Diner Fun

Miner-Dunn

If one were reading back through the early posts of this blog, one would likely be stricken with a sense that the writer was in the process of figuring out what form the blog should take. Before I settled into the rut routine consistent format to which regular Broken Chains readers have become accustomed, I was throwing a lot of different types of posts at the proverbial wall to see what might adhere. There was the time I pondered in writing whether I should buy an appliance from the online retailer that calls itself Montgomery Ward, the time that I thought making tacos in my own kitchen was noteworthy enough to discuss at length, and who can forget the time I made three posts about a trip to every operating G.D. Ritzy's, when it really only needed to be a single post? (I was slow to learn my lesson, because I did the same thing with Ponderosa a few weeks later.) But of all my early blunders the one that stands out to me most today, is my failure to research the restaurant chain, Miner-Dunn when I first heard of them over 18 months ago.

Spiner's Gun

Another of my haphazard early posts was built on the gossamer premise of a visit to a Starbucks that used to be a G.D. Ritzy's that was situated next door to a thematically and culinary similar Schoop's restaurant. It's a post I probably would not have written today, because it's at best, tangentially related to the theme of diminished chain businesses. Starbucks is obviously not a broken chain, and neither is Schoop's, which is a thriving regional chain operating primarily in Northwestern Indiana. However, in researching Schoop's, I found that the chain's founder was previously the owner of a Miner-Dunn restaurant, a fact that in my inexperience, I didn't find notable enough to remember, and promptly forgot. I only rediscovered it recently while preparing for a trip to the last operating Miner-Dunn location.

Harold Miner and Ralph Dunn opened for business selling hamburgers from a six stool counter in Hammond, Indiana in 1932, and quickly became a rare depression-era success. The single restaurant grew into a local chain in Northwestern Indiana, but slowly shrank to a single, beloved location open for business on US 41 in Highland, Indiana. I stopped in on a recent road trip to see what kind of experience the world's last Miner-Dunn had to offer.

Good thing they're real. I hate the pretend kind. 

I felt a pang of longing as I drove past the masterpiece of Googie architecture that houses Johnsen's Blue Top Drive-In a block north of Miner-Dunn, but near as I can tell, Johnsen's was never part of a chain, and therefore not right for the theme and consistent format I've cultivated for this blog over the past 20 months. I pressed onward, briefly until I found consolation in the glow of the tall vintage neon of the Miner-Dunn sign out front of the brick and wood shingled building. I promptly parked, and headed inside, noting the pushed-in brick in the side of the building where it had recently been struck by an errant SUV. As usual, I was running on eastern time in the central time zone, and I had shown up for lunch shortly after the restaurant's 10:30 AM opening time. Upon entry, I was promptly shown to a booth and provided with a laminated trifold menu.

Order the most historically significant meal, quick!

I hadn't expected the menu to be so large. I had envisioned a depression-era burger joint that offered burgers and fries with little to no variation, and not much else. Instead, I was greeted with a large menu full of soups, salads, sandwiches, and a baker's dozen different burgers. I was unprepared for this, and told my attentive server I'd need a minute when she showed up to take my order. The menu had seemingly grown over the past 87 years, and included options as modern as a western bacon cheeseburger, a burger topped with nacho cheese, a Big Boy-inspired "Salad Burger" topped with lettuce and thousand island, and the Major Dunn which comes topped with an onion ring and fried egg. As enticing as these options were, I was seeking authenticity, attempting to order the burger a depression-era customer would have experienced at Miner-Dunn, promising to gladly pay Tuesday for a hamburger today. I lingered for a minute when I saw my culinary frienemy, the olive burger on the menu, but ultimately decided on the basic cheeseburger when my server returned.

