what would become a popular chain of hamburger restaurants.

Woody’s Smorgasburger fired up its grills at 5529 S. Sepulveda Boulevard at Berryman Avenue, just north from the busy intersection of Sepulveda and Jefferson in Culver City, in 1956.

Housed in a distinctive A-frame building that would become a trademark look for the chain,it would operate there for the next 30 years.

After a decade of popularity, sales slipped with a challenge from Bob’s Big Boy, which opened a competing burger restaurant two blocks south in the late 1960s. The first Woody’s location became an El Pollo Loco in 1985.

Woody’s served charcoal-grilled burgers in quarter-pound and half-pound sizes, larger sizes than most burger joints offered at the time. But what made the restaurant unusual was that it served them plain on a bun, offering a condiment bar where customers dressed their burgers with a wide variety of toppings and condiments.

Fuddruckers and other chains took Wood’s concept to greater popularity in the 1970s, and The Counter and Stacked! continue to offer do-it-yourself options today.

A July 17, 1960, Los Angeles Times Woody’s Smorgasburger newspaper ad answers its own question, “What is a Smorgasburger?”:

“An improved hamburger patty of consistent quality, excellent flavor, low fat content, prepared daily by experts to exacting specifications in immaculately clean facilities, broiled to perfection and priced unbelievably low. Found only at Woody’s Smorgasburger, an excitingly different place to dine.”

Torrance Herald ad, Nov. 23, 1961, Page 24. (Credit: Historical Newspaper Archives database, Torrance Public Library)

Torrance Herald ad, Nov. 23, 1961, Page 24. (Credit: Historical Newspaper Archives database, Torrance Public Library)

Wood opened his second Woody’s Smorgasburger in Riviera Village in Redondo Beach in 1958, at the intersection of Palos Verdes Boulevard and Pacific Coast Highway, that same year.

The address, 340 Vista Del Mar, has been a popular one for restaurants over the years. After Woody’s closed, the site has been home to a variety of eateries, including Wood’s own Mucho Gusto Mexican restaurant, Acapulco, Arriba, Chicago for Ribs, Tony Roma’s, Oliver’s and, finally, Rock & Brews, its current occupant.

According to entries on the voluminous, highly detailed and fascinating Old Los Angeles Restaurants blog started by Woody’s enthusiast Mark Evanier, the late comic actor and “Saturday Night Live” regular Phil Hartman worked at the Redondo Woody’s in the late 1960s while attending community college.

Napkin from Woody's Smorgasburger, 1963.

Napkin from Woody’s Smorgasburger, 1963.

By 1960, a third Woody’s location had opened in Gardena at 2145 Rosecrans Avenue, near the corner of Rosecrans and Van Ness, and a fourth location opened at Figueroa and 28th streets near downtown Los Angeles.

Woody’s would go on to open more than a dozen locations in the South Bay, Los Angeles, the San Fernando Valley, the Inland Empire and Orange County. By 1963, Woody’s franchises were being offered in affiliation with International House of Pancakes franchises under IHoP’s new corporate name, International Industries, Inc.

Matchbook from Woody's Smorgasburger, undated.

Matchbook from Woody’s Smorgasburger, undated.

An El Segundo location near LAX at 755 N. Sepulveda Boulevard opened in 1963. It also became the last outpost of the chain to survive, finally closing its doors in 2005 and assuming its current incarnation as an International House of Pancakes restaurant.

Increasing competition and the desire to try something new led to Ralph Wood eventually selling his interest in the Woody’s chain in the early 1970s to concentrate on Admiral Risty.

In 1987, he would also open the Catalina Grill at 1814 S. Catalina in Riviera Village, which specialized in California Cuisine. It would close in 1993, and be replaced by the Redondo Beach Brewing Co.

Wood officially retired from the restaurant business on April 15, 2006.

Sources:

Los Angeles Times files.

Old Los Angeles Restaurants website. Mark Evanier’s tribute to restaurants of the past has five full pages devoted to reminiscences about Woody’s Smorgasburger by ex-employees and customers.

Torrance Herald files.

Facebook Twitter Plusone Pinterest Digg Delicious Reddit Stumbleupon Tumblr Email