I remember eating breakfast at the Sambo’s restaurant attached to the Lotus Inn motel on the strip I think it was in the late 70s …. anyway I have a few wooden nickels in my collection from Sambo’s here in Las Vegas I think they had 3 locations here … they had about 1100 locations across the country and they were before IHOP and Denny’s restaurants ….

the controversy was that “Sambo” was a little black boy and it was racist to use that name Sambo and have him as your mascot sort of speak … what people don’t realize is that Sambo the little boy was from India and he was brown … not black! and it was about a story of the tiger wanting to eat Sambo… take a look at the artwork and the match books and you’ll see what I mean …. next you have the name Sambo which was created by the two owners in 1957 at the Santa Barbara California original location… the two founders took parts of their 2 names and came out with “SAMBO” … Sam & Bo ….

If anybody has any insight about their closing their locations and eventually selling their properties to the new chain called Denny’s feel free to make some comments thanks for reading my post …. Rich in Las Vegas