I ordered my cheeseburger with everything on it, which prompted the server to clarify if I wanted the "Miner-Dunn" everything. While Miner-Dunn offered a wide variety of burger toppings, a note on the menu specifies that in Miner-Dunn parlance, ordering a burger with everything will result in a sandwich topped with mustard, ketchup, relish, and onion. I took this to be a tradition that went back to the earliest days of the brand, and confirmed I did indeed want the Miner-Dunn everything. Using more jargon I had acquired from a thorough perusal of the menu, I also specified that I wanted it deluxe. At Miner-Dunn, deluxe means with fries and a serving of soft serve after the meal. Noting my expert order, my server disappeared and left me to bask in the hospital gown green aura of the Miner-Dunn dining room.

The view from my table

As with many places I visit, the decor was dated, but the building was clean and well-maintained. The Ford Explorer-shaped dent on the outside of the building was its only apparent imperfection. The edifice was immaculate aside from the scar of that recent calamity. The floral wallpaper and woodgrain surfaces inside brought back memories of the the kitchen in my granny Nova Scotia Actionsdower's house, which also boasted a floral sofa, harvest gold carpet and brown tile in the bathroom. Even the ketchup bottle on my table was the classic Heinz glass bottle that so many restaurants have shunned in favor of its squeezable plastic cousin. It was after a brief look around and a trip to the cramped, but sparkling clean bathroom that my food arrived.

You can barely see the damage. 

Obligatory floor tile detail

The burger was of the smashed patty variety, with its crispy edges hanging over the edge of the plain white bun. Smashing a raw ball of meat on a hot grill is a proven method of cooking a large amount of hamburgers quickly, and I assume this method had been around since the beginning. The taste was the transcendentally beefy experience I hoped it would be, as the meat tasted fresher and more premium than anything one would find at a larger, more successful chain that claims to use fresh never frozen beef. I don't recall ever having relish on a burger before, but it's a habit I could easily see myself getting into, as the sweet-sour pickleish flavor offered a counterpoint to the mustard that rendered the ketchup redundant. The fries' irregular shape and curl revealed them to be made from fresh-cut potatoes, but unlike many fresh-cut fries, these had a pleasantly crispy outside, indicating that they had been not only fresh cut, but twice fried to ensure a crispy crust, no doubt just as they had been nearly 90 years ago before pre-cut frozen french fries existed. The perfectly prepared potatoes lent an additional air of historical authenticity to the meal.

It had been a while since I had seen one of these. Pro tip: hold it at a 45 degree angle with the business end pointed downward and tap the little embossed 57s on the side and ketchup will come out every time. 

This was a great burger. I'd get a double next time though. 

When time came for dessert, I had the choice of soft serve vanilla ice cream, orange sherbet, or a swirl of the two. I opted for straight orange, and added a slice of pecan pie, which my especially helpful server offered to top with whipped cream. It was a suggestion which I emphatically accepted. She returned quickly, with a paper souffle cup overflowing with a K2-sized mountain of orange sherbet next to a slice of pie with an Everest-sized peak of canned whipped cream. I cleansed my palate with a few bites of perfectly acceptable sherbet before moving on to the pie.

I almost want to print this picture out and carry it in my wallet. 

Now, friends and neighbors, I fancy myself a pretty good baker of pecan pies. I use a variation of this recipe which I modify slightly, mostly by adding extra bourbon and using Stuckey's pecans when I can get my hands on them. I had long considered my own pecan pie to be my favorite, until I tasted Miner-Dunn's pecan pie. Whatever blend of brown sugar, butter, spices, and extracts they use is far superior to my blend of Old Grand-Dad and nuts from a gas station. The burger and fries were far above average, but the pie at Miner-Dunn will make it difficult for me not to stop in for a slice or two on future trips down I-94. It almost makes me wish I wasn't locked into the format of tracking the surviving locations of diminished chains so I could go off in search of more scrumtrulescent pie slices, but that very format is what makes my experience at Miner-Dunn so special.

