Cassidy: Facebook and the iPad are swell, but how about what came before?
Originally published by the San Jose Mercury News July 24, 2011
By Mike Cassidy
Mercury News Columnist
I think we can all stipulate that there’s no way we’d survive without the wondrous inventions of Silicon Valley.
No, I’m not talking about the computer chip or personal computer or the Internet or Facebook or the iPad. Those are nifty, but they’ve gotten their fair share of attention.
I’m talking about our everyday bread and butter — or batter and butter or bread and pastrami with mustard, for that matter. Like Eggo waffles — invented in San Jose. And Togo’s sandwiches — also born in San Jose. And that’s just for starters.
I blame a rare culinary coincidence for my new found fixation on Silicon Valley inventions that have nothing to do with silicon. Not everything invented here, after all, requires a power cord or battery.
Did you know that 2011 is both the 75th anniversary of the toaster-ready Eggo and the 40th anniversary of Togo’s — our own hometown hero? The original Togo’s shop on William Street with its funky wooden facade is gone, having moved out in 1999. But its memory lives on in a few framed mementos at the nearby Paseo de San Antonio location, one of 242 Togo’s now sating the lunchtime crush.
“We have all the paraphernalia and memorabilia from its founding days,” CEO Tony Gioia says by phone from Togo’s world headquarters on San Pedro Street. “That’s how we memorialize Togo’s.”
And let’s not forget the Oral-B toothbrush and all its bristly softness, which was invented by a San Jose dentist perhaps in anticipation of cleaning up after all those waffles and sandwiches. And first, but not least, there’s the 100-plus-year-old Macabee Gopher Trap Co., a great leap forward when it launched, unless of course you were a gopher.
Maybe you’re like me. Maybe you’ve taken these mundane innovations for granted. Good inventions are like that. They become a seamless part of life. But taken together these products are a reminder that this place has always been on the cutting edge of whatever needed cutting at the time.
“Something about this valley seems to generate that,” says former Mercury News columnist Leigh Weimers, who annually hosts the First Festival, an online celebration of personal and famous firsts in Silicon Valley. “It has for years.”
No, he isn’t sure why. Maybe it’s because for generations, pioneers have traveled west, landed in California and realized, “We can’t go any farther. And shoot, we have to do something.”
Something like the Togo’s sandwich, stuffed with meat, cheese, toppings and assembled with lightning speed, which is what then-San Jose State student Mike Cobler decided to do. Or a toothbrush that cleaned teeth without tearing up gums, which is the call that Willow Glen dentist Robert Hutson answered in the 1950s. These inventors leave behind fast waffles, quick lunches, sparkling smiles, dead gophers and a legacy — a legacy that means something to those who knew them best.
Frank Dorsa Jr. is still proud of his father’s role in propelling waffles into the modern, six-second breakfast era. They’re still making Eggos in the factory that his dad and uncles opened over on what’s now Eggo Way in San Jose. Kellogg’s owns the business now, and earlier this year the company invited the younger Dorsa to the plant for a celebration.
“They were having a breakfast for the employees,” Dorsa says. “You’d never guess what they were serving.”
OK, you would.
Ron Fink, who in 1959 started working at the gopher trap company started by Zephyr A. Macabee, says he feels like the steward of the company’s history. The headquarters is still in the Los Gatos Victorian where Macabee launched his business more than 100 years ago. “It’s an old place with a lot of cobwebs, squeaky floors,” Fink says. “Nothing has changed very much.”
With one big exception: Fink, now general manager, says that in 2008 he moved manufacturing from the Victorian’s basement to China. He put eight employees out of work, which eats at him still. But he’s not sure the company could have survived the competition otherwise. And who really wants a 100-year-old company to go under on his watch?
The grandkids own the business now — grandkids who are in their 80s, Fink says. And sure, they want to see the operation survive far into the future.
Fink likes Macabee’s chances. After all, there will always be more gophers than traps. That’s just nature’s way.