Social media has been abuzz the past few days with the appearance of a Big Boy statue on the side of a dead-end road on the north end of Bainbridge Island.

The family that owns the statue said it was previously in their back yard, but they decided to put it out by the mailbox for a few days.

They picked up Big Boy at a swap meet in Hershey, Pennsylvania a few years ago, and Big Boy actually went on a bit of a road trip — fastened to a piece of plywood on the roof of the vehicle — and visited New York and other destinations before coming to Bainbridge.

Some of the first statues were as high as 16 feet tall, but Bainbridge’s Big Boy stands 7 feet tall and weighs a little over 300 pounds.

According to Wikipedia, Big Boy was created when Bob Wian was trying to name his new hamburger creation at Bob’s Pantry, his diner in Glendale, California, in 1937. A local 6-year-old boy (Richard Woodruff) walked in, and Wian said, “Hello, Big Boy.”

Bainbridge’s Big Boy statue, like most of the West Coast-style mascot statues made more than 30 years ago, is holding the “Big Boy” sandwich, a double deck cheeseburger.

There are still 78 Big Boy restaurants in the United States, with most of them in Michigan (70 restaurants). Another five are in California, with two in Ohio and one in North Dakota. In Japan, there are 279 Big Boy outlets.