Seeking out the remains of the diminished, struggling, and all but defunct brands has led me to experience all manner of good, bad, and ugly places, and in the face of bad and ugly, the good places seem better. Had I not experienced an incorrectly assembled breakfast sandwich at Grandy's, a microwaved Pillsbury biscuit at Horne's, or straight up food poisoning at Sirloin Stockade, I don't think I would appreciate finding a place like Miner-Dunn nearly as much as I do. Regardless of the quality of the food and experience, though, my primary goal is to experience and document the often overlooked glimpses into history that the locations of broken chains offer. It's the desire to find those experiences that guided me to this familiar format and away from making tacos and shopping for air fryers, and I wouldn't it any other way.

If you want to share a historic chain restaurant experience with me and other Broken Chains readers, then come join us for Raxgiving dinner in November at the Harlan, Kentucky Rax, the location that in my estimation, best exemplifies the 1980s heyday of the chain.

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Rippin' Off the Ritz?

American Dennis

British Dennis

If the analytics tool I use to monitor page views for this blog is correct, approximately 82% of the recent readers of Broken Chains access it from a device with an American IP address. Another 2% access Broken Chains using a device with a British IP address. One could make any number of educated assumptions based on this data, but the assumption relative to today’s topic is that approximately 84% of the recent readers of this blog are familiar with a character known as Dennis the Menace. What might surprise the average American or British Broken Chains reader is that Dennis the Menace is a name used by two similar, yet distinctly different characters on either side of the Atlantic. 

Two separate cartoonists created each character, who share a name, a tendency to cause mischief, and a penchant for horizontal stripes. While American Dennis and British Dennis have a few differences, British Dennis is a few years older and is more of a troublemaker than his American counterpart who is younger and usually well-meaning, but inadvertently menacing. The similarities are striking. Surely, one must be an imitation of the other, right?

The last G.D. Ritzy's mascot sign in use, Huntington, West Virginia

I make no secret for my love of the down, but not out G.D. Ritzy’s restaurant chain that once boasted 120 locations. My enthusiasm for Ritzy’s and their surviving locations was a major catalyst that drove me to start this blog in the first place, along with some strong encouragement from my friend, Cosmo Roadpacer. Last spring, I visited all six of the loosely affiliated surviving locations, plus a seventh that would open the following fall. Not long after that, I had a G.D. Ritzy’s logo tattooed on my right arm. I was predictably interested when I learned of a nearly extinct restaurant chain that used a similar name and seemed to predate my beloved G.D. Ritzy’s by several decades.

Ritzee Hamburgs, Battle Creek, Michigan

Ritzee Hamburgs in Battle Creek, Michigan is the last surviving location of a local chain that once had multiple locations in Battle Creek, plus a few others in nearby, Jackson, Grand Rapids, and perhaps also Kalamazoo during its 1950s heyday. Given that imitation runs rampant in the fast food industry, whether it be Kewpee’s influence on Wendy’s or Big Boy’s influence on the Big Mac and Big Shef, I was curious to see if Ritzee Hamburgs had any direct influence on the similarly-named G.D. Ritzy’s, which began in Columbus, Ohio in 1980, well after the heyday of Ritzee Hamburgs. 

I suspect the sign predates the building. 

I found my way to Battle Creek early on a Friday evening en route southwest to Indiana. I parked in the shadow of the tall, angular neon sign advertising 79 cent burgers, and walked toward the imposing brown facade of the building adorned with hand painted signage. When I entered the building, it was clear it had received few updates since the 1970s. The booths were covered in harvest gold Naugahyde, and potted plants hung from the ceiling in macrame holders. That same ceiling was adorned with curious faux stained glass, faux skylights, while the floor was covered in the same faux woodgrain tile that I recall seeing in 1970s-built McDonald’s locations. The spartan menu board appeared era-appropriate to the rest of the dining room, and the drinks section included “imitation lemonade,” a drink just as authentic as the skylights. While the interior of Ritzee Hamburgs was equally dated as the practice of calling burgers “Hamburgs,” nothing looked to be alarmingly dirty or in disrepair. As with many of the places I visit, Ritzee was stuck in time.

