For those who remember the restaurant, do you think "Sambo's" was so named specifically to insult black people?

Back story: Went to visit Chris and his kids. Two year old Zoey is that that age where she’ll repeat any word you ask her to say, sometimes with hilarious results.

We probably spent 15 minutes throwing different words, and sounds, at her for her to mimic. After she’d repeat the word she fold her arms in great satisfaction, and smugly look up at Grammpa (upon whose lap she was sitting,) certain she’d been perfect. In all her innocence, she WAS utterly perfect! We were rolling.

Then that game ended and we went on to other things that didn’t involve the kids.

About 20 minutes later, she found another outlet for her energy. She started running around and around and around her 9 month old brother, who was laying on the floor. She was running at dizzying speeds.
I said, “What are you, Sambo?!”
Well, there was a word she could say perfectly. She was racing around and around and around her brother chirping, “Sambo! Sambo!”
I just fell on the floor. My son laughingly said, “Way to go Mom!”
Of course, we can all see it. They’re in public, in a busy store, baby in the cart, Zoey running around and around the cart yelling “Sambo! Sambo!” And we’re all gonna die!

Well, that brought on a discussion after we got home. I asked Rick if he ever remembered going to Sambos.‘s It was a delicious pancake restaurant in the 60’s. It had illustrations of the story, “Little Black Sambo” framed around the walls, illustrations I knew well, because I knew the story.
Then…the resturaunt disappeared. I remember there was a brouhaha over the name being racist, but I was little when it happened so it’s really vague. I don’t think I even knew what “racist” was. Anyway, Sambo’s disappeared.

Then we went back to watching the movie.
Suddenly I mumbled, “Denny’s.”
Rick said, “What?”
I said, “Denny’s,” not even sure why I said it.

So I started researching.

The place closed down amid accusations of black racism due to the name, and many of them were bought by the Denny’s pancake house chain, though how I made that connection I couldn’t tell you. I was really young when it happened. Anyway, when I was in my late teens, in the 70’s, we used to to go Denny’s after the bars closed, because it was the only place open (not a coincidence, as my research quickly showed.)

There is nothing inherently racist about the story, that I can tell, and I remember it well from my childhood. Even reading it now, I don’t see how it could be offensive. In fact, the Wiki article about it notes: “Critics of the time observed that Bannerman presents one of the first black heroes in children’s literature and regarded as a book that positively portrayed black characters in both the text and pictures, especially in comparison to the more negative books of that era that depicted blacks as simple and uncivilized.”

Further,, the name originally came out of the combining the last names of the founders, SAM Battistone, Sr. and Newell BOhnett.

FUTHERMORE the story was based on a kid from South India, not an African child.

In my opinion, there was nothing racist about the story. There was even a moral to the story, which was nothing to be ashamed of, and I don’t think there was any racial motive behind naming it “Sambo’s,” so why was it forced to shut down?