Donald W. Callender was an American restaurateur and co-founder of the Marie Callender's chain of restaurants, which originated in southernCalifornia. He was also the creator of Babe's Slim Pign's in Redlands, P.H. Woods in Moreno Valley, Top-Gun Restaurant Grill, and Babe's Bar-B-Que & Brewery in Rancho Mirage. Callender is credited as the first restaurateur to offer franchise operations, with the first Marie Callender's franchisee opening in Orange in 1964.
History
In the 1930s, Marie Callender, her husband Cal Warren Callender, and their only child, Don lived in a trailer park in Huntington Beach. Marie baked and sold pies to augment the family's income, with Don delivering her pies to customers on his bicycle. A 1945 graduate of Long Beach Poly High School, he joined the Merchant Marine for a brief tour at the end of World War II and then returned home to southern California. By 1948, twenty-one year old Don was working to expand the business by selling pies to restaurants in Long Beach and Orange County. In 1951, he purchased a home on Gondar Ave. in the Plaza area of Long Beach, where the Callender family did their baking before shifting the expanding operation to a Quonset hut on Anaheim St. in Long Beach. Eventually, Don ventured into the retail realm, opening his first outlet in Orange and naming it after his mother, Marie. With continued experimentation, he gradually expanded his inventory and added other menu items which would later become Marie Callender fare. By the time Don Callender had sold the company in 1986 to Ramada for a reported $80 million, the chain had grown to 120 locations nationwide. Following the sale, Don remained in the restaurant industry, planning to start a second 21,000 square foot Babe's in Indio, California. Unfortunately, health issues forced Callender out of the project before seeing the project come to full fruition. The building was subsequently leased to Kaiser Restaurant Group, a local restaurant management consortium. Jackelope Ranch opened the day after Don passed, as a Southwestern-themed barbecue.
Death
Callender died at age 81 in 2009 at Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian in Newport Beach, due to complications resulting from head trauma sustained during a fall at his home over a year earlier. He was survived by his second wife of 31 years, Katy Callender and youngest son Lucky Callender, in addition to his adult children from his first marriage to Patricia: second daughter Cathe Callender, son-in-law Greg Sprunk; eldest son Glen Warren, daughter-in-law Coral Callender; son-in-law Stephen Winters; and grandchildren, Harmony Callender, Jasmine Winters, Maxx Buchanan, Caitlyn and Cameron Sprunk.