The menu is anything but ritzy...

...but the dining room exudes all the 1970s luxury of a Chrysler Cordoba.

To anyone over the age of 30, these are McDonald's floor tiles. 

I ordered up a Ritz cheeseburger with everything as well as an olive burger, plus fries. (I don’t especially enjoy olive burgers, but I encounter them frequently when traveling in western Michigan. I order and force myself to eat one every so often in hopes that they’re an acquired taste.) After ordering, I took a seat, and took a few minutes to bask in the anachronistic majesty of my surroundings. It was a brief bask, though as my food was delivered quickly to my table on actual ceramic plates. 

That's an olive burger all right. 

Here's a conventional Ritzee burger.

I was curious if the burgers would bear any resemblance to those at G.D. Ritzy’s, and while both chains refer to their quarter pound burgers as a “Ritz” that’s where the similarities ended. The Ritz cheeseburger before me had a relatively thick, circular patty on a sesame seed bun. “Everything” at Ritzee means mustard, ketchup, pickle and onion. The fries were standard crinkle cuts, and the olive burger was… covered in green olives. While the food was decent enough, it was clear that G.D. Ritzy’s thin, irregularly-shaped, lacy-edged burger patties smashed flat on a ripping hot grill, on unseeded buns topped with lettuce, tomato, and mayonnaise in addition to ketchup, mustard, pickle, and onion had no direct relation to the burgers at Ritzee Hamburgs. Likewise, the crinkle cut fries at Ritzee had no resemblance to G.D. Ritzy’s shoestring fries. Ritzee also lacked the peanut butter and jelly sandwich, made from scratch ice cream, and Art Deco theme that make G.D. Ritzy’s feel fun and unique. Satisfied with the lack of similarity, I finished my meal, bused my table and walked out the door through the parking lot to my car, thinking there couldn’t possibly be a direct connection between Ritzee Hamburgs and G.D. Ritzy’s, when I saw it, another hand painted sign by the door featuring a fancy man with a mustache monocle, top hat and tuxedo who bore a striking resemblance to G.D. Ritzy’s mascot who wore a bowler hat, and in his earliest incarnations also had a monocle and mustache. Could the Ritzee Hamburgs fancy man have been the inspiration for the G.D. Ritzy’s fancy man? It at least seemed possible. 

Ritzee fancy boy

Early G.D. Ritzy's fancy boy,
note the mustache and monocle

In the US, Dennis the Menace comic strips first appeared in newspapers on March 12, 1951. Across the Atlantic on the very same day, issue 452 of the comic book, The Beano were on sale at newsstands all over the UK, a few days ahead of their March 17th issue date. Those comics were the first to feature the British Dennis the Menace. That’s right, both Dennises the Menaces first appeared on the very same day on different continents, created by different cartoonists for different publications, none of whom knew about the other Dennis. By all accounts, it was a complete coincidence. These kinds of coincidences happen occasionally in the chain restaurant world, notably to Waffle House and Burger King. Based on my experience at Ritzee Hamburgs, it seems likely that the similarities in name and mascot were at least mostly coincidental.

According to Wiktionary, the word "Ritzy" describing something elegant or luxurious is an eponym derived from the name of Swiss hotelier César Ritz, founder of the high-end hotels known today as Ritz-Carltons. The name of both restaurant chains is therefore likely to have a common etymological ancestor in César Ritz. Additionally, the disappearance of the monocle and mustache from the G.D. Ritzy's mascot implies that the operators of that chain at least gained an awareness of Ritzee Hamburgs. I tend to assume the original G.D. Ritzy's was created with no awareness of the similar Ritzee mascot, after all, what makes a fellow look ritzier than a monocle and mustache? Adding them seems like a decision that was reached organically in the case of both chains. I do however, suspect that at some point G.D. Ritzy's management became aware of the pre-existing Ritzee Hamburgs mascot and removed the mustache and monocle from their own mascot to prevent the possibility of finger pointing or worse, litigation.

