After 75 years, Jack in the Box still has a head for business

You can’t blame Jack Box for being bigheaded.

Jack in the Box, home of the ping pong ball-shaped mascot, turns 75 this week on Saturday, Feb. 21.

The first restaurant opened on Feb. 21, 1951 at 6270 El Cajon Blvd. in San Diego, near San Diego State University.

It was founded by a former undergraduate, Robert O. Peterson.

The chain has grown to about 2,135 restaurants in 21 states, according to a recent news release, but remains based in San Diego. Its headquarters are off the I-15 Freeway, a few miles north of the original restaurant.

Southern California was a hotbed of creativity when it came to fast food in the second half of the 20th century. Jack in the Box’s claim to fame was pioneering the drive-thru, a feat that won it a place in the Smithsonian Museum of American History.

“Ever since we were founded in 1951, we really were a brand that was rooted in innovation,” said Sheena Dougher, vice president of marketing for the chain.

From its drive-thru to its advertising campaigns and, of course, its tacos, here are some highlights from Jack in the Box history.

The founder

Like Ray Kroc of McDonald’s fame, Robert O. Peterson spent time as a milkshake mixer salesman before hitting it big, according to his obituaries.

Kroc became famous, Peterson less so.

Born in 1916, he was not a very public person but he made his presence felt. As an undergraduate in the 1930s, he founded the Collegiate Club, which put on dances at Balboa Park. La Jolla native Gregory Peck, who would go on to play Atticus Finch in “To Kill a Mockingbird,” was a bouncer, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune.

Although Peterson transferred from San Diego State to UCLA, where he graduated with a degree in business, he returned to his hometown and opened his first drive-in 1941. It was called Oscar’s, after his father’s name and his middle name.

His career was interrupted by World War II and he was called into active duty in the U.S. Navy.

Returning to civilian life, he converted one of his eateries into the first Jack in the Box. After growing the chain, he sold it to Ralston Purina in 1968.

Peterson was also known for banking and real estate investments. But he was mostly covered in the Union-Tribune as the husband of Maureen O’Connor, a San Diego councilmember who became mayor from 1986 to 1992.

He died of leukemia in 1994.

The drive-thru

Oscar’s restaurants were called “drive-in diners,” serving burgers and malts.

Drive-ins were common in the 1940s and ’50s, with customers parking in front of the restaurants to be served by carhops, who hooked trays of food on their vehicles’ rolled-down windows.

Drive-thrus changed all that. They used intercoms to allow customers to place their orders in advance without parking.

In-N-Out Burger, founded in 1948, has been called California’s first drive-thru restaurant. It was still a novelty in 1951, when Jack in the Box opened.

Early locations had a giant clown head popping out of a square box on the roof, based on children’s jack-in-the-box toys, music boxes with cranks that, when turned, cause figures to pop out of their lids.

Intercoms were also shaped like jack-in-the-box toys, with menus displayed on a plexiglass box topped by a clown’s head. The two-way intercom was hidden in the clown’s ruffled collar.

Panels on the box read, “place order here” or “Jack will speak with you.”

“We understood from the donor that customers had to get used to hearing a disembodied voice coming out of the speaker, thus they were told that Jack would speak to them,” Smithsonian curator Paula Johnson wrote in an email.

The Smithsonian has two panels of the speaker box but not the clown’s head, she said in a phone interview.

They are part of an exhibition in the Washington D.C. museum called  “Food: Transforming the American Table,” in a case with In-N-Out lap mats and polystyrene burger containers from McDonald’s.

“If you want to know about American history, look at food history, and you will see big topics, themes, issues” said Johnson, who acquired Julia Child’s kitchen for the exhibition.

““The drive-thru story is one part of that. We were looking at big changes, and the change in how and what and where we eat, certainly. Fast food was developed in the post-war period, and the drive-thru was a key part of that. And it’s still so important today.”

The menu

Jack in the Box’s early menu was short. Speaker box panels from the early ’60s, like the one in the Smithsonian, show a signature Bonus Burger going for 39 cents, “fresh fried potatoes” and hot apple turnovers for 19 cents, onion rings and shakes for 25 cents, and for a splurge 79-cent shrimp and 89-cent chicken sandwiches.

Jack in the Box’s signature tacos were added to the menu in 1954, according to Dougher.

They are still what they were back then and remain the chain’s “No 1 add-on item.”

“What makes ours so unique is that they’re deep-fried, and also that slice of American cheese that comes in the tacos,” she said.

“We like to call ourselves a burger joint famous for tacos.”

Jack in the Box added breakfast to the menu in 1969 and made it available all day long.

“That’s been a core part of our brand to this day, where you can get anything on our menu any time of day,” Dougher said.

The Jumbo Jack was introduced in 1971, followed by an expansion of the core menu in the 1980s with such items as salads.

Jack in the Box now has a long menu with wraps, egg rolls, jalapeño poppers, cheesecake, chocolate cake, mini churros and sugar cookies.

There’s also a mind-boggling stream of limited-time items. Author George Geary lists several in his 2021 book “Made in California.” Among them are Bacon Ice Cream Shakes; Frings, a mixture of french fries and onion rings; macaroni bites; and from 2013 the Hot Mess Burger, a beef patty served on sourdough toast onion rings, pickled jalapeños and a lot of cheese that Jack in the Box brought back Monday, Feb. 16. It’s one of several “fan favorites” that will get a reprise for the anniversary throughout 2026, according to Dougher.

The hype

Advertising was always important to Jack in the Box. Child actor Rodney Allen Rippy got his start in early 1970s commercials pitching steak sandwiches and singing the jingle, “Pack up the kids, crank up the car, to Jack in the Box. Come as you like, come as you are, to Jack in the Box.”

The Jack Box character appeared around the same time. His voice was supplied by ventriloquist Paul Winchell, who was also the original voice of Tigger in Disney’s 1968 featurette, “Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day.”

Jack in the Box was originally aimed at children. Hence the childish clown imagery in an era before coulrophobia was widely talked about.

By the early 1980s the chain’s core audience was grown up and the chain sought to rebrand itself for adults.

A memorable commercial from 1980 showed Jack in the Box staffers blowing up the clown speaker box.

An E.coli outbreak in 1993 damaged Jack in the Box’s reputation. The chain was able to salvage its image by adopting stricter quality control standards and a “Jack’s Back” campaign that introduced the modern version of Jack Box the following year.

Instead of a clown, Jack became a business executive in a suit and tie, but still wearing a clown head. In the end of a 30-second commercial, he blows up Jack’s boardroom.

Facing declining sales and revenue in 2025, Jack in the Box is in need of another turnaround. In October, it sold off Lake Forest-based Del Taco, which it acquired in 2022.

At the time Jack in the Box’s new chief executive officer Lance Tucker, who assumed the role in March, said in a news release that “we look forward to focusing on our core Jack in the Box brand.”

That’s the strategy of the chain’s anniversary year, which will offer more throwback menu items and nostalgic merchandise throughout 2026.

Jack Box has his own parking space at Jack in the Box headquarters.

“We refer to him as our fearless leader and CEO,” said Dougher.

“That iconic and irreverent humor that he has, that was really developed in the ‘90s. That’s when all of those ads that people still remember and love today were created. We definitely work to modernize him but make sure he keeps that witty sense of humor.”