America’s Freshest Fast Food — Brian Halweil
Constant Harvest • Volume 4 Number 2 • Autumn 2005 Updated: 04/10/06
“I like to tell our story,” Jack Graves admits. “I think more people need to hear it.” Originally hired 27 years ago as the general manager of Burgerville #16 in Centralia, Washington, the newest at the time, Graves now presides over 39 Burgerville restaurants as the vice president of operations.
With a name like Burgerville, one might assume that the story isn’t so different from that of a better known fast food chain like McDonald’s. The first Burgerville opened in 1961, started by the son of a local dairyman who got interested in the fast-food and milkshake craze set off by McDonald’s in California in the 1950s. In fact, when Burgerville customers step up to the counter to order, the menu features burgers, fries, pies, and many of the same items that one would find at McDonald’s.
But the similarities are all superficial. At Burgerville, recently dubbed “America’s Freshest Fast Food” by Gourmet magazine, the beef comes from an Oregon co-op that raises cows on pasture. The cheeseburger — a “two napkin sandwich” — cradles cheddar from the nearby Tillamook Creamery Association; Rogue Valley Creamery’s blue cheese graces the salad. The buns are from nearby Franz Bakery, and the fish and chips feature Northwest Pacific halibut. The pickles are from Steinfield’s, a local maker for the last 70 years. And in direct defiance of the culture of sameness that rules fast food, the menu changes with the seasons. For instance, it offers chocolate hazelnut milkshakes during the region’s nut harvest in the winter, strawberry shakes in the spring, raspberry and blueberry in the summer, and pumpkin shakes in the fall. Walla Walla onion rings are on the menu in July, sweet potato fries in September. (The local flavor extends beyond the food. The kids’ menu features color-in pictures of Ranger Bud and Salmon in their Northwest Adventures. Other characters include Melvin the Elk, Baby Sasquatch, and Ace the Beaver.)
And even when the ingredients don’t come from nearby, Graves notes, Burgerville makes a point of working with local wholesalers and distributors. “It seems like the right thing to do,” Graves says. “The children of people Burgerville does business with end up working in the restaurants...and they end up eating in our restaurants. It keeps the money here in the Northwest instead of some truck that comes from your neck of the woods,” Graves says, laughing at his own regionalism.
Burgerville’s slogan, “Where you go when you know,” is itself a nod to locals and tends to make “those from afar” curious, Graves explains. And what exactly do you know when you go to Burgerville? “What goes into the recipes, where the food comes from. That your purchase is from a conscientious, local company that cares about the land, water, and people in the community,” Graves says. He riffles through e-mails from appreciative mothers, including a vegetarian whose daughter and husband “enjoy a good burger” but want to eat beef from “sustainable agriculture and not factory farms,” and another thrilled to be able to take her children to a fast food joint that serves “safe and healthy foods.”
Does this commitment stifle Burgerville’s growth? The company can’t always take advantage of volume discounts, Graves admits, and sometimes the local product costs more than the imported alternative. “In most cases, we find ways to make it work,” Graves notes. In fact, working with local growers can often be easier. The berry growers from nearby Fuji Farms stem the strawberries and puree the blueberries, delivering the fruit in a form that the restaurants can simply mix with milk and serve.
Graves says the company, which employs 1,600 people, has been more concerned with “the quality of growth than the rate of growth.” The Northwest market is hardly exhausted. There are no Burgervilles in Seattle, for instance. And Graves is confident that if the company remains committed to doing business locally and offering the freshest ingredients, new customers will have a hard time resisting. The newest shake flavor is wild huckleberry, a fruit that isn’t even available in stores. It’s picked in the region’s national forests.