A hamburger for under a dollar is as hard to find as a sit-down Pizza Hut.

I was on my return trip from points west of Battle Creek with this post fully written in my head, when it occurred to me that I hadn't tried the 79 cent burgers advertised on the ancient sign out front of Ritzee. I stopped by as an afterthought to see how much burger 79 cents would buy in 2019, this time ordering via the drive thru. While the burger I received was a little light on meat and heavier than bread than is ideal, it has way more of both than what you'd find on a White Castle slider, which costs a few cents more. It's the ritziest sub-one dollar burger I've encountered in this decade, and like every other menu item at Ritzee Hamburgs, it's also completely unlike anything at G.D. Ritzy's, mascots aside. 

If you'd care to join me in an in person discussion over food that is strikingly similar to what you'd find at Arby's, consider coming to Raxgiving at the Harlan, Kentucky Rax this November. I'll be there to hang out with readers of Broken Chains in a thematically appropriate setting.

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Similar, but Legally Distinct

I’m a sucker for a good local or regional restaurant chain, even when it doesn’t quite fit the Broken Chains theme. Brands like Taco John’s, Grand Traverse Pie Company, Shari’s, Tudor’s Biscuit World, and Skyline all lack a national presence, but are places I seek out when I travel. All are far too prosperous to be considered broken chains, so I’ve held off on writing about them here. Until recently I thought another favorite of mine, Halo Burger, with 11 locations mostly in and around Flint, Michigan was just another thriving local chain, but a little research revealed multiple connections that made me realize that while Halo Burger is not a broken chain itself, it’s definitely broken chain adjacent, and I feel that makes it appropriate to cover here.

Samuel V. Blair began selling hamburgers in Flint, Michigan in 1923. At the time, for reasons I’d rather not ponder, figurines of naked toddlers, known as Kewpie Dolls were popular. In an attempt capitalize on this popularity without paying any licensing fees, Blair named his hamburger stand “Kewpee Hotel Hamburgs” Note the similar, but legally distinct spelling of Kewpie. Blair expanded his business rapidly over the next two decades, peaking at around 400 locations around the American side of the Great Lakes in the early 1940s. Signage and packages featured a figure that was similar to, but legally distinct from, the chain’s sort of namesake Kewpie Doll.

Samuel Blair retired in 1944, but the Kewpee chain continued with operators paying regular flat royalty fees to Blair and later his estate after his death. Blair’s Flint, Michigan Kewpee restaurants were purchased by Bill Thomas in 1958. Meanwhile, the rights to the Kewpee name and licensing were purchased by Ed Adams, who ran the Kewpee locations in Toledo, Ohio.

Adams sought to modernize the Kewpee business model and demanded Kewpee operators sign a full franchise agreement and pay him a portion of the profits from their restaurants. Predictably, Kewpee operators changed the name of their restaurants, drastically altered their menus, and/or closed, all in the name of avoiding being forced into a franchise agreement. Bill Thomas’ response to Ed Adams was to break ties with Kewpee, and change the name of his restaurants to Halo Burger. Thus, Flint, Michigan, the city where Kewpee was born, suddenly found itself without any Kewpee locations.

Thomas took the Kewpee burger off the menu at Halo burger, and replaced it with the similar but legally distinct Q P burger (Note the second similar, but legally distinct spelling of “Kewpie”) and the chain began to evolve further from Kewpee, establishing its own brand identity, including unique buildings, signage, and new menu items including a Michigan olive burger.

In addition to the Halo Burger locations operating in Michigan, there are still five Kewpees open for business, three of which are in Lima, Ohio, less than half a day’s drive from Flint. Upon piecing this information together, I exclaimed, “Road trip!” to no one in particular, and set off to experience both Kewpee and Halo burger back to back.

