a person · CARussell C. Wendell
also: Russell Wendell
Sold donut machines, then built buildings shaped like what they made.
The machine salesman who founded the Big Do-Nut Drive-In chain and put 22-foot donuts on its roofs.
The story Cited · wp-big-donuts-of-southern-california
Wendell started the chain in the 1940s; the first shop opened in Westmont in 1951, the second — now Randy's — in 1952. At its height there were ten Do-Nut Drive-Ins carrying the giant rings. The December 1949 opening of the first big donut came with clowns, jugglers, magicians, free coffee and a trapeze artist swinging through the hole.
He sold out in the 1970s and moved to his Pup 'N' Taco chain, which Taco Bell bought in 1984. Four of the big donuts survive; a fifth was converted into a bagel.
Today Cited · wp-big-donuts-of-southern-california
Municipal construction codes now generally prohibit giant object-shaped buildings, so the surviving ones cannot be replaced.
The particulars
| role | founder |
|---|---|
| state | CA |
| region | Southern California |
| confidence | high · updated 2026-09-16 |
Who it runs with
Where we got it
Where it came from: Cited a source we name · Harvested pulled from an open dataset · Tradition what the tradition says, hedged · Inference this project's reasoning · Field somebody stood there. This record as JSON.