When Gus Girves opened the Brown Derby in 1941, he had no idea that there was another restaurant of the same name out in Los Angeles. That famous eatery, housed in an iconic building shaped like its namesake bowler hat, opened in 1929, but that would have been news to Girves.
“He didn’t even know about it,” says his grandson, Parry Girves. “Back then there was no internet or anything, so how would he know.”
That West Coast brand dissolved decades ago, its whimsical building demolished in 1980, but Girves’ Brown Derby would go on to thrive, expanding at one point to a mighty chain of 52 locations spread across Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Texas, Florida and beyond…