I opted to visit the restaurants in reverse chronological order, heading to the Halo Burger locations in Flint first, mainly because I wanted to visit what seems to be Halo Burger’s flagship location in Downtown Flint, and it closes at 2 PM on weekends. The Downtown Flint Halo burger is located at the corner of Fourth and Saginaw streets, in a historic building that was once a Vernor’s Ginger Ale branded sandwich shop. Vernor’s is a big deal in Michigan. There’s still a massive Vernor’s themed mural on the side of the building next door featuring gnomes toting barrels of ginger ale. I park in the little lot next to the mural and walk in the door.

The original Kewpee/Halo location in Flint is long gone, but this seems to be the oldest operating Halo Burger location, having been open since the late fifties in a building that I would estimate dates back to the twenties. Upon entering the lobby, I’m struck by how much of the original architecture is left intact. The ceilings are high and the light fixtures and floors are original. There are ornate arches high above the food prep area. It’s early, and there’s no one else here. I order and my food comes up quickly. I take my tray back to the seating area which is in a room behind the main lobby. It’s nothing special with its old blue naugahyde booths, drop ceiling, and plain walls. It feels like an aging Arby’s in need of renovation, quite a contrast in comparison to the ornate room with the order counter. I pick a booth and examine my food.

Ornate ordering area 

Plain dining area 

I ate at a total of five Halo and Kewpee locations on this trip. When I do a single-theme trip like this one, I like to break it down meal by meal.

Meal #1
Location: Halo Burger 800 Saginaw Street, Flint, Michigan
Order: Q P Burger, Fries, Iced tea

Halo burger offers a diverse array of sandwiches including a fried jalapeno burger, the local favorite olive burger, and even a vegetarian black bean burger. Since I’m studying the connection between Halo Burger and Kewpee, I opt to stick with a classic. The burger comes fully dressed on a split top bun with a circular quarter pound patty cooked on a flat top and covered in nondescript fast food grade cheese. The fries are thick cut and on the crispy side. Thick and crispy is a good combination that’s tough to come by. The burger is good, but not great. It’s thick, sparingly seasoned patty and abundance of sauces and toppings, make for a taste and texture profile that’s oddly familiar, but more on that later.

Whenever I’m covering a chain that sells an olive burger, I have to try one. I’m not especially fond of olives, but making myself order and eat them is something of an inside joke I have with myself. I’m weird. Plus I want to check out another Halo Burger while I’m in the area.

I don't like olive burgers, but I can't stop eating them.

Meal #2
Location: Halo Burger 2248 East Hill Road, Grand Blanc, Michigan
Order: Olive Burger, Michigan Cherry shake

The olive burger tastes like the Q P burger I ate in Flint, but with green olives on it. It’s not entirely unpleasant, but I have yet to fully appreciate the appeal of the olive burger. The cherry shake is a limited time menu item, and it’s awesome. It has just enough cherry flavor without being overwhelmingly sour or tasting artificial. With a little chocolate, I bet it would taste a lot like the chocolate shakes that Hot ‘n Now used to have that had a cherry chocolate flavor. I may try and get a half cherry half chocolate shake the next time I’m here.

Modern Halo Burger in Grand Blanc, Michigan

This location feels like a nondescript fairly modern fast food building and has a large indoor play area in the front, but has a relatively small dining area. Maybe it was the shoes I was wearing but the tile floors feel slippery, like dangerously slippery, but they’re dry. I suspect the cleanup crew used too much floor wax. I’m beginning to suspect no two Halo Burger buildings are alike. This building is of course drastically different than the downtown Flint building, and my usual Halo Burger, just off I-75 in Birch Run, is a brutalist monstrosity constructed out of ribbed concrete blocks. I’ll have to hit a few more locations soon and try and get a feel for their corporate architecture. The walls here are lined with old photographs of the early Flint Kewpee Hotel locations with signs carefully photoshopped to read, “Halo Hotel.” The Kewpee connection is acknowledged on a large poster that outlines a brief history of the brand, carefully filtered through a corporate marketing department to gloss over the disagreement over franchising that caused the split from Kewpee.

The original image hanging at the downtown Flint location.

And the altered one at the Grand Blanc location. (Pardon the glare.)

Brutalist Halo Burger in Birch Run, Michigan 

Overall, Halo Burger feels like a reasonably modern fast food chain. Inconsistent architecture aside, signage, branding, and menus all feel current. They’ve even started offering breakfast recently. Halo Burger seems to have most things that the national chains have. As mentioned before, it’s not a true broken chain, but the product of half a century of divergent evolution after Bill Thomas parted ways with the very broken Kewpee chain. Later in my trip I would note how little resemblance it bears to Kewpee. Even the Q P burger has only superficial resemblance to the burgers I would eat at Kewpee.

The downtown Lima Kewpee, a really neat building with an exceptionally unsettling mascot. 

The interior has the same retro look...

...but suffers from the same aesthetic flaw. 

I had a three hour drive from Flint to Lima, Ohio to let my Halo Burgers digest. Lima is home to three of the five remaining restaurants bearing the Kewpee name. The three Lima locations seem to be truest to the original concept that grew to a 400 location chain before World War Two. My first stop is the downtown location, which seems to be the oldest, a small prewar building, clad in porcelain steel panels, not unlike White Castle and White Tower buildings from the same era. The inside and outside are spotless and seem to be in great shape overall. Sadly, the immaculate condition of the building doesn’t begin to make up for the fact that there’s a larger than life naked toddler statue standing over the door, with two more in the two front corners of the dining area. The rubber mask burger king can step aside as the creepiest fast food mascot, because the Kewpee baby is much more disturbing, crucified on an invisible cross, staring at me with its dead eyes while I’m trying to enjoy a historically significant hamburger. I know it’s meant to resemble but be legally distinct from the Kewpie dolls that were popular in the early twentieth century, but it’s a cultural reference that’s lost of most living people and it strikes me as being in questionable taste at best when viewed through a modern lens. Speaking of lenses, I felt seriously weird taking pictures of all these nude infant statues.

Meal #3
Location: Kewpee Hamburgers 111 North Elizabeth Street
Order: Cheeseburger with mayo, ketchup, mustard, ketchup, lettuce, onion, tomato, and pickle, fries, Diet Dr. Pepper

In an interview shortly before his death, Wendy’s founder Dave Thomas stated that his favorite place to eat as a youth in Kalamazoo, Michigan was Kewpee, and to the casual observer, the restaurant empire he’d go on to create has more than a few striking similarities to the beloved restaurant of his early years. The burger I ordered had a quarter pound square patty, with no seasoning to speak of. While Kewpee has no default burger toppings and asks every customer exactly which toppings they’d like on their burgers, when you top a Kewpee burger with the default Wendy’s toppings, it tastes just like a Wendy’s burger. Specifically, it tastes like a burger from Wendy’s prior to when they changed their original burgers to the “Dave’s Hot ‘n Juicy” line a few years ago. The similar, but legally distinct Q P Burger at Halo Burger also tastes similar to a fully dressed burger from Kewpee. The similarities don’t stop there, however.

The mascot is just as unsettling on a burger wrapper. 

This slogan must have been written before the connection between cholesterol and heart disease was discovered. 

Meal #4
Location: Kewpee Hamburgers 1350 Bellfontaine Avenue, Lima, Ohio
Order: Frosted Malt, Chili

The dining room here is massive, full of bright orange knockoff Eames seating. The walls are made of brick with an odd shiny green glaze. The building itself seems to be from the early seventies, if not a little older, and has a bright yellow roof that would fit right in between a Howard Johnson’s and a Stuckey’s. There’s another giant naked baby statue standing against one wall. The place feels like the setting of some forgotten Stanley Kubrick movie. All three of the Lima Kewpee locations feel like relics of various bygone eras. The buildings, while beautiful and squeaky clean are far from modern. No combo meals are offered, and employees wear paper hats and aprons, not to be fun and retro, but because that’s what they’ve always worn. Everything about Kewpee seemed to have stopped evolving around 1970, right around the time when the chain was falling apart. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with this, I love a good anachronistic fast food experience, but in comparison to the thoroughly modern Halo Burger operation that evolved from Kewpee, it seems the two brands with common ancestry no longer have much in common.

Kubruckian dining area 

Seriously?

The ordering system here seems to be organized chaos. A woman working the counter takes my order while I’m standing near the back of the order line, and I’m called to the front of the line, cutting at least ten people when my small, simple order is ready. The chili is thin and not terribly spicy. There are kidney beans and it’s served with crackers. Had they added diced green peppers and onions to the chili, it would be virtually indistinguishable from Wendy’s chili. Dave Thomas infamously put chili on the menu at Wendy’s as a way to use leftover hamburger patties. It’s pretty clear that he got that idea from Kewpee and attempted to imitate their chili recipe, with a few added ingredients to make it similar but legally distinct. If you’re detecting a pattern here, you can probably guess why I was curious about the frosted malt. Served in a small drink cup with a spoon, not a straw, and light tan in color, with a mild chocolate flavor the Kewpee frosted malt is everything the Wendy’s Frosty wishes it could be. Where the Frosty is full of air, and slightly grainy, the frosted malt is smooth and dense. Every Frosty I consume from this point forward will taste like a cheap imitation of the Kewpee frosted malt.

Thanks to decades of marketing, Dave Thomas has the image of a wholesome, working class father, who found his way to success with his own original restaurant concept. In my opinion that narrative doesn’t quite match reality. When Dave Thomas was putting together his Wendy’s concept in the late sixties, Kewpee was falling apart. The attempt to modernize the business model led to the loss of locations and franchisees. The product was fundamentally good, but the brand had failed to evolve to keep up with the fast food boom that was happening in the sixties. The Kewpee brand was doomed to obscurity in the absence of a viable business plan. Enter Dave Thomas, the original Hamburglar, who opens up in Columbus Ohio in 1969, selling food that is similar to, but legally distinct from core menu items from Kewpee. With his background with KFC and Arthur Treacher’s, Thomas is familiar with franchising and marketing, and is able to become very wealthy selling Wendy’s as a modern restaurant with old fashioned food. Early Wendy’s customers in what had been Kewpee’s core market knew exactly what “Old fashioned” meant the second they laid eyes on those square patties. Robble robble indeed.

One last dining area, note the infants nailed to the walls for... reasons. 

Meal #5
Location: Kewpee Hamburgers, 2111 Allentown Road, Lima, Ohio
Order: Cheeseburger with pickles, onions, and mustard, pecan pie, Diet Dr. Pepper

Dave Thomas famously liked his Wendy’s burgers with only pickles, onions, and mustard, and my theory is he first ordered them this way from Kewpee, so I wanted to get a taste of the burger that inspired his similar, but legally distinct offerings at Wendy’s. It’s a good combination of flavors. Maybe I’ll start ordering my Wendy’s burgers this way. Also, I got pecan pie, because I like pecan pie. Kewpee had a few different pies available. I wish Wendy’s had similar, but legally distinct pies.

This was my favorite building exterior of the trip. Note the separate smaller yellow roof for the drive thru window.

The movie, The Founder, made the story of Ray Kroc’s creeping takeover of McDonald’s from the eponymous McDonald brothers common knowledge. I suspect the point in history in which Halo Burger and Wendy’s evolved from the relic that was Kewpee could also make for a fascinating piece of cinema. Hopefully the set designers could find a way to make the Kewpee statues significantly less creepy. If they don’t, it would go over about as well as the Wendy’s Superbar, which by the way was similar to, but legally distinct from, the Rax Endless Salad